Christine Hall, Author at TechCrunch

Chaos at OpenAI adds fuel to the AI talent poaching war

Christine Hall — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:02:54 +0000

It may be difficult for just any company to court OpenAI employees even if compensation packages are eye-poppingly high because of loyalty to Sam Altman.

SEVA, a new growth equity fund, secures $85M for debut fund in four months

Christine Hall — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 13:30:25 +0000

SEVA intends to invest in New York-based customer-centric founders of fast-growing, bootstrapped companies to scale via profitable growth.

Inside Brex and Ramp’s AI ambitions

Christine Hall — Sun, 19 Nov 2023 15:25:20 +0000

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! This week, we dig into spend management companies’ AI aspirations, and one U.K. fintech’s recent growth. AI ambitions At one […]

Siena AI raises $4.7M to develop an empathic AI customer service agent

Christine Hall — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:01:23 +0000

Siena AI developed an AI-powered customer support solution that might be a machine, but understands context and responds with empathy like a human.

Meet Tanda, your friendly neighborhood savings, lending network

Christine Hall — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:01:32 +0000

Tanda offers a peer-to-peer savings and lending network to small businesses as a way to retain employees, reduce turnover and minimize burnout.

Monta Vista Capital closes its largest fund to date

Christine Hall — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 13:01:15 +0000

Setting Monta Vista apart is that the firm doesn’t raise capital from institutional investors, but rather leverages a large network of 65 individual investors.

Interplay secures $45M for third fund focused on B2B marketplaces, vertical software

Christine Hall — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 14:02:45 +0000

Mark Peter Davis, Interplay founder and managing partner, says the firm stands out with its outsized value proposition relative to its check size.

Klarna’s and Affirm’s very good week

Christine Hall — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 15:25:18 +0000

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! Due to the U.S. holiday, this is an abbreviated edition. Buy now, pay later comeback Both Klarna and Affirm — […]

Heali’s app provides personalized nutrition guide to using food as medicine

Christine Hall — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 15:01:19 +0000

The startup launched out of stealth with a personalized platform to eliminate the guesswork for people who want to treat and manage their health conditions using evidence-based nutrition protocols.

New pre-seed funds are popping up everywhere

Christine Hall — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 18:30:30 +0000

There seems to be quite a bit of movement in the pre-seed stage, so is that why we are now seeing some VC firms closing new funds?

Nazca leads investment into Loads, out to change Latin America’s food supply chain

Christine Hall — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 13:30:01 +0000

The company expects to market 1 million kilograms of food monthly through its platform by the first quarter of 2024.

ReturnGO, with $5M more, now powers product returns for Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment

Christine Hall — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 14:02:05 +0000

ReturnGO provides a “post-purchase operating system” that aims to reduce the reverse logistics costs for online retailers while also making the whole process more sustainable.

Luxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation

Christine Hall — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 14:03:55 +0000

Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.

20GROWTH secures $5M to invest in early-stage startups, provide growth strategies

Christine Hall — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 14:02:22 +0000

The idea for 20GROWTH came from Harry Stebbings bringing together heads of growth and product from various companies to talk to his portfolio founders.

Why last week felt like 2021 in fintech

Christine Hall — Sun, 05 Nov 2023 15:25:49 +0000

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! Last week, we chronicled some big rounds in the fintech space, Intuit’s decision to shutter Mint and what that means […]

Personal finance app Monarch sees bump in users following Intuit’s news it is closing Mint

Christine Hall — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 18:03:33 +0000

Monarch's co-founder said that Nov. 1 “was our biggest day in terms of new users since we launched the app” in January 2021.

Payroll Integrations grabs $20M to build employee financial wellness tools

Christine Hall — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 13:01:58 +0000

Over the past seven years, the company built integrations with the largest payroll companies in the U.S. to provide a direct two-way connection between payroll and benefits automation.

Bee Partners closes fourth fund to add more capital for pre-seed founders in deep tech

Christine Hall — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 14:00:54 +0000

The San Francisco-based venture capital firm invests in companies focused on artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and frontier technologies.

This proptech startup says generative building design can change the way cities are built

Christine Hall — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 10:30:07 +0000

Cedar has coverage across Austin now, however, the new capital will enable the company to expand to more cities over the next 12 to18 months.

A look at how one fintech CEO’s PR decision backfired

Christine Hall — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 14:25:19 +0000

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! Last week, we chronicled one CEO’s big PR flub, one firm’s new infusion of capital for early-stage fintech startups and […]