You don’t need to be an AI startup to raise. Lucra has $20M to prove it.

May 20, 2026 Theresa Loconsolo

Share this Article

Slapping “AI” on your startup’s pitch deck is basically table stakes right now. When a founder raised $20 million from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest for an eSports gamification loyalty startup without those two letters in the spotlight, it got us wondering how the conversation even started — especially when ARK had already been burned by a company operating in the same space. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Julie […]

Sam Altman makes ‘mic drop’ offer to every Y Combinator startup

Altman offered to have OpenAI invest in every single startup in this Y Combinator class: tokens for equity.

Microsoft’s carbon-removal plans aren’t dead after all

Microsoft is responsible for over 90% of the carbon-removal market, and reports suggested the company was p...

Most Recent Articles

As AI agents become employees, NewCore emerges with $66M to give them identities

You don’t need to be an AI startup to raise. Lucra has $20M to prove it.

Previous Article

Next Article

Most Recent Articles

NewCore argues the next challenge in enterprise security will be managing AI agents, not people.

In April, for the first time ever, an Earth observation satellite found what it was looking for, all on its own.

What makes this combustible: at the very moment that tens of thousands of workers are being shown the door, a small cohort of AI insiders is becoming wealthy on a scale that's hard to comprehend.

Orbio announces $21 Million Series A in round led by Dawn Capital.

JPMorgan can't be pleased by any of this.

The U.K. seems to be following Australia's lead in banning a wide swath of social media for teens.

Startups are trying to "ride that SpaceX IPO wave."

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.

The new Sonos Play can act as a portable speaker inside and outside your home.

Tech leaders debate whether the Anthropic episode is a wake-up call for India’s AI ambitions.

Meta starts dismantling its $2 billion Manus acquisition after Beijing ordered the deal reversed.

Once again, AI proves to be an unreliable source of information about AI.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy may have been the source of security concerns that led Anthropic to cut off worldwide access to two models on Friday.

It's not clear which states are involved, but they're asking about everything from OpenAI's ad policies to its handling of health data.

I’ve struggled with insomnia since I was very young. Like many chronic overthinkers, I tend to fall asleep best when my mind is occupied by something else, such as podcasts, YouTube compilations,...

Hidden inside a building in Alabama, the FBI has created its own small town as a dedicated cyber training ground for simulating cyberattacks.

Andrew Yang made a list of everything Americans overpay for — housing, food, wireless — and thinks the next startup gold rush is giving that money back.

Anthropic isn't hiding its frustration. "We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people,"...

TechCrunch has followed SpaceX's start, struggles, and successes from the early days. And we're here for what happens next too. This package of SpaceX IPO coverage includes who stands to win (and...

A new report suggests the unit, which employs 6,500 people, is on the verge of revolt.