Browsing: founders

Brynn Putnam and Tristan Walker have already done something that most founders only dream about: created companies so compelling that bigger outfits bought them. Putnam, a trained ballerina with a small chain of boutique studios, built the connected-fitness company Mirror and sold it to Lululemon for $500 million in cash less than three years later.…

U.S. venture capitalists once insisted that international startups move stateside before they would write a check. The three 28-year-old founders behind Furo are convinced that their decision to leave Silicon Valley and move back to their home country of Germany has paid off in both VC dollars and business growth.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is built around one question: How do you build an enduring company in the AI era? Our programming and speaker lineup reflect that, based on the feedback we’ve gotten from the community and the reality on the ground.