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You don’t need to be an AI startup to raise. Lucra has $20M to prove it. | Equity Podcast

Slapping “AI” on your startup’s pitch deck is basically table stakes right now. When a founder raised $20 million from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest for an eSports gamification loyalty startup without those two letters in the spotlight, it got us wondering how the conversation even started — especially when ARK had already been burned by…

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Slapping “AI” on your startup’s pitch deck is basically table stakes right now. When a founder raised $20 million from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest for an eSports gamification loyalty startup without those two letters in the spotlight, it got us wondering how the conversation even started — especially when ARK had already been burned by a company operating in the same space.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Julie Bort sits down with Dylan Robbins, founder and CEO of Lucra, the white-label platform turning friendly competitions into loyalty programs for brands like golf courses, arcades, and pickleball clubs.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:43 How Lucra works

4:10 Meeting ARK Invest over darts and landing the Series B

7:24 Pitching a non-AI startup during peak AI mania

10:41 The growth metrics that won investors over

13:02 Overcoming ARK’s bad experience with Skillz and the B2B pivot

20:43 What’s next: the mini games vertical

29:25 Outro

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1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. @jeffcraymore

    May 20, 2026 at 6:07 pm

    Series B, you are not a startup. You have serious customers and active growth. And he said that. Over years. That’s not a startup.

    Reply

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Science & Technology

What it Takes to Get NVIDIA’s Seal of Approval

This week on Build Mode: Getting NVIDIA’s tech seal of approval, a tsunami of entrepreneurship, and the role corporate VCs are already playing in building the next gen of tech giants:

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July 23, 2026

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This week on Build Mode: Getting NVIDIA’s tech seal of approval, a tsunami of entrepreneurship, and the role corporate VCs are already playing in building the next gen of tech giants:

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CNET

What Apple Needs to Do to Make The iPhone Fold Worth The Cash

Samsung isn’t the only one coming out with a foldable phone this year. The launch of Apple’s anticipated iPhone Fold is coming closer, but will it be worth the price? CNET editor at large Bridget Carey runs though what Apple can learn from Samsung regarding the foldable phone market on this weeks episode of One…

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July 23, 2026

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Samsung isn’t the only one coming out with a foldable phone this year. The launch of Apple’s anticipated iPhone Fold is coming closer, but will it be worth the price? CNET editor at large Bridget Carey runs though what Apple can learn from Samsung regarding the foldable phone market on this weeks episode of One More Thing.

Full video coming 7/24 at 8am ET on YouTube.

Video Credits
Host: Bridget Carey
Videographer/Editor: Carly Marsh

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#apple #onemorething #iphonefold #galaxyzfold8 #samsung #foldablephone

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Science & Technology

The Invisible Threat Taking Away Our Brightest Minds | Drew McCartor | TED

Lead poisoning robs the world’s kids of millions of IQ points a day and kills more people than wars, natural disasters and road accidents combined — yet we treat it as a problem we’ve already solved. Drew McCartor, who runs the nonprofit Pure Earth, has spent nearly two decades proving it doesn’t have to be…

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July 23, 2026

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Lead poisoning robs the world’s kids of millions of IQ points a day and kills more people than wars, natural disasters and road accidents combined — yet we treat it as a problem we’ve already solved. Drew McCartor, who runs the nonprofit Pure Earth, has spent nearly two decades proving it doesn’t have to be this way. He presents their three-step fix that’s already working in places from Georgia to Ghana, and makes the case that we can finally beat a crisis hiding in plain sight. (This ambitious idea is part of The Audacious Project, TED’s initiative to inspire and fund global change.) (Recorded at TED2026 on April 14, 2026)

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The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less) — plus originals, podcasts and exclusive content. Look for videos on Technology, Entertainment and Design as well as science, business, global issues, the arts and more. Visit for our entire library, transcripts, translations and personalized recommendations.

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