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Tim Draper On The AI Boom, Bitcoin’s Future And Building ‘Human Accelerators’
Few venture capitalists have the name recognition — or tenure — of Tim Draper. A fixture in Silicon Valley for decades, Draper has built a reputation for bold, often contrarian bets that have yielded some of the industry’s most notable wins, including early investments in SpaceX, Tesla, Coinbase, Skype and Twitch. His career, which spans his time as founder of Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, has also included high-profile missteps — most notably Theranos — underscoring the risk and volatility that goes along with making bold wagers. A frequent personality on TV and social media, Draper is also known as a relentless champion for decentralized technology and a leading voice for bitcoin and blockchain. In 2024, he launched Draper TV, a media network, where he continues to host a global pitch competition called “Meet the Drapers.” The series, which is now entering its ninth season, invites viewers at home to invest alongside him in innovative startups. Draper exudes an almost schoolboy-like enthusiasm and passion when it comes to startups, technology, bitcoin and innovation. I recently spoke with him — while he was sporting his favorite purple and gold bitcoin tie — to get his thoughts on everything from his use of digital twins, how the current AI boom compares to previous cycles, and how he wishes policymakers approached tech regulation. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Crunchbase News: What have you been up to lately? What’s occupying your time? Tim Draper, founder of Draper Associates. (Courtesy photo) Draper: We are doing something interesting with America 250 — we’re joining them for something called America’s Startup. We’re going to do a business plan competition around the country for college students. It kind of dovetails into “Meet the Drapers.” TikTok is one of our sponsors, so we’re thinking about doing shows in “small bites” for them. We’re also doing a lot with YouTube. This is the year we turn our distribution global. We had a reach of 300 million people, with 10 million seeing each episode, but we’re focusing on building the YouTube audience now because you get more control and understand the audience better. Then there is Draper University. We’re building relationships with various countries that send their top students or potential entrepreneurs to us. People call it a “pre-accelerator,” but I call it a “human accelerator.” We accelerate the people — they have to accelerate their own business. We take them through very difficult challenges: a three-day hackathon and survival training with the Navy SEALs, special forces and the US Army. Then they have a two-minute presentation to VCs. You’re using “digital twins.” How are you actually deploying AI in your daily operations? Yes, they are helping. They answer questions from entrepreneurs. On our site, they can talk with me or my digital twin, or they can send in a deck. My team has built these in a few different ways. One is a hologram by Proto at Draper University. On our website, we have a twin created by Randy Adams that can talk to entrepreneurs. We even have an AI — built by an intern — that evaluates pitch decks and “spits out” feedback. Beyond that, we use a tool called Seer that uses video to detect facial expressions; it can determine if an entrepreneur is passionate, lying or genuinely interesting. We’re also using a voice analysis tool — similar to how Coca-Cola reportedly hires people based on specific “voice models” that match their desired personality types — to identify the “entrepreneurial voice.” What do you think feels fundamentally different about the cycle that we’re in right now compared to previous ones? Weirdly, I don’t see a big difference. It’s as big as the dot-com boom, maybe bigger. I call it the Draper iS curve. Every industry goes through this. There is a little “i” — that’s the hype. It comes to a point (the dot on the i), and then it comes down because people are disenchanted. It sits there while engineers are hard at work, and then it grows into a big “S” that goes way bigger than the top of the i. It happened with the internet: 1999 was the climb, 2000 was the top, and 2001 was the crash. From 2001 to 2008, it grew into a huge boom. It’s happening with bitcoin now. And AI is right at the “dot” on the i or coming down off it. People are disenchanted because of energy issues, but it will eventually be bigger than anyone imagined, especially in robotics. What’s the trend that you think right now might be a little bit overhyped? And what’s something that’s underestimated? The quick answer is AI is overhyped, but I don’t believe that. Under-noticed is that Big Pharma would have you believe chemotherapies are the most important thing — that you create a molecule and use it forever, and then need another molecule for the side effects. We’re moving from chemotherapies to bio-cures: stem cells, cloning and genetic engineering. Also, companies we used to call “space and transportation” are now called dual-use. The Space Force and governments are buying in because they realize they are way behind the commercial sector. And bitcoin is in that period where “nobody cares,” but it’s slowly taking over. Do you see bitcoin actually replacing the dollar for daily use? For now, nobody wants to spend it because they think it will be worth more. But eventually, retailers will say, “We only take bitcoin.” If that happens, there will be a run on the dollar. People worry about quantum computing hacking bitcoin, but they’ll hack the banks first — it’s way easier. I’d be more concerned about money in a bank than on a bitcoin ledger. Bitcoin also keeps perfect records; we wouldn’t need 85,000 IRS agents because the blockchain can just pay whoever needs to be paid. Where do you think the biggest potential for returns in the AI space are? Tooling, vertical AI, AI-native companies? One or two general AI companies will win big and become “hungry giants,” the way Microsoft was for software or bitcoin is for tech applications. A lot of people working around the edges might just be acquired by the AGI. We’ve funded companies doing vertical AI: AI for patents, AI for science. But remember, the big winners at the start of the internet were AOL, Yahoo and Netscape, and none of them ended up being a big part of the internet later. We don’t know who will rise from the ashes yet. If you could implement one policy to accelerate innovation, what would that policy be? Don’t regulate in anticipation of fearful outcomes. Regulate after something bad happens. Otherwise, you put a dark cloud over every innovator. I would also sunset laws. The ’33 and ’40 Acts are just keeping the poor poor and the rich rich. We should create a free market in education, too — let the best schools thrive and the worst die. Some would argue in the case of bitcoin, we were slow to regulate. Do you disagree? The U.S. just decided everything was a security and made it illegal. That’s why innovators are geofencing the U.S. to protect themselves from the SEC‘s long arms. Countries like El Salvador, Japan, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are rocking because they say “do it.” I say decentralize everything. The guy at the tiller of the ship knows better than the general in Washington, D.C. You don’t want a president telling you how to raise your kids; you’ll do a better job than they will. What’s the trait you now prioritize in founders that you didn’t a decade ago? A love for the customer. It has to be an obsession. That love becomes a viral effect; customers love the product so much they tell everyone. People will naturally follow a leader who is that obsessed with their customer. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Science Corp., Another Braintech Startup Founded By Neuralink Alums, Raises $230M Series C
Science Corp., a biotech startup focused on brain-computer interface technologies, announced Thursday that it has closed on a $230 million Series C fundraise. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, IQT and Quiet Capital were among the investors participating in the syndicated round. With the latest financing, Science Corp. says it has now raised $489 million since its 2021 inception. The Alameda, California-based company’s most recent raise previously was a $104 million convertible note led by Khosla last April. While Science did not disclose its valuation in the announcement, it has been reported that the company is now valued at $1.5 billion. The Neuralink competitor is working on both a brain-implant system and a retina implant to treat eye diseases. Notably, it was founded by Max Hodak, a co-founder of Neuralink, and Alan Mardinly, formerly part of Neuralink’s leadership team. Science says it acquired MEMS, or microelectromechanical systems, facility assets in North Carolina, giving it the ability to manufacture in-house chip/MEMS for neural interface devices. Many competitors outsource manufacturing, which the company noted can slow down iteration or increase cost and risk. The company says the funding will accelerate the commercialization of its PRIMA BCI retinal implant, with the expansion of its PRIMA clinical trial program to include other retinal diseases such as Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa. Big deals for neural interface startups Billions of venture dollars have flowed into the neural interface and brain technology space in recent years, with Neuralink being the most well-funded of the group. Last June, the Elon Musk-founded brain implant startup, announced a $650 million Series E funding round. Other companies working on computer-brain interfaces have also raised significant venture backing, a review of Crunchbase data shows. Another example is China’s Stairway Medical, a Neuralink competitor that raised a $48 million Series B funding round in February 2025, reportedly the largest-ever funding round for a startup in the field in that country. It also raised an unknown amount of capital in December. It’s unclear how much the company raised in previous venture rounds. Meanwhile, yet another Neuralink competitor, Austin-based Paradromics, announced last June that it had performed its first human surgery using its Connexus Brain-Computer Interface. Paradromics has raised a total of $108.6 million in funding since its 2015 inception, according to Crunchbase data. Investors include Fusion Fund, FJ Labs, 15th Rock, Alpha Edison and DARPA. Related Crunchbase query: Related Reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Exclusive: Founded By 2 Brothers In Their 20s, YC-Backed Denki Raises $4.1M To Automate Financial Audits
Denki, which has built AI-powered software for financial auditors at public companies, has raised $4.1 million in funding, the startup tells Crunchbase News exclusively. Founded in 2025 by brothers Felipe Jin Li (24) and David Jin Li (20), San Francisco-based Denki aims to build “modern” infrastructure for financial audits, which verify that financial statements are accurate and controls are functioning. The startup wants to help replace manual, “evidence-heavy” processes with software automation that makes audits run more like code. David Jin Li and Felipe Jin Li, co-founders of Denki. (Courtesy photo) “Denki helps auditors review and prepare evidence more quickly, document their work more effectively, and test process controls more rigorously,” CEO Felipe told Crunchbase News. “With higher risk coverage and reduced costs, public companies can comply better with financial regulations.” Base10 Partners and Shine Capital co-led the raise, which included participation from Y Combinator, 20VC and others. Denki also participated in YC’s Fall 2025 cohort. The raise comes amid a broader surge in funding to fintech startups, particularly those that apply AI in their offerings. Global funding to VC-backed financial technology startups totaled $52.9 billion in 2025, per Crunchbase data. That’s a 27% increase from 2024’s total of $41.6 billion raised. Interestingly, the most-active investor in the space by far all year, in terms of deal volume, was Denki backer Y Combinator, which participated in 151 fintech startup deals last year. That’s up 24.8% compared to the 121 deals it wrote checks into in 2024. Landing on capital and an idea The two brothers grew up in Spain and the U.K. Upon moving to London to study computer science, the pair participated in hackathons organized by Meta, OpenAI, ElevenLabs and VC-sponsored programs, and won several competitions. “That opened up opportunities, including being offered a $135,000 pre-seed check before we had an idea, which we declined,” Felipe recalls. The brothers eventually accepted a small angel check from a former staff research scientist at DeepMind, which gave them a few months of runway to explore ideas before being accepted into the Y Combinator Fall 2025 batch. “We spent time digging into compliance and landed on audit. It is a technically rich problem, with large volumes of unstructured data, high regulatory stakes and very little modernization in tooling,” Felipe said. “It also connected naturally to what we had each been doing.” David was building financial data pipelines at Macro Hive — a company trusted by top hedge funds — turning messy data into usable information. Felipe was working on his Ph.D. in explainable AI at University College London, evaluating vision-language models and making black-box systems “interpretable.” They discovered that a common approach to addressing all the manual work required by auditors was to build Excel extensions designed to make audit work faster. “We believe it is worth changing the status quo by moving away from Excel as the primary workspace,” Felipe said. Denki, he said, offers cleaner logs and less room for sample manipulation. Also, because the brothers have a research background, they are “constantly” staying on top of new concerns. “One major audit risk today is AI fraud,” said Felipe. “There is promising research on detecting forged AI-generated receipts using invisible watermarks, and translating that research into something auditors can actually use is a big part of what we do.” Denki makes money by offering a tiered SaaS annual contract that depends on the number of controls automated, team size and other integration factors. Its customers are pre-IPO and publicly traded companies. Building for a ‘high-stress industry’ under scrutiny Denki’s founders believe their solution is timely. Last year, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board imposed the third-highest cumulative penalties in its 21-year enforcement history, totaling $17.7 million, according to a Thomson Reuters report. That was after issuing a record $35.7 million in penalties in 2024. The Jin Li brothers believe those metrics signal that “scrutiny is intensifying even as traditional methods strain under complexity.” For now, Denki is a two-person company, but it plans to hire engineers and auditors with its new capital. Ade Ajao, Base10 Partners co-founder and managing partner, told Crunchbase News that his firm was impressed by the brothers’ “passion for the industry” and their focus on automating “very discrete tasks” for auditors. “It was unusual to see such young people so strongly empathetic to issues in auditing but it was clear they were determined to build something great for this industry,” he wrote via email. “But also it’s a large market that is burdened with labor supply constraints (which is not getting any better), in a high-stress industry with ever increasing scrutiny.” Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Active Investors Spent More On Fewer Deals In February
More money, fewer deals. That’s the broad direction for active startup investors of late. They’re increasingly concentrating capital among generative AI heavy hitters and prominent unicorns, and making fewer small bets on unproven founders. February was perhaps the culmination of this trend. The month closed with the largest startup investment of all time — OpenAI’s $110 billion financing — but did not bring a jump in overall deal count, including by many active investors. Still, the top three most-active investors in terms of venture round count last month — Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator and Bessemer Venture Partners — managed to keep busy. And among lead investors, SoftBank, Nvidia and Amazon together collectively backed the biggest deal to date. Below, we look at active investors across multiple metrics, including active venture investors, lead backers and spendiest dealmakers. Active venture investors We’ll start with active investors participating in rounds of $5 million and up. By this metric, Y Combinator came out on top, partaking in 15 reported rounds. The incubator commonly takes small stakes in follow-on financings for companies it helped launch. Andreessen Horowitz was a close second, with 14 deals, followed by Bessemer Venture Partners, with 12. Active lead investors Andreessen Horowitz was far in the lead among the most-active lead investors in rounds over $5 million, with nine reported deals. Next in the ranks were Bessemer Ventures, with five lead deals, followed by Index Ventures, RA Capital Management and Accel, with four each. Below, we rank the 14 most-active lead investors for the month. Highest-spending lead investors The most-active dealmakers, however, were generally not the ones writing the largest checks. To get a sense of who put the most capital to work in February, we looked at lead investors in the most valuable rounds.1 Among lead investors, SoftBank, Nvidia and Amazon, which backed OpenAI’s $110 billion round, were by far the spendiest. Next up was Dragoneer Investment Group, which co-led Anthropic’s $30 billion Series G and Waymo’s $16 billion Series D. After that came the other six firms that co-led the Anthropic financing. Below, we rank the 17 lead investors in the most-valuable funding rounds. Short month, big checks For such a short month, February certainly managed to squeeze in an outsized share of huge rounds, led by OpenAI, Anthropic and Waymo. Yet activity held up at other stages as well, with Y Combinator and others ensuring there’s still a plentiful pipeline of seed-funded companies to grow into the next industry giants. We’ll stay tuned to see if March brings more of the same. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Intersection Of Biosecurity And AI Sees Seed-Stage Spike
There are plenty of things to worry about these days, and the ability of AI to weaponize biology into one of the largest threats facing our world isn’t top of mind for most of us. Seed-stage investors have a different view. Over the past few months, two startups focused on the intersection of AI and biosecurity have raised good-sized initial rounds with OpenAI among their investors. Valthos, a developer of AI systems that identify biological threats and design countermeasures, raised $30 million last fall in its first known funding round. The New York-headquartered company counts Founders Fund and Lux Capital as backers, along with OpenAI. Weeks later, Red Queen Bio, a self-described AI biosecurity company, secured $15 million in a seed round led by OpenAI and joined by investors including Cerberus Ventures, Fifty Years and Halcyon Futures. The company’s operating thesis is that as AI capabilities advance, biological risks grow exponentially, so defenses must scale at the same rate. On the nonprofit front, meanwhile, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based SecureBio secured grant funding from multiple sources last year, including $1.4 million from Coefficient Giving in December. The organization’s stated mission is to secure the future from catastrophic pandemics. A drop in the AI bucket Given all the capital that has poured into artificial intelligence of late, these are not comparatively large sums going to biosecurity. To put it in perspective, the two biggest seed rounds are less than one-tenth of a percent of the record-setting $110 billion financing OpenAI secured last week. What’s more noteworthy than sums invested is these are relatively new areas for startups to scale. Per Crunchbase data, the term “biosecurity” and similar terminology has cropped up in funded startup descriptions but not so much in the context of AI. Funded startups around this theme have also commonly focused on livestock. The Australian startup ExoFlare, for instance, raised a few million two years ago, per Crunchbase data, with a focus on tracking biosecurity risks for cattle, pigs, eggs and poultry. And Nebraska-based Daro picked up $1.1 million last year for a business focused on swine disease surveillance. Running in place In addition to their AI focus, the latest crop of biosecurity seed-funded startups stand out for the dire scenarios they’re hoping to contain. Per Valthos, it’s now faster to weaponize biology than to advance new cures, an ominous development that AI leaders have identified as one of the largest threats of our time. The company envisions a future where any threat to human health can be immediately identified and neutralized. Red Queen Bio evokes a similarly alarming specter of threats, reflected in its nomenclature. The Red Queen hypothesis, a notion that evolution requires constant adaptation to ever-evolving threats, stems from a “Through the Looking Glass” passage. In it, the tyrannical Red Queen explains that in her kingdom, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Running to keep in the same place seems a more broadly apt metaphor for the modern era in myriad domains, not just biosecurity. However, this is one of the spaces where not keeping up carries the potentially deadliest penalties. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Eight Sleep Raises $50M At $1.5B Valuation To Expand Into ‘Predictive, AI-Driven Health’
Eight Sleep, a startup developing sleep technology products, announced Wednesday that it has raised $50 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. Tether Investments led the “strategic” investment in the New York-based startup, which has now raised more than $250 million in total funding. Eight Sleep raised $100 million last August, so this financing marks its second round in a year’s time. At the time of that raise, the company was valued at $1 billion, up from its approximately $500 million valuation at the time of its $86 million Series C round in August 2021. Eight sleep co-founders: Massimo Andreasi Bassi, Matteo Franceschetti and Alex Zatarain. (Courtesy photo) Founded in 2014, Eight Sleep describes itself as a “sleep technology” company that combines technology, physiology and data “to unlock deeper sleep and better health.” The company started out selling a smart mattress, or Pod, that uses embedded sensors to collect data to study trends about how people sleep. One could say the company was ahead of its time — in 2018, it launched an AI-powered sleep coach that tells users things like: “Last night, you slept 40 minutes less than your average this month” or “This week, your REM sleep is lower than average. Try going to bed 30 minutes earlier tonight.” The new capital will fund its expansion from sleep optimization into “predictive, AI-driven health,” it said. Executives described 2025 as a “milestone” year in which Eight Sleep achieved free cash flow positivity and launched three new products: Pod 5, Pod Pillow Cover and Thermal Blanket. “Sleep was just the beginning,” said Matteo Franceschetti, co-founder and CEO of Eight Sleep, in a release. “We’ve built the most advanced AI-powered health sensing system in the world — one that learns your body better every night and acts on that knowledge. This investment gives us the resources to take that intelligence beyond the bedroom and into every dimension of personal health. … Our goal is to build the defining health technology company of this generation.” Eight Sleep is not the only sleep-focused company to raise capital lately. Over the past few years, investors have poured hundreds of millions into an array of companies working on treatments for sleep-related ailments and technology to help improve sleep quality. Oura, maker of the popular wearable rings that record and analyze biometric data, is the largest investment recipient in this area. It’s raised $1.25 billion in equity funding to date, including a $900 million Series E at an $11 billion valuation in October 2025. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Massive AI Deals Drive $189B Startup Funding Record In February While Public Software Stocks Reel
Crunchbase data shows global venture investment totaled $189 billion in February — the largest startup funding month on record — although 83% of capital raised went to just three companies. They include OpenAI, which raised $110 billion, also in the largest round ever raised by a private, venture-backed company. The record month for venture funding took place against the backdrop of a trillion-dollar stock market drop as AI compute and tooling unsettled leading public software companies. All told, venture investment was up close to 780% year over year from the $21.5 billion raised by startups in February 2025. OpenAI was not the only company to raise tens of billions of dollars last month. Its closest rival, Anthropic, raised $30 billion, marking the third-largest venture round on record. Waymo, Alphabet‘s self-driving division, raised $16 billion. Together, those three rounds totaled $156 billion, representing 83% of the global venture capital raised in February. A further four companies each raised $1 billion or more last month: Tokyo-based semiconductor manufacturer Rapidus; London-based self-driving platform Wayve; San Francisco-based AI for robotics World Labs; and Sunnyvale, California-based AI semiconductor company Cerebras Systems. These massive rounds were led by strategic corporate investors, a host of private equity and alternative investors, as well as a few multistage venture investors and a government agency. Capital concentration Seed-stage funding was down around 11% year over year with $2.6 billion raised, per Crunchbase data. Early-stage funding held up with $13.1 billion invested, up 47% year over year. The trend of capital concentration was not only visible in the larger late-stage financings. Seed, Series A and Series B rounds’ median and average amounts have increased each year since 2024, and continued to do so through February. US dominated U.S.-based startups raised $174 billion last month, Crunchbase data shows. That was the country’s largest percentage of global venture funding — 92%, and up from 59% a year earlier. AI and hardware surge AI-related startups raised $171 billion in February, accounting for 90% of global venture funding. Other sectors that stood out include hardware-related startups dominated by autonomous-vehicle technology, semiconductors, robotics and networking products. Two months into the year, the public and private markets are off to a very different start. Despite optimism that the IPO momentum we saw in 2025 would continue into 2026, public market volatility and uncertainty have stalled new offerings again. As a result, mobile marketing firm Liftoff and fintech brokerage firm Clear Street both withdrew their listings last month. The private markets, by contrast, are on fire. Just a couple of months into the year, global venture funding has already topped 50% of the total invested in 2025. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of March 2, 2026. Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Glossary of funding terms Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less. Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million. Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.) Illustration: Dom Guzman
Over $50B Went To Boom-Era Software Companies That Haven’t Raised In 4+ Years
Startups raise cash when funding is flush and try to conserve it to power through leaner times. But typically the runway only lasts so long. If a venture-backed company has gone more than four years between funding rounds, the forecast generally looks dim. It becomes increasingly unlikely that it will secure another good-sized financing or a sizable exit. Four-year funding gaps are especially top of mind these days, as it’s been that long since U.S. venture investment hit its all-time peak. During the boom that lasted from 2020 to early 2022, software companies in particular routinely raised megarounds at rich valuations. That, as we know, resulted in some strong exits, a lot of mediocre outcomes, and quite a lot that haven’t flourished. Stranded software unicorns For many, flush times came to an abrupt end. Per Crunchbase data, more than 150 boom-era U.S. software and software-related companies with $100 million or more in equity funding have not raised capital in over four years, remain private and have not been acquired.1 Collectively, they were a well-funded bunch. Companies in the cohort that raised their last round during the peak 2 pulled in over $51 billion in aggregate funding, per Crunchbase data. The list also contains a number of companies that were fairly high-profile startups several years ago. Examples include: Carta: The equity and fund management software platform raised close to $1.2 billion in total funding but hasn’t reported a new round since 2021. OpenSea: The NFT marketplace operator raised over $427 million in equity funding but closed its last round just over four years ago. Calendly: The developer of the popular scheduling app secured $350 million in 2021 and hasn’t raised a round since. Since Calendly was mostly self-funded for its first seven years of existence, however, we’d guess it’s not a company that’s likely to be in financial distress. Using Crunchbase data, we put together a longer sample featuring 10 companies. Where are they now? The ranks of companies that haven’t raised for years include a mix of those that are still active, have shuttered or are quietly winding down. For software startups in particular, many can continue eking along with a skeleton staff and a sparsely supported offering without formally shutting down. Or, they might be doing fine, given the capital they raised at the peak. Given these are private companies, we can’t peek under the hood regarding details of their financial condition. All we can say is they haven’t disclosed a new round for some time. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman