TechCrunch Startup News AI crawler Firecrawl raises $14.5M and is still looking to hire agents as employees, also, Databricks CEO says fresh $1B will help him attack a new AI database market
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Aug 21, 2025 Firecrawl just scored $14.5 million in funding and caught the attention of Shopify's CEO with a bold email. They're navigating unique hiring challenges while aiming to support content creators in the AI space. Meanwhile, Databricks has reached a staggering $100 billion valuation after a massive new round of funding, fueling their ambitions in the AI database market. The race is on for both companies to innovate in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.
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Cold Email Turned A Signup Into An Investor
- Firecrawl reached out to Shopify after spotting Tobias Lütke signed up and later landed him as an investor via a bold email ask.
- The cold email turned a silent self-serve signup into a Series A participation from Shopify's CEO.
Crawler Demand Meets Publisher Compensation
- Firecrawl's open-source crawler serves 350,000 developers and offers a commercial API for enterprises.
- They aim to bridge scraper demand with publishers to ensure content creators get paid when AI uses their content.
Crawlers Are Necessary For AI Agents
- Web crawlers are essential for AI despite reputational issues from bad actors ignoring robots.txt.
- Enterprises need personalized crawlers to train models and enable agents to access site-specific data for operations.