Inside TC's Techstars investigation and how AI is accelerating disability tech

Alex Wilhelm, Theresa Loconsolo, Mary Ann Azevedo, Kirsten Korosec and Dominic-Madori Davis
Updated ·1 min read

The downturn in venture capital funding has impacted startups, VC firms, and accelerators alike. One company in the final category, Techstars, has been shaking up its operations for some time now, leading to a number of departures.

TechCrunch got curious about what happened, so we dove deep into exactly how it all went down. We recently brought on the story's author, Dominic-Madori Davis, on Equity to chat about her reporting.

That wasn't all, though: Mary Ann Azevedo, Kirsten Korosec, and Alex Wilhelm had a lot to parse this week.

We had notes on wallet-as-a-service startup Ansa's latest fundraise, and how Alex initially misunderstood its business model. Then Kirsten talked us through a simply massive deal in the self-driving space, and Alex riffed on Beehiiv and its funding round: $33 million is no small Series B in 2024!

We had a few minutes to discuss Anna Heim's recent reporting on disability tech, and how AI is taking an industry and accelerating it. Even better, the startups we discussed appear to have a mix of business models, which means there could be many avenues for making tech that works better for more folks into real, and large businesses.

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