Sophie Alcorn Contributor Share on Twitter Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Ask Sophie: Can I apply for an EB-1A without first getting an O-1A? Ask Sophie: Will I be allowed into the US if my passport expires in 5 months? Here’s another edition of “Ask Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions abou ..read more

TechCrunch Live is excited to announce a fireside chat with Ryan Glover, co-founder of Greenwood Bank, as part of our virtual TechCrunch Live: Atlanta event on June 7th.  Glover will sit down with me, Dominic-Madori Davis, at 2:05 ET to discuss the ‘economics of equality,’ — a conversation talking about the history of financial inequality within the Black community and how the Greenwood team is working from Atlanta to increase opportunity for communities who historically were economically discriminated against.  Greenwood Bank has become one of the most well-known Black-owned financi ..read more

Compared to a year ago, startup valuations have dipped across the board, no matter if you’re a startup raising a seed round or a Series E. But there’s good news if you’re a growth-stage startup: Valuations for startups raising Series A, B and C rounds across the world ticked higher in Q1 2023 from Q4 2022, according to data from CB Insights. That said, it’s not looking good for early- and late-stage deals: valuations for angel, seed, Series D rounds and later-stage rounds are trending downwards globally. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or ..read more

Here’s the problem: the planet is burning, and there’s not much we can do about it. Forests are in peril not just because of the ravages of climate change, but because the industries that support them remain traditional and under-resourced. Mast Reforestation is building a tech-forward forest-as-a-service company that vastly simplifies and accelerates the process of restoring lands lost to wildfires. The company sprouted, as it were, from DroneSeed, which was pioneering new methods of analyzing forests and planting seeds as a sort of remedial precision agriculture. What they found was that alt ..read more

Like it or not, AI is part of our lives from here on out — for better or worse. In the past six months alone, TechCrunch has written nearly 600 articles focused on the impact of AI technology in our lives across industries as varied as film, healthcare, marketing and supply chains to name but a few. The AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 At TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, you’ll find AI’s influential fingerprints throughout the show’s programming. It all starts at ground zero: the AI Stage — one of six new industry-specific stages this year. Come and explore the rapidly expanding capabilities and po ..read more

Union AI, a Bellevue, Washington–based open source startup that helps businesses build and orchestrate their AI and data workflows with the help of a cloud-native automation platform, today announced that it has raised a $19.1 million Series A round from NEA and Nava Ventures. The company also announced the general availability of its fully managed Union Cloud service. At the core of Union is Flyte, an open source tool for building production-grade workflow automation platforms with a focus on data, machine learning and analytics stacks. The idea behind the platform was to build a single platf ..read more

Obie, a real estate-focused insurance technology company, has raised $25.5 million in a funding round led by Battery Ventures. Since the company’s last raise – a $10.4 million Series A – nearly two years ago, the startup says it has gone from securing insurance for over $3 billion worth of property to $20 billion worth. It has now raised a total of $39 million since its 2017 inception. Obie’s software specifically targets small-to-medium size apartment landlords who own single-family rentals and/or larger apartment buildings.   Chicago-based and Y Combinator graduate Obie says its pl ..read more

Fundraising has gotten increasingly tough over the last year for funds of all stripes, and especially so for emerging managers. In the first quarter of 2023, venture firms led by up and coming managers raised $1.62 billion, a mere 13% of the total capital raised in the U.S., according to PitchBook. Emerging managers and new funds out in the market may find it tempting in this macro environment to hold a first close as soon as LP capital is in the door. But that may not be the best strategy in the long run. Holding a first close comes with a lot of nuance and shouldn’t be rushed, feels Kari Har ..read more

After being instrumental in launching the Kubernetes open source project, Kubernetes co-founders Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda left Google to launch Heptio in 2016. They then sold the company to VMware in 2018. Both left VMware in 2022 and McLuckie went on to found a stealth startup after a short stint as an entrepreneur in residence at Accel. Now we know this stealth startup is Stacklok, which aims to build tools and services that focus on software supply chain security. To build Stacklok, McLuckie teamed up with Luke Hinds as the company’s CTO. Hinds is the founder of the sigstore project, whi ..read more

Uber’s getting into boats. Well, more into boats than it was previously. At Uber’s third annual Go-GET product event Wednesday in New York City, the ride-hailing company announced that it’ll soon launch boat travel in Greece, giving vacationers — and boat lovers — the opportunity to book a boat directly via the Uber app. Image credit: Uber The boating option will allow up to eight people to cruise to destinations around the island of Mykonos. That’ll be the first supported location in Greece, with potentially more to come in the future. Uber has offered other boat products before, including ..read more