SV Angel vs Techstars

AI Assistant Tab Launches with $300M Valuation

Personal AI assistant startup Tab has emerged from stealth with a $300 million valuation, according to an announcement on Tuesday. The company, founded by Brennan Erbz, Stafford Schlitt, and Ammar Amdani, offers a consumer AI assistant accessible via iMessage and WhatsApp. Users can text tasks like grocery ordering or gift finding, and Tab handles them by leveraging its own phone number, computer, and wallet. Investors include SV Angel, Valar Ventures, and American Spirit. The founders emphasize trust and privacy, stating that user data is never used to train AI and that the card details are stored in a vault inaccessible to Tab. The startup is growing via word of mouth and plans to launch a new product soon. Tab enters a competitive consumer AI market alongside Instinct and Meta's Muse.

• Tab emerged from stealth with a $300 million valuation.
• Tab is a personal AI assistant accessible via iMessage and WhatsApp.
• Investors include SV Angel, Valar Ventures, and American Spirit.

Vinyl Bar in Shibuya Raises $5.5M for Music Apps

A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya, a startup founded by former Spotify head of innovation Máuhan M. Zonoozy, has raised a $5.5 million pre-seed round. The company develops a series of small, interactive music apps that allow users to play with sounds and vocals, such as altering speed, creating mixes, and turning videos into samplers. Its flagship iOS app, bop, lets users create mixes by arranging instruments and effects on a grid, with easy export to TikTok and Instagram. The startup intentionally avoids heavily integrating AI, focusing on human interaction and participation in music creation. Investors include Mantis VC, SV Angel, BoxGroup, and others, with former Spotify executive Dawn Ostroff joining as an advisor.

• A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya raised $5.5 million in pre-seed funding.
• The round included investments from Mantis VC, SV Angel, BoxGroup, Quiet Capital, and others.
• Former Spotify chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff joined as an advisor.

Five Techstars Portfolio Companies Make the 2026 Sifted 250

Five Techstars portfolio companies landed on the Sifted 250, the annual ranking of Europe's fastest-growing startups by revenue. Two of them cracked the top 10.

Inside Colorado Startup Week: A Conversation With Techstars Founder & CEO David Cohen

At the 2026 Colorado Startup Week, Techstars Founder & CEO David Cohen sat down with PBS12's Business of Colorado to talk about Boulder's comeback, the Give First philosophy, and what AI means for the next generation of founders.

What It Actually Takes to Rank No. 1 on TIME America's Top Incubators and Accelerators 2026

Techstars is No. 1 on TIME and Statista's America's Best Incubators & Accelerators of 2026, and Managing Director Andres Barreto breaks down why founders, not fame, decided the ranking.