In the latest development of an increasingly public dispute between HR and payroll services rivals, Deel has filed a countersuit against Rippling.
To recap: Rippling publicly announced on March 17 that it was suing Deel over alleged corporate espionage, with accusations ranging from violation of the RICO racketeering act (typically used to prosecute organized crime) to misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition. Deel is now slamming that lawsuit as part of a “campaign to try to impugn Deel’s reputation.”
That original lawsuit included an affidavit from the alleged spy that reads like a movie script. Deel had previously denied all wrongdoing.
Now the startup is taking things a step further. In a blog post Friday, Deel announced it has filed a civil suit against Rippling in the Superior Court in Delaware.
Deel’s complaint, dated April 24 and reviewed by TechCrunch, paints an unflattering picture of Rippling CEO Parker Conrad, describing the executive as “haunted by his previous failures, and now fueled by suffocating jealousy at his inability to fairly compete with Deel in the marketplace.”
Deel also alleged that Rippling was not remitting its customers’ payroll tax and social benefits dollars to local taxation authorities, but rather “categorizing and reporting these funds as its own earnings.” It went on to claim that “not only does Rippling steal these funds from its clients, but also from its own employees by using a similar scheme.”
In response, Conrad took to X to post that, “Nowhere does Deel dispute our central allegation – that @Bouazizalex personally recruited a spy to steal rippling’s trade secrets, and personally directed the theft.”
Specifically, Deel filed three motions addressing Rippling’s March lawsuit, including:
In its complaint, Deel makes counter-accusations, alleging that Rippling solicited Deel employees “to pass on to Rippling confidential commercially sensitive information about Deel.” The filing further accuses Rippling of placing its own “insider at Deel, essentially allowing it to eavesdrop on Deel’s internal communications without Deel’s permission.”
As of April 14, Rippling was attempting to serve Alex Bouaziz with legal papers. However, French bailiffs hired by Rippling couldn’t seem to find Bouaziz. On April 15, TechCrunch reported that Deel’s CEO was in Dubai, further complicating Ripple’s efforts to serve him. A Deel spokesperson told TechCrunch on Friday: “Alex lives in Israel. He was in Dubai for a few days for Passover with his family, something he’s done for the past several years.”
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Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.
This week confirmed that deals can still happen in a troubled world, but price considerations and adjustments are now part of the picture.
Uncertain times are rarely good for M&As, which raises fears that tariff turmoil may have compromised the startup exit outlook for 2025. But don’t expect a total deal drought — as confirmed by this week’s news.
Price conscious: Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, is growing so fast that an acquisition by OpenAI is reportedly off the table. Whether OpenAI will acquire Windsurf instead remains to be confirmed, but the competition between the two AI coding assistant rivals is heating up.
Plane view: Datadog acquired AI-powered data observability startup Metaplane, a YC alum that has raised some $22.2 million to date. Deal terms were not disclosed.
Hired: Erik Torenberg became a16z’s newest partner after the VC firm acqui-hired him and his podcast network, Turpentine, whose shows are set to continue.
Downsized: Ather Energy, an Indian EV startup seeking to go public, trimmed its IPO size and target valuation, citing market conditions.
This week confirmed that vibe coding is as hot as can be, but startups in several other sectors also raised funding. Plus, there’s still money to be deployed into emerging markets.
Vibe coding: Supabase, an open source database startup that benefits from the hype around vibe coding tools, raised a $200 million Series D just seven months after its C round at a reported $900 million valuation, which now officially increased to $2 billion.
Adaptive Computer, a vibe coding startup that differentiates itself by focusing on non-programmers from day 1, also raised funding: a $7 million seed round led by Pebblebed.
Too many chats: Manychat, which provides an AI-enabled tool for businesses to manage and automate conversations across multiple messaging channels, raised a $140 million Series B led by Summit Partners.
Spotting flaws: Endor Labs, a startup that builds tools to scan AI-generated code for vulnerabilities, locked a $93 million Series B round led by DFJ Growth.
Sovereign AI: Formerly known as Xayn, Berlin-based legal AI startup Noxtua raised a $92.2 million Series B that follows its pivot into developing sovereign AI for law-related use cases such as drafting legal documents.
Shear money: Fintech API brokerage startup Alpaca picked up a $52 million Series C to further expand internationally.
Virtual CISO: Cynomi, a London- and Tel Aviv-based startup that provides SMBs with an AI-powered “virtual CISO,” raised a $37 million Series B co-led by Insight Partners and Entrée Capital.
Superpowers: After gathering a 150,000-person waitlist, health tech startup Superpower launched publicly and announced it raised a $30 million Series A backed by several celebrities.
Debt financing: Froda, a Swedish fintech startup that developed a debt financing platform for SMBs, secured a $22.7 million Series B led by Swedish fund Incore Invest.
Cheat code: Chungin “Roy” Lee, a 21-year-old Columbia student who was suspended after developing a job interview cheating tool, raised $5.3 million in seed funding for his startup, Cluely, which offers an AI tool to “cheat on everything.”
Copy-paste: Backed by more than 75 unicorn founders and VCs, Fluent Ventures is distributing $40 million to international founders, replicating proven business models in emerging markets.
In case you missed it, Techstars recently updated its standard deal: It will now invest $220,000 into startups entering its three-month program. That’s $100,000 more than previously, with new deal terms that mirror Y Combinator’s.
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We’re thrilled to announce that Roelof Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia Capital and one of the most influential figures in the venture capital world, will join us live onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 at Moscone West in San Francisco, which will take place from October 27 to 29.
As part of our ongoing mission to bring smart, future-focused conversations to the venture and startup community, having Botha — a leader who’s helped shape some of the most iconic tech companies of the last two decades — join us feels particularly critical this year, and for good reason.
First, the venture industry is fast evolving, with the most established venture firms beginning to operate like far broader investment firms, a once-secondary secondary market taking center stage, and the field of venture participants actively shrinking as exits become harder to achieve.
The dynamics between VCs and founders are also shifting in this new AI-powered era. Startups are growing faster than ever — and in some cases, requiring unprecedented amounts of capital to compete and thrive. We want to know from Botha how Sequoia is thinking about everything in 2025, from deal flow to due diligence to the expectations around building and scaling companies, especially given the powerful concentration of several of the biggest players.
Lastly, this year is the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch, and Sequoia Capital has been at the center of the startup industry, about which we are so passionate. What’s more, Roelof has been a central figure in our programming over the years; we couldn’t imagine a Disrupt that celebrates this milestone anniversary without him.
Stay tuned to the Disrupt 2025 speaker page for more speaker announcements, and if you care about where venture is heading, this is one conversation you won’t want to miss.
Save up to $900 on your Disrupt ticket with Early Bird pricing. Don’t miss Botha — one of the most influential leaders in VC — and your chance to lock in these savings. Snag your ticket here.
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This is your last chance to put your brand at the center of the AI conversation during TechCrunch Sessions: AI Week — with applications to host a Side Event closing tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT.
From June 1-7, TechCrunch is curating a dynamic weeklong series of Side Events leading up to and following the main event — TC Sessions: AI, taking place June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. These are the gatherings where off-stage magic happens — and you still have a chance to lead one.
Whether it’s a roundtable, workshop, happy hour, or meetup, your Side Event can connect with over 1,000 AI investors, builders, and thought leaders — from the event and the broader Berkeley tech scene — on your terms, in your voice, and on your turf.
Side Event perks include:
There’s no fee to apply or host your Side Event. You’re in charge — from logistics and costs to promotion and everything in between. That said, we do have a few guidelines:
Side Events are a standout way to connect with the AI community and boost your brand visibility. Apply for free and make your mark at TechCrunch Sessions: AI — the deadline is tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT.
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This AI startup raised $5.3 million to help people “cheat on everything.” But in the age of AI, how do you define cheating?
Columbia University recently suspended student Roy Lee for building a tool to help people cheat on engineering interviews. He’s been making waves on X after posting a long thread detailing the saga and how he and his co-founder, Neel Shanmugam, have now turned that product into a startup called Cluely.
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Perplexity doesn’t just want to compete with Google, it apparently wants to be Google.
CEO Aravind Srinivas said this week on the TBPN podcast that one reason Perplexity is building its own browser is to collect data on everything users do outside of its own app. This so it can sell premium ads.
“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you,” Srinivas said. “Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal.”
And work-related queries won’t help the AI company build an accurate-enough dossier.
“On the other hand, what are the things you’re buying; which hotels are you going [to]; which restaurants are you going to; what are you spending time browsing, tells us so much more about you,” he explained.
Srinivas believes that Perplexity’s browser users will be fine with such tracking because the ads should be more relevant to them.
“We plan to use all the context to build a better user profile and, maybe you know, through our discover feed we could show some ads there,” he said.
The browser, named Comet, suffered setbacks but is on track to be launched in May, Srinivas said.
He’s not wrong, of course. Quietly following users around the internet helped Google become the roughly $2 trillion market cap company it is today.
That’s why it built a browser and a mobile operating system. Indeed, Perplexity is attempting something in the mobile world, too. It’s signed a partnership with Motorola, announced Thursday, where its app will be pre-installed on the Razr series and can be accessed though the Moto AI by typing “Ask Perplexity.”
Perplexity is also in talks with Samsung, Bloomberg reported. Srinivas didn’t flat-out confirm that, though he did reference on the podcast the Bloomberg article, published earlier this month, that discussed both partnerships.
Obviously, Google isn’t the only one watching users online to sell ads. Meta’s ad tracking technology, Pixels, which is embedded on websites across the internet, is how Meta gathers data, even on people that don’t have Facebook or Instagram accounts. Even Apple, which has marketed itself as a privacy protector, can’t resist tracking users’ locations to sell advertising in some of its apps by default.
On the other hand, this kind of thing has led people across the political spectrum in the U.S. and in Europe to distrust big tech.
The irony of Srinivas openly explaining his browser-tracking ad-selling ambitions this week also can’t be overstated.
Google is currently in court fighting the U.S. Department of Justice, which has alleged Google behaved in monopolistic ways to dominate search and online advertising. The DOJ wants the judge to order Google to divest Chrome.
Both OpenAI and Perplexity — not surprisingly, given Srinivas’ reasons — said they would buy the Chrome browser business if Google was forced to sell.
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