Mike Butcher

Editor At Large, TechCrunch

Mike Butcher (M.B.E.) is Editor-at-large of TechCrunch. He has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder ThePathfounder.com newsletter; TheEuropas.com (the Annual European Tech Startup Conference & Awards for 12 years); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Coadec.com. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.

Mike Butcher

Former Autonomy chief executive Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday following his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett Packard that became one of Silicon Valley’s…

Autonomy’s Mike Lynch acquitted after US fraud trial brought by HP

While the transport industry does use legacy software, many of these platforms are from an earlier era. Qargo hopes its newer technologies can help it leapfrog the competition.

Qargo raises $14M to digitize and decarbonize the trucking industry

Neural Concept lets designers model how components will perform before they can be manufactured.

Swiss startup Neural Concept raises $27M to cut EV design time to 18 months

FintechOS competes with other companies such as Ncino, Meridian Link, Abrigo and Backbase.

Romanian startup FintechOS raises $60M to help old banks fight back against neobanks

Exactly.ai says it uses generative AI to help artists retain legal ownership of their art while being able to reproduce their designs faster and at scale.

Exactly.ai secures $4M to help artists use AI to scale up their output

Ifeel is being offered as part of an employer’s or insurance provider’s healthcare coverage.

Mental health insurance platform ifeel raises a $20 million Series B

Featured Article

Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the ‘edgelords’ at OpenAI 

Among other things, Whittaker is concerned about the concentration of power in the five main social media platforms.

5:45 am PDT • May 24, 2024
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the ‘edgelords’ at OpenAI 

If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again. The “autonomous navigation” market — where ships steer themselves guided by AI, resulting in fuel and time savings —…

Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI tops up with $23M led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures

Praktika has secured a $35.5M Series A round to apply AI-powered avatars to language-learning apps.

Praktika raises $35.5M to use AI avatars to make learning languages feel more natural

Venture firm Shilling has launched a €50M fund to support growth-stage startups in its own portfolio and to invest in startups everywhere else. 

Portuguese VC firm Shilling launches €50M opportunity fund to back growth-stage startups

Trawa simplifies energy purchasing and management for SMEs by leveraging an AI-powered platform and downstream data from customers. 

Berlin-based trawa raises €10M to use AI to make buying renewable energy easier for SMEs

Cargo ships docking at a commercial port incur costs called “disbursements” and “port call expenses.” These might include port dues, towage, and pilotage fees. It’s a complex patchwork and all…

Shipping logistics startup Harbor Lab raises $16M Series A led by Atomico

We’ve all seen them. The inspector with a clipboard, walking around a building, ticking off the last time the fire extinguishers were checked, or if all the lights are working.…

Checkfirst raises $1.5M pre-seed to apply AI to remote inspections and audits

Lipids are fatty, waxy or oily compounds that typically come in the form of fats and oils. As a result, they are heavily used in the production of beauty products,…

After a $20M Series A funding, Germany’s Insempra plans eco-friendly lipid production

U.K.-based autonomous vehicle startup Wayve started life as a software platform loaded into a tiny electric “car” called Renault Twizy. Festooned with cameras, the company’s co-founders and PhD graduates, Alex…

Exclusive: Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall on the autonomous future for cars and robots

Wayve, a U.K.-born startup developing a self-learning rather than rule-based system for autonomous driving, has closed $1.05 billion in Series C funding led by SoftBank Group. This is the U.K.’s…

Wayve raises $1B to take its Tesla-like technology for self-driving to many carmakers

Developers have a problem. It used to be the case that only large enterprises needed to worry themselves with security, but today, every startup is capable of holding huge amounts…

Belgium’s Aikido lands $17M Series A for its ‘no BS’ security platform aimed at developers

Dan Purcell, the founder and CEO of Ceartas, recalls feeling devastated when he realized that a former partner had, unbeknownst to him, uploaded private, intimate videos of them onto a…

Devastated by his videos being posted to a porn site, this founder hit on an AI startup idea

Last week, the U.K. announced its largest ever military support package for Ukraine. The bill brings the U.K.’s total support for this financial year to £3 billion — not quite…

London’s first defense tech hackathon brings Ukraine war closer to the city’s startups

Midas, a fintech startup that allows people in Turkey to invest in U.S. and Turkish equities, says it has raised $45 million in a funding round led by Portage of…

Equities platform Midas raises $45M Series A as fintech retains its sparkle in Turkey

Plenty of large corporations want to join the AI revolution, but many feel it’s too early to be locked into one foundational model. That means there’s a market for a…

Langdock raises $3M with General Catalyst to help companies avoid vendor lock-in with LLMs

Lawhive has raised £9.5 million ($11.9 million) in a seed round to offer AI-driven services to ‘main street’ law firms.

Lawhive raises $12M to expand its legal tech AI platform for small firms

E-commerce’s field remains vast and fertile, and further evidence of this has surfaced in the form of one of the largest fundraises by a startup in Turkey.

Turkish startup ikas attracts $20M for its e-commerce platform designed for small businesses

Munich-based Proxima has raised €20 million ($21.7M) in a seed round to begin building its first generation of fusion power plants.

Proxima Fusion raises $21M to build on its ‘stellarator’ approach to nuclear fusion

TransferGo, the U.K.-based fintech best known as a consumer platform for global remittances, has raised a $10 million growth funding round from Taiwan-based investor Taiwania Capital, with a view to…

TransferGo raises $10M to expand its remittance business in Asia, doubling valuation

Paddy Cosgrave, the co-founder of the Web Summit tech conference, is returning to his role as CEO after resigning in October over controversial statements he made about the Israel/Gaza war…

Paddy Cosgrave returns as Web Summit CEO after resigning over Israel/Gaza controversy

Bitkraft Ventures — a games investor based out of Denver, Colorado, but with European founders — is raising its third fund, coming in at $275 million. The fund will make…

Against games industry doldrums, Bitkraft Ventures raises $275M to back studios and platforms

Turkey has gained a well-earned reputation as being a veritable cauldron of mobile games startups, leading to the rise of VCs dedicated to the sector. The latest to join this…

A new games-focused VC in Turkey shows the industry there continues to gain steam

We last checked in on Zaver, a Swedish B2C buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) provider in Europe, when it raised a $5 million funding round in 2021. The company has now closed a…

Buy now, pay later on a Porsche? Zaver now has $30M to make it a reality

A new study that zeros-in on the founders of so-called “unicorns” — companies worth over a billion dollars — has found most have “underdog” founders who are often drawn from…

New study of unicorn founders finds most are ‘underdogs,’ and female founders are rising