Financial analyst turned journalist. Covering VC/startups at @TechCrunch. Previously @PitchBook, @VCjournal. email for Signal: marina.temkin@techcrunch.com.
San Francisco, CA
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Hard to trust self-reported "top line" numbers from startups. What's especially interesting is that investors often know that those figures are wildly inflated. techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/ho…
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SCOOP: Etched received investment offers valuing the chip startup at as much as $50 billion.
Just a couple of months after its last big raise, the AI chip startup is already being plied with investment offers at double or more its current value, sources tell TechCrunch.
spr.ly/6016BGLavO
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SCOOP: Robotics data labeling startup XDOF is in stage-talks for a new round at a valuation of about $1.2 billion.
The round is being raised just months after the robot data startup exited from stealth.
spr.ly/6015BG88yH
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Ryan Breslow's @bolt is raising a bridge pay-to-play round to "clear legacy obligations." But the controversial founder refuses to give up. He is putting $5M of his own capital into a once high-flying unicorn. techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/ry…
Sources telling me @bolt employees have had their most recent paychecks clawed back from their bank accounts.
Bolt is blaming 'tech glitch' at payroll processor, but speculation is Bolt can't even make payroll, per sources familiar w/situation.
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Source: Elastic has agreed to acquire the AI site reliability engineering startup Deductive AI for up to $85M; CRV led Deductive AI's $7.5M seed round in 2025 (@mtemkin / TechCrunch)
(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)
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Less than two years after I scooped Cursor's $60M Series A at a $400M valuation, the company gets sold for $60 billion to SpaceX. Congratulations to the team and investors.
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It's common knowledge that some of the ARR numbers reported by startups are exaggerated. I dove deep into the topic and found that in many cases, investors are fully aware that the numbers aren't real.
techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/ho…
Excellent reporting by @MTemkin at @TechCrunch on how AI companies are inflating revenue by reporting CARR as ARR.
Please retweet so that we can get back to reality and permanently kill CARR as a valuation anchor. Delusion is not good for anyone.
"One VC told TechCrunch that he has seen companies where CARR is 70% higher than ARR, even though a significant chunk of that contracted revenue will never actually materialize."
“Investors can’t call it out,” a VC told TechCrunch. “Everyone has a company monetizing CARR as ARR.”
The biggest thing that has surprised me since my tweet went viral was the amount of nervous, sheepish laughter from VCs on the topic:
"Haha... Oh, I'm not sure if it's that big a deal 🙂"
While other VCs say privately:
"We see this constantly and it's becoming a serious problem."
techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/ho…
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Scoop confirmed: exactly two weeks later, Anthropic's $900B looks done.
Sources: Anthropic has agreed to the terms of a $30B fundraising at a $900B valuation, with Sequoia, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Altimeter co-leading the round (@georgenhammond / Financial Times)
(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)
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Canadian legaltech company Clio says its ARR has reached $500M, citing demand for its AI services; it was valued at $5B after a $500M Series G in November 2025 (@mtemkin / TechCrunch)
(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)
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Marina Temkin retweeted
I've said it before, but CVF is one of the most interesting financials products that we offer founders at GC.
Musely secures $360M from General Catalyst without giving up equity techcrunch.com/2026/05/01/mu…
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I seem to have a talent for scooping AI coding startup fundraises right before M&A.
Last year, I broke @windsurf's last round, but the deal fell through, resulting in an eventual acqui-hire by Google.
Last week, I scooped @cursor_ai round, which was just killed by SpaceX.
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I've been hearing that many startups are essentially using the same approach to for ARR as 11X did. When startups report ARR, I almost always assume it's annualized run rate, or latest month multiples by 12. Now it sounds like even that metric can be manipulated. DMs opened.
It’s time to expose a huge scam in AI startups: Contracted ARR
The reason many AI startups are crushing revenue records is because they are using a dishonest metric
The biggest funds in the world are supporting this and misleading journalists for PR coverage.
The setup: Company signs 3-year enterprise deals. Year 1 is discounted (say $1M), Year 2 steps up ($2M), Year 3 is full price ($3M).
They report $3M as “ARR” — even though they’re only collecting $1M right now.
The worst part: The customer has an opt-out option at 12 months! It’s not actually a 3 year contract.
In the chart below, by Q5 the company is trumpeting ~$100M “ARR” to press, while actual cash-generating, in-effect ARR is ~$35M. That’s ~3x inflation.
On top of this, enterprise AI companies are bundling full-time “forward deployed engineers” into deals massively reducing margins, sometimes producing Year 1 negative margins.
At some point customers are going to start triggering their opt-out clauses or aggressively negotiating down Year 3 pricing.
And a wave of enterprise AI companies may collapse.
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Our 11x piece in which @DominicMadori and I detailed how the @a16z and @benchmark-backed startup included contracts with a 3-month out as a part of ARR. techcrunch.com/2025/03/24/a1…
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Scoop: a16z and Thrive investing in Cursor $2B+ round. Other details are that Cursor is finally slightly gross-margin positive. The company is expecting to reach over $6B in annual run rate by end-of the year. techcrunch.com/2026/04/17/so…
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Don't know what's better, being called "some random woman" or a "Bro." I was expecting the latter, but @im_roy_lee's language was surprisingly clear and polished when I interviewed him last summer.
Cluely CEO Roy Lee admits to publicly lying about revenue numbers last year techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/cl…
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