Startups

5 reasons you should attend TC Early Stage 2021 in April

Comment

Image Credits: TechCrunch

We’re just days away from kicking off TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising on April 1-2. Join us for two program-packed days dedicated to founders in the earliest stages of startup life (pre-seed through Series A). The event agenda features interactive presentations that cover a range of essential topics like fundraising, operations, growth, product-market fit, product management and more.

No pass? No problem. Click here and buy your pass today.

Everyone’s busy. We get it. But this virtual conference (VOD means you won’t miss a session) gives you schedule flexibility to take a condensed dive with experts wearing their been-there-done-that-kicked-butt t-shirts. No need to reinvent the wheel. Learn from the best.

Here — for your edification — are just five of the many reasons you should attend TC Early Stage on April 1-2.

1. Bootcamp your way to success

Building a successful startup involves a learning curve like no other. Master the many core skills required to build strong and build smart takes dedication and perseverance.

Early Stage 2021 is an intensive, one-stop entrepreneurial shop where you learn from seasoned experts, founders and investors. You’ll learn from subject-matter experts, across the startup ecosystem, ready to help you avoid costly missteps.

Attendees say: “Early Stage 2020 provided a rich, bootcamp experience with premier founders, VCs and startup community experts. If you’re beginning to build a startup, it’s an efficient way to advance your knowledge across key startup topics.” — Katia Paramonova, founder and CEO of Centrly.

2. Build community and expand your network

Ever feel like you’re going it alone? At Early Stage 2021, you’ll tap into a global community of folks just like you — startup founders in the early, and often confusing, innings. Connect and join forces, share pain points, discover opportunities and celebrate successes. The virtual platform’s chat feature rocks for ad hoc meetups and CrunchMatch, our AI-powered networking platform, helps you find and schedule meetings with the people who can move your dream closer to reality.

Attendees say: “TechCrunch does this thing — and they did it amazingly well in a virtual event — of connecting total strangers to create a genuinely supportive community. — Jessica McLean, director of Marketing and Communications, Infinite-Compute.

3. Special Breakout Sessions

Don’t miss our partner series of interactive breakouts and get answers to your burning questions. You’ll receive expert advice on topics ranging from the benefits of adopting OKRs and protecting your company’s intellectual property to achieving operational excellence from day one, everything you ever needed to know about mergers and acquisitions and accelerating the dev process through fast feedback.

4. Do you science?

Does using biology as technology to tackle the daunting challenges of human and planetary health give you a huge case of business goosebumps? Don’t miss Scientist Entrepreneurs — Scaling Breakout Engineering Biology Companies. This special presentation, brought to you by Mayfield, looks at scaling startups and touches on three areas that influence trajectory: fundraising, hiring and product design.

5. The TC Early Stage Pitch-Off

Day two features a thrilling pitch-off. Tune in to watch as 10 global early-stage companies — chosen by the TechCrunch editorial team — pitch to our panel of top VCs. All 10 competitors receive invaluable exposure, and the ultimate victor wins a feature story on TechCrunch.com, an annual Extra Crunch subscription and admission to TC Disrupt this September. Pro tip: Take notes — watching a pitch-off is a great way to improve your own presentation skills.

So much to learn and so many reasons to go. Buy your pass and join your community at TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising on April 1-2.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Early Stage 2021 – Operations & Fundraising? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

More TechCrunch

A feature Google demoed at its I/O confab yesterday, using its generative AI technology to scan voice calls in real time for conversational patterns associated with financial scams, has sent…

Google’s call-scanning AI could dial up censorship by default, privacy experts warn

Google’s going all in on AI — and it wants you to know it. During the company’s keynote at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google mentioned “AI” more than…

The top AI announcements from Google I/O

Uber is taking a shuttle product it developed for commuters in India and Egypt and converting it for an American audience. The ride-hail and delivery giant announced Wednesday at its…

Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

Google is preparing to launch a new system to help address the problem of malware on Android. Its new live threat detection service leverages Google Play Protect’s on-device AI to…

Google takes aim at Android malware with an AI-powered live threat detection service

Users will be able to access the AR content by first searching for a location in Google Maps.

Google Maps is getting geospatial AR content later this year

The heat pump startup unveiled its first products and revealed details about performance, pricing and availability.

Quilt heat pump sports sleek design from veterans of Apple, Tesla, and Nest

The space is available from the launcher and can be locked as a second layer of authentication.

Google’s new Private Space feature is like Incognito Mode for Android

Gemini, the company’s family of generative AI models, will enhance the smart TV operating system so it can generate descriptions for movies and TV shows.

Google TV to launch AI-generated movie descriptions

When triggered, the AI-powered feature will automatically lock the device down.

Android’s new Theft Detection Lock helps deter smartphone snatch and grabs

The company said it is increasing the on-device capability of its Google Play Protect system to detect fraudulent apps trying to breach sensitive permissions.

Google adds live threat detection and screen-sharing protection to Android

This latest release, one of many announcements from the Google I/O 2024 developer conference, focuses on improved battery life and other performance improvements, like more efficient workout tracking.

Wear OS 5 hits developer preview, offering better battery life

For years, Sammy Faycurry has been hearing from his dietician mom and sister about how poorly many Americans eat and their struggles with delivering nutritional counseling. Although nearly half of…

Dietitian startup Fay has been booming from Ozempic patients and emerges from stealth with $25M from General Catalyst, Forerunner

Apple is bringing new accessibility features to iPads and iPhones, designed to cater to a diverse range of user needs.

Apple announces new accessibility features for iPhone and iPad users

TechCrunch Disrupt, our flagship startup event held annually in San Francisco, is back on October 28-30 — and you can expect a bustling crowd of thousands of startup enthusiasts. Exciting…

Startup Blueprint: TC Disrupt 2024 Builders Stage agenda sneak peek!

Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Instagram and, more recently, the co-founder of personalized news app Artifact (which TechCrunch corporate parent Yahoo recently acquired), is joining Anthropic as the…

Anthropic hires Instagram co-founder as head of product

Seven orgs so far have signed on to standardize the way data is collected and shared.

Venture orgs form alliance to standardize data collection

As cloud adoption continues to surge toward the $1 trillion mark in annual spend, we’re seeing a wave of enterprise startups gaining traction with customers and investors for tools to…

Alkira connects with $100M for a solution that connects your clouds

Charging has long been the Achilles’ heel of electric vehicles. One startup thinks it has a better way for apartment dwelling EV drivers to charge overnight.

Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers

So did investors laugh them out of the room when they explained how they wanted to replace Quickbooks? Kind of.

Embedded accounting startup Layer secures $2.3M toward goal of replacing QuickBooks

While an increasing number of companies are investing in AI, many are struggling to get AI-powered projects into production — much less delivering meaningful ROI. The challenges are many. But…

Weka raises $140M as the AI boom bolsters data platforms

PayHOA, a previously bootstrapped Kentucky-based startup that offers software for self-managed homeowner associations (HOAs), is an example of how real-world problems can translate into opportunity. It just raised a $27.5…

Meet PayHOA, a profitable and once-bootstrapped SaaS startup that just landed a $27.5M Series A

Restaurant365, which offers a restaurant management suite, has raised a hot $175M from ICONIQ Growth, KKR and L Catterton.

Restaurant365 orders in $175M at $1B+ valuation to supersize its food service software stack 

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

Chang She, previously the VP of engineering at Tubi and a Cloudera veteran, has years of experience building data tooling and infrastructure. But when She began working in the AI…

LanceDB, which counts Midjourney as a customer, is building databases for multimodal AI

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

Lydia is splitting itself into two apps — Lydia for P2P payments and Sumeria for those looking for a mobile-first bank account.

Lydia, the French payments app with 8 million users, launches mobile banking app Sumeria

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

AWS has confirmed its European “sovereign cloud” will go live by the end of 2025, enabling greater data residency for the region.

AWS confirms it will launch European ‘sovereign cloud’ in Germany by 2025, plans €7.8B investment over 15 years

Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from investors, including Goldman Sachs, ADIA, and Morgan Stanley, as part of its IPO.

Indian insurance startup Go Digit raises $141M from anchor investors ahead of IPO