Startups

Meet the early-stage founder community at TC Early Stage 2021

Comment

Building a startup is never easy, especially when you’re in the early innings and navigating a huge learning curve. Education, support and sage advice are arguably as essential to startup success as fundraising. Find all that — and connect with your early-founder community — at TC Early Stage 2021.

We’re hosting two of these virtual bootcamps designed for early-stage startup founders and open to investors, later-stage founders and other startup enthusiasts. Early Stage part one, which focuses on operations and fundraising, takes place on April 1-2 and Early Stage part two, focusing on marketing, PR and fundraising, runs July 8-9. This is not a lather, rinse, repeat scenario, folks. Each event features a distinct lineup of startup experts, topics, workshops and interactive Q&As.

We’re talking core startup disciplines like building a pitch deck, marketing, term sheets, fundraising, tech stack, operations, product-market fit, content development, growth and lots more.

Early-bird pricing: We offer two pass levels — Founder and Innovator. Plus, don’t miss the sweet discount when you buy a ticket for both events.

Early Stage events offer lots of opportunity for meaningful connection and, because they’re virtual, you can connect with early-stage founders and influencers across the globe. CrunchMatch, our free AI-powered networking platform, helps narrow the field so you connect and schedule meetings with people who align with your specific business goals.

Ashley Barrington, founder of MarketPearl, had this to say about networking at Early Stage 2020:

The Early Stage virtual platform lets you network with attendees all over the world, and that was a big benefit. CrunchMatch made it easy to set up short networking sessions with other early-stage founders to learn what they’re working on, pool resources and connect for potential future opportunities. I also used it to meet founders in adjacent areas like climate or B2B SaaS — interesting people I wouldn’t necessarily have connected with otherwise.

At Early Stage 2021 you’ll learn from the best experts in the startup ecosystem, develop the essential skills for startup success and tap into a support system to get you through the challenging times.

TechCrunch does this thing — and they did it amazingly well in a virtual event — of connecting total strangers to create a genuinely supportive community. We’re all trying to do the same thing, which is bring our idea to life and make it a reality. I loved that unexpected benefit. — Jessica McLean, director of Marketing and Communications, Infinite-Compute.

Join us at Early Stage 2021 on April 1-2 and again on July 8-9 to learn, connect with community, expand your network and build a better startup.

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

Space startup Basalt Technologies started in a shed behind a Los Angeles dentist’s office, but things have escalated quickly: soon it will try to hack a derelict satellite and install…

Basalt plans to hack a defunct satellite to install its space-specific OS

As a teen model, Katrin Kaurov became financially independent at a young age. Aleksandra Medina, whom she met at NYU Abu Dhabi, also learned to manage money early on. The…

Former teen model co-created app Frich to help Gen Z be more realistic about finances

Can an AI help you tell your story? That’s the idea behind a startup called Autobiographer, which leverages AI technology to engage users in meaningful conversations about the events in…

Autobiographer’s app uses AI to help you tell your life story

AI-powered summaries of webpages are a feature that you will find in many AI-centric tools these days. The next step for some of these tools is to prepare detailed and…

Perplexity AI’s new feature will turn your searches into shareable pages

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

A surge of battery recycling startups have emerged in Europe in a bid to tap into the next big opportunity in the EV market: battery waste.  Among them is Cylib,…

Cylib wants to own EV battery recycling in Europe

Amazon has received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly its delivery drones longer distances, the company announced on Thursday. Amazon says it can now expand its…

Amazon gets FAA approval to expand US drone deliveries

With Plannin, creators can tell their audience about their latest trip, which hotels they liked and post photos of their travels.

Former Priceline execs debut Plannin, a booking platform that uses travel influencers to help plan trips

Amazon is rolling out its AI voice search feature to Alexa, which lets it answer open-ended questions about content.

Amazon is rolling out AI voice search to Fire TV devices

Redpanda has already integrated Benthos into its own service and has made it the core technology of its new Redpanda Connect service.

Redpanda acquires Benthos to expand its end-to-end streaming data platform

It’s a lofty goal to take on legacy payments infrastructure, however, Forward’s model has an advantage by shifting the economics back to SaaS companies.

Fintech startup Forward grabs $16M to take on Stripe, lead future of integrated payments

Fertility remains a pressing concern around the world — birthrates are down in many countries, and infertility rates (that is, the ability to conceive at all) are up. And given…

Rhea reaps $10M more led by Thiel

Microsoft, Meta, Intel, AMD and others have formed a new group to design next-gen interconnects for AI accelerator hardware.

Tech giants form an industry group to help develop next-gen AI chip components

With JioFinance, the Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani is making his boldest consumer-facing move yet into financial services.

Ambani’s Reliance fires opening salvo in fintech battle, launches JioFinance app

Salespeople live and die by commissions. It’s no surprise, then, that Salesforce paid a premium to buy a platform that simplifies managing commissions.

Filing shows Salesforce paid $419M to buy Spiff in February

YoLa Fresh works with over a thousand retailers across Morocco and records up to $1 million in gross merchandise volume.

YoLa Fresh, a GrubMarket for Morocco, digs up $7M to connect farmers with food sellers

Instagram is expanding the scope of its “Limits” tool specifically for teenagers that would let them restrict unwanted interactions with people.

Instagram now lets teens limit interactions to their ‘Close Friends’ group to combat harassment

Archer Aviation is partnering with ride-hailing and parking company Kakao Mobility to bring electric air taxi flights to South Korea starting in 2026, if the company can get its aircraft…

Archer, Kakao Mobility partner to bring electric air taxis to South Korea in 2026

Agritech company Iyris helps growers across eleven countries globally increase crop yields, reduce input costs, and extend growing seasons.

Iyris makes fresh produce easier to grow in difficult climates, raises $16M

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

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

After two years of preparation and four delays over the past several months due to technical glitches, Indian space startup Agnikul has successfully launched its first sub-orbital test vehicle, powered…

India’s Agnikul launches 3D-printed rocket in sub-orbital test after initial delays

Struggling EV startup Fisker has laid off hundreds of employees in a bid to stay alive, as it continues to search for funding, a buyout or prepare for bankruptcy. Workers…

Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

Chinese EV manufacturers face a new challenge in their pursuit of U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the introduction of their connected vehicles. The bill,…

Chinese EV makers, and their connected vehicles, targeted by new House bill

With the release of iOS 18 later this year, Apple may again borrow ideas third-party apps. This time it’s Arc that could be among those affected.

Is Apple planning to ‘sherlock’ Arc?

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will be in San Francisco on October 28–30, and we’re already excited! This is the startup world’s main event, and it’s where you’ll find the knowledge, tools…

Meet Visa, Mercury, Artisan, Golub Capital and more at TC Disrupt 2024

Featured Article

The women in AI making a difference

As a part of a multi-part series, TechCrunch is highlighting women innovators — from academics to policymakers —in the field of AI.

19 hours ago
The women in AI making a difference

Cadillac may seem a bit too traditional to hang its driving cap on EVs. And yet, that hasn’t stopped the GM brand from rolling out — or at least showing…

The Cadillac Optiq EV starts at $54,000 and is designed to hook young hipsters

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

Instead of opening the user’s actual browser or a WebView, Custom Tabs let users remain in their app while browsing.

Google Chrome becomes a ‘picture-in-picture’ app