Vibe-coding startup Anything has raised $11 million in financing at a $100 million valuation, led by Footwork, with additional backing from Uncork, Bessemer Venture Partners, and M13. Founded by former Google colleagues Dhruv Amin and Marcus Lowe, the platform lets anyone build and monetize an app through vibe coding — a technique where users provide an AI assistant with “vibes” or natural-language descriptions, and the assistant generates, refines, and debugs functional code. The Viral AI App Builder Anything went live on August 7, the same day as GPT-5, and reached
Shield, a crypto neo-bank, has raised a $5 million seed round led by Giant Ventures to help businesses send and receive money across borders more quickly and affordably. CEO Emmanuel Udotong told TechCrunch that he and his team launched Shield as mainstream uses for crypto were scarce, while “bad actors” were dominating the space. Shield’s goal, he said, is to bring blockchain into the real economy by solving real-world problems. How Shield Works Shield was founded in 2022 by Udotong, his brother Isaiah, and their college friend Luis Carchi. The
This article is sponsored by Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures. Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures (MSISV) is supporting the future of innovation by backing early-stage startups and nonprofits with the capital and tools they need to scale. Building on the momentum of the Inclusive Ventures Lab and Sustainable Solutions Collaborative, MSISV has already distributed over $30 million in capital to over 130 ventures in the last eight years. MSISV is home to two tailored accelerator programs: a Lab for tech-driven startups and a Collaborative for emerging nonprofits. Both programs
Garage, an online marketplace selling specialized equipment commonly used in local government, raised $13.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Infinity Venture. Other investors included Benchstrength, Wayfinder Ventures, and FJ Labs, according to TechCrunch. Being a firefighter since age 15 meant that co-founder Martin Hunt knew the struggles of small communities with tight budgets buying fire equipment. In 2023, he asked a colleague about better options for fighters. “When I couldn’t find anything, it became clear that there was a need for a streamlined, nationwide marketplace for
SRE.ai, an AI-powered automation platform, announced that it raised $7.2 million in a seed round led by Salesforce Ventures and Crane Venture Partners. The company will provide users with natural language AI agents that can perform complex enterprise DevOps workflows, such as continuous integration and testing, according to TechCrunch. “Instead of stitching together different low-code tools for enterprise applications like Salesforce, compared to products built on AWS, GCP, or Azure, teams can now move faster with context-driven, chat-like experiences that work across all of them,” CEO Raj Kadiyala said. How does
Group Black, originally founded to channel ad dollars into Black-owned media, is expanding its reach to a broader audience, Business Insider reports. The company has rebranded as Group Black Holdings and is now targeting what it calls “Gen Next,” a values-driven audience that cuts across race, age, and background. Bonin Bough, Group Black’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, maintains that Group Black is “evolving—not abandoning” its foundation. The company is expected to share more details on September 8. Portrait Media Group: A New Venture As part of its rebrand, Group Black announced
Meek Mill is reportedly developing an AI tool that will transform lives. “Working on a ai tool that can change the world lol,” the rapper wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on August 31. He has been teasing the project on X in recent weeks, suggesting it is one of his most ambitious ventures yet. “I can’t wait to get a chance to show the world how smart I really am!” he said on August 25. Days later, on September 2, he added: “I have some genius tech guy that’s building
Tariqua “Tai” Nehisi, founder of Organizely, an AI-powered future workplace platform, is set to launch Tulsa Tech Week on Sept. 22. After launching her startup in 2021, Nehisi found herself in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a program called Tulsa Remote in the following year. “I made a decision to move here at least for the year and see what Tulsa looked like. And in that moving here, I came at a time when there was a really great concerted effort to support the rebuilding of Black Wall Street through a technical lens with Black- and brown-focused
Every entrepreneur knows that running a business is not for the fainthearted. You’re often working several hours a day, balancing several tasks, managing your own cash flow, and then there’s the extra burden of being a Black or Brown entrepreneur. 81% of minority founders experience mental health issues, with 60% experiencing anxiety and 20% dealing with depression. It’s an aspect of being a business person that isn’t spoken about widely enough, especially for minorities. This is what drove wellness entrepreneur and founder of BodyCompleteRx, Samia Gore, to launch Foundnwell, a community-driven non-profit
Create, an app-building platform, has secured $8.5 million in total funding, including a $5.5 million round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Other investors included Shopify, Front, Zapier, Intercom, Shippo, and Ben’s Bites. Its new product, Anything, which went live on August 7, reached 3.2 million views, over 30,000 new sign‑ups, within 72 hours of launching. It also tripled the number of paid subscriptions compared to the week before, bringing the company’s total registered users to exceed 500,000, as reported by Tech Funding News. What does Anything do? While competitors were focusing
