Techstars Blog

Accelerate your startup’s business growth with ideas and insights from the Techstars network.

Optivolt Raises $32M Series A to Build the Brain for Solar Panels

Optivolt (Techstars 2018) has raised a $32M Series A to scale its Power Balancer, technology built into the solar panel that recovers energy lost to shade, dirt, and wear in real time. The funding will expand manufacturing and bring Optivolt to residential, commercial, and utility-scale projects, including ones that power AI data centers.

October 21, 2026

Startup Spotlight

GUDEA's Narrative Intelligence Lands on the Front Page of The New York Times

GUDEA (Techstars 2023) traced how nearly 25,000 posts spread across platforms to try to expose an anonymous woman’s identity, an analysis featured on the front page of The New York Times.

October 21, 2026

Startup Spotlight

Shelflife Wins the Groceryshop 2026 Startup Pitch Competition

Shelflife (Techstars 2026) took home the Groceryshop 2026 Startup Pitch Competition win for Technologies Boosting Revenue and Conversion with its real-time expiration-date tracking for grocers.

October 21, 2026

Startup Spotlight

Azoma Raises $11.2M Series A to Help Brands Sell Through AI Shopping Agents

Azoma (Techstars 2023) has raised an $11.2M Series A to help consumer brands get their products discovered and recommended by AI shopping agents like ChatGPT, Alexa for Shopping, and Walmart Sparky.

October 21, 2026

Startup Spotlight

HapWare's ALEYE Named One of TIME's Best Inventions of 2026

HapWare (Techstars 2025) earned a spot on TIME's Best Inventions of 2026 list in the Accessibility category for ALEYE, a haptic wristband that helps people who are blind, have low vision, or are neurodivergent read nonverbal cues.

October 20, 2026

Startup Spotlight

Six Members of the Techstars Network Named 2026 Payload Pioneers

Payload's 2026 Pioneers list recognizes 30 people under 30 shaping the space industry. Six of them come from the Techstars community, including four founders of Techstars-backed space companies.

October 19, 2026

Startup Spotlight

Trissino Raises $1.2M to Scale Steve AI, an Autonomous Competitive Intelligence Agent Built for a Market Where Moats Are Harder Than Ever to Build

San Francisco-based Trissino (Techstars 2025) has raised $1.2M to date to scale Steve AI, an autonomous competitive intelligence agent that helps lean B2B marketing and sales teams track competitors and win more deals.

October 19, 2026

Insights & Trends

Your Meetup Is Missing Half Your Founders

More founders are choosing to build without venture capital, and community builders who only program pitch nights and investor mixers risk losing them without ever noticing.

October 19, 2026

Startup Spotlight

TechNovaTime Raises $3.4M Pre-Seed Round to Take On Healthcare's Administrative Burden

TechNovaTime’s AI platform observes front-line workflows, quantifies financial impact before deployment, and executes repetitive administrative tasks inside existing health system software.

October 15, 2026

Startup Spotlight

Allswell Raises $7M Seed to Build the Behavioral Health Home for the LGBTQ+ Community

Allswell's seed round brings total funding to $8.3M as the company builds toward a full medical home for the LGBTQ+ community.

October 14, 2026

Founder Advice

Annual Planning That Drives Execution: A Practical Guide for Founders

Strong annual planning goes beyond setting goals, and Techstars All-Star Mentor Jeff James Martin shares a three-step process that helps founders get every team aligned on priorities, dependencies and the first 90 days.

October 13, 2026

Founder Advice

The Only Part You Can’t Bootstrap

Four-time founder Michael Taus built a live AI college advisor in nine weeks without funding or an engineering hire, and he explains why his co-founder's 25 years of counseling expertise is the one part no model or competitor can copy.

October 8, 2026