Tech
The Minneapolis tech community holds strong during ‘tense and difficult time’
The city’s tech scene is reeling as U.S. immigration agents have escalated their crackdown in Minneapolis, killing several people, including at least two U.S. citizens.
Eight Minneapolis-based founders and investors told TechCrunch that they have put much of their work on hold and now spend their days focused on their communities, volunteering at churches, and helping buy food. It’s part of a grassroots effort, across race and class, that is seeing people speak out, donate money, protest, and offer emotional support to one another.
“There’s a lot of commonality between how a teacher is reacting right now and how a tech professional is reacting,” Scott Burns, an investor in the area, told TechCrunch. He said people are “very fatigued.” Burns is going to church more often to help pack food to deliver to those too frightened to leave their homes. “It was like what happens after a natural disaster,” he said of the effort.
Burns and other members of the Minneapolis tech industry told TechCrunch that the immigration raids have been very disruptive to their lives, describing a city that has seen itself united in the last several weeks in the face of escalating violence from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
How can building a company remain a focal point when ICE agents appear to be everywhere, plainclothed and armed with military-grade weapons? Federal agents have been seen searching public transportation and prowling around workplaces. They are outside homes and in parking lots. They have been spotted circling schools.
One Black founder, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect members of his staff, said he now carries his passport with him everywhere he goes. He is a U.S. citizen but has seen people of color throughout the city profiled and picked up by ICE and border patrol agents.
“People aren’t exaggerating how hard it has been. It’s hard to focus; it’s been a challenge just navigating even my team through it,” he said.
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He recalled a routine phone meeting with a colleague who suddenly fell silent. Lost for words, the colleague said she was watching ICE detain someone in the neighborhood, the same one his mother lived in.
“I had to get off the phone and call my mom to make sure she had her passport on her,” the founder said.
Efraín Torres, a Latino founder, works from home, listening tentatively to the immigration raids that happen in his neighborhood. “You can’t not hear them,” he told TechCrunch. Cars will beep. Protestors whistle alerts. “And if you miss it, you’ll see signs saying, ‘My neighbor was taken by ICE.’”
Officials even perform “citizen checks,” stopping people and asking them to prove immigration status — which the Supreme Court said last year can be done based on details like race or if a person has an “accent.” These checks have been conducted on people performing even mundane tasks, Torres said, like snow-blowing the lawn. He said he’s had a few run-ins himself with ICE, which is why he likes to stay low.
“The line separating me from being a victim of assault is just a chance encounter,” he said, adding that he knew people who were followed by ICE — something others have reported is happening alongside raids.
The Trump administration has escalated its immigration raids throughout the country, though the force deployed in the Twin Cities is especially large, with more than 3,000 federal agents deployed to Minnesota as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge.” ICE and border patrol agents now outnumber local police in Minneapolis almost 3 to 1, Senator Amy Klobucharof Minnesota has said.
The state is home to one of the largest populations of immigrants from Somalia, a group the administration has targeted before. That includes U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, who has sparred with President Trump. Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, has also seen himself targeted by the president, as has the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, whio is also a Democrat.
The surge in immigration enforcement is part of President Trump’s campaign promise to curb illegal immigration, though some argue that Trump has been specifically targeting cities and states that didn’t vote for him. More than 2,000 people have been arrested by ICE in Minnesota since Trump took office last January.
“It’s been difficult,” said one Black investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He, too, is a U.S. citizen and can trace his roots in the country back for a century. Still, living just outside the city, he carries his passport with him just in case.
“Where I go to the gym, they’re in rural Minnesota,” he said, meaning agents aren’t only in the city. “It’s just been a strange time.”
Everyone is doing what they can, however, to help others. This investor, for example, works with founders in college, many of whom are immigrants. He buys them food so they don’t have to risk going to the grocery store themselves. He also tries to work from home, when possible, as do many of the other people TechCrunch spoke with.
“It’s a tense and difficult time on the ground,” Mary Grove, another investor in the area, told TechCrunch.
Investor Reed Robinson, who has also been helping community members financially, said some of his founders with children have created a volunteer system to watch each other’s kids at school or daycare. It’s so common for ICE to detain the daycare staff, he said, adding that ICE agents frequently violate the law and court orders.
“It feels unnecessary, it feels intrusive, it feels like a violation of rights,” Robinson said about the immigration operation.
Like Robinson, many people feel anger beneath the unease and fear.
The emotional toll makes it hard to build, investors and founders said. Torres, for example, said his company now has a no-ride-sharing-app policy. Some of his engineers are on H-1B visas (which the Trump administration has also attacked) and have reported being followed by immigration officials.
“Each time, it was three to four armed men in tactical outfits,” Torres said, adding that he and his wife have spoken about fleeing the state. “They’re inflicting trauma everywhere they go.”
Grassroots efforts prevail as corporate leaders disappoint
The Minneapolis tech scene is still quite small, with companies raising just over $1 billion in the past few years. There are some notable companies in the ecosystem, such as the fintech Sezzle (now public), the clean water company Rorra, and the medtech Reema. There is an incredible history of innovation, Robinson said. “It’s not going to stop; we’re going to continue to do the work while we figure out this current situation.”
The Twin Cities — Minneapolis and St. Paul — are the headquarters of some of the biggest American companies, such as Target, Optum, Best Buy, UnitedHealthGroup, and General Mills, to name a few. Some founders and investors criticized the leadership of these big companies, mainly for their vague responses to the chaos gripping the cities, even as many of their own employees are detained.
“We haven’t had an adequate response,” one startup investor said.
Sixty top executives from the state signed a statement that called for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions” after ICE agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Large companies in the state have also come together to fund millions in grants through the Minneapolis Foundation for businesses impacted by the immigration operation.
But compared to what is happening on a grassroots level, many founders and investors said these actions are not enough. A recent CNBC poll found that a third of the executives they polled have stayed silent because they didn’t find speaking out relevant to the business. Eighteen percent were worried about “backlash from the Trump administration,” while 9% said they were still figuring out how to respond.
“When you see the failure of community institutions to demonstrate any kind of bravery, that’s really where it’s probably most disappointing,” Tim Herby, a local investor, told TechCrunch, calling the past two months heart-wrenching.
Grove, the investor, said her team routinely checks in with others in the community, including her portfolio companies, to ensure they are doing well. She said people are helping each other pay rent, while restaurants are offering free meals. A local tech nonprofit, Minnestar, is set to host a community event to bring people together and discuss next steps.
One Black investor said he found it ironic that today, the police are alongside many people in speaking out against the government, just a few years after people in the city were protesting against them after the murder of George Floyd. It’s a new day-to-day.
Another Black founder, meanwhile, said some of his white friends have started to drive him around the city for safety. He recalls one day sitting in a restaurant chatting with friends, when the television started giving live updates of ICE shooting another person. The mood fell somber, a reminder of how these raids have consumed every moment of life.
“I saw a friend yesterday,” he said. “It was the first time he left the house since New Year’s.”
Tech
Peak XV says internal disagreement led to partner exits as it doubles down on AI
Peak XV Partners, a leading venture capital firm in India and Southeast Asia, has seen a fresh round of senior departures. These follow other leadership exits over the past year as it pushes ahead with plans to deepen its focus on AI investing and expand its footprint in the U.S., while keeping India as its largest market.
The latest departures stem from an internal disagreement with senior partner Ashish Agrawal (pictured above, left) that led to a mutual decision to part ways, Managing Director Shailendra Singh told TechCrunch. He added that two other partners, Ishaan Mittal (pictured above, right) and Tejeshwi Sharma (pictured above, center), chose to leave alongside him.
Singh said Peak XV did not want to go into the specifics of the disagreement and was focused on moving forward. “Just out of privacy, and out of, like, trying to be classy about it,” he said. Singh added that such departures were not uncommon at large, multi-stage venture firms and that Peak XV wanted to move on quickly after several years of working together.
All board seats held by the departing partners would be transitioned “imminently,” Singh said, noting that the firm already had overlapping representation across several portfolio companies. He said Peak XV was not concerned about continuity, noting that multiple general partners and operating partners were already involved across many of those boards.
The departures mark the exit of long-tenured investors from the firm. Agrawal had been with Peak XV for more than 13 years, while Mittal spent over nine years at the firm and Sharma more than seven years, per their LinkedIn profiles.
Agrawal wrote in a LinkedIn post that he had decided to “take the entrepreneurial plunge” and was teaming up with Mittal and Sharma to start a new venture capital firm. He described the move as an opportunity to build a new institution with longtime partners and thanked Peak XV’s leadership for what he called a “truly wonderful partnership.”
During his time at Peak XV, Agrawal led investments across fintech, consumer, and software, including Groww, one of the firm’s most prominent IPO exits in 2025. He also backed multiple early- and growth-stage companies alongside Mittal and Sharma, contributing to Peak XV’s broader portfolio build-out over the past decade.
Agrawal, Mittal, and Sharma did not respond to messages for comments.
Peak XV has also moved to strengthen its senior leadership from within. The firm on Tuesday promoted Abhishek Mohan to general partner, expanding its investment leadership bench, while Saipriya Sarangan was elevated to chief operating officer, taking charge of firm-wide operations.
The leadership changes come amid a standout year for Peak XV’s portfolio exits. Five of its companies — Groww, Pine Labs, Meesho, Wakefit, and Capillary Technologies — went public in November and December 2025, generating roughly ₹300 billion (around $3.33 billion) in unrealized, mark-to-market gains for the firm, in addition to about ₹28 billion (about $310.61 million) in realized gains from share sales during the IPOs.
In addition to the latest departures, Peak XV has seen a broader churn in its senior ranks over the past 12 months. Last year, long-time investment leaders Harshjit Sethi and Shailesh Lakhani exited the India team, while Abheek Anand and Pieter Kemps departed from the firm’s Southeast Asia operations. The firm has also seen leadership changes across its marketing, policy, and operations teams in recent months.
Singh dismissed a view circulating in the market that many of the partners who drove Peak XV’s largest exits were no longer at the firm, calling the narrative “not statistically true.” He said several of the firm’s most significant outcomes had been led by long-tenured partners who remained at Peak XV, and argued that the firm’s exit track record did not hinge on any single individual.
Peak XV currently has seven general partners, along with multiple partners and principals, according to Singh.
The VC firm, which split from Sequoia Capital in 2023 and currently manages over $10 billion in capital across 16 funds, has made about 80 investments linked to AI, Singh said, highlighting its push to deepen its focus on AI funding. It is also preparing to open a U.S. office within the next 90 days as it expands its global footprint, per Singh, while continuing to view India as its largest and most important market.
Singh stated the firm believed AI would reshape venture investing more profoundly than previous technology shifts, arguing that successful AI investing required investors with deep technical understanding rather than “generalist” experience. He added that Peak XV was looking to add more AI-native talent, including researchers and engineers with backgrounds in machine learning and large-scale model development.
The firm has invested in more than 400 companies, and its portfolio has seen over 35 initial public offerings and several M&As to date.
Tech
PayPal hires HP’s Enrique Lores as its new CEO
PayPal said on Tuesday it is hiring HP’s Enrique Lores as its CEO and president, replacing current chief executive Alex Chriss. Lores, who has been the chair of PayPal’s board since July 2024, will also take up the role of president.
PayPal said the appointment was made because the company’s pace of change and execution was “not in line with the Board’s expectations” given broader market trends.
Chriss joined PayPal in September 2023 from Intuit, succeeding Dan Schulman. PayPal’s CFO and COO, Jamie Miller, will take over as interim CEO until Lores joins the company.
The appointment comes as PayPal on Tuesday reported lower than expected revenue and profit in the fourth quarter, as consumer spending dipped amid a broader cost of living crisis and a softening labor market. The company also forecast a dip in its full-year profit, which surprised investors, as Wall Street had broadly expected the company to forecast growth instead.
PayPal’s shares were down about 17.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
Lores, who served as president and CEO of HP for over six years, said that apart from product innovation, PayPal will hold itself accountable for delivering quarterly accounts.
“The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily. PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations and to shape the future of digital payments and commerce,” Lores said in a statement.
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Tech
Fitbit founders launch AI platform to help families monitor their health
Fitbit founders James Park and Eric Friedman have announced the launch of a new AI startup called Luffu that aims to help families proactively monitor their health. The duo are developing an “intelligent family care system” that will start with an app experience and then expand into hardware devices.
Two years after their exit from Google, Park and Friedman are betting on AI to help lighten the mental burden of caregiving. According to a recent report, 63 million, or nearly 1 in 4, U.S. adults are family caregivers, up 45% from 10 years ago.
Luffu uses AI in the background to gather and organize family information, learn day-to-day patterns, and flag notable changes so families can stay aligned and address potential well-being issues.
“At Fitbit, we focused on personal health—but after Fitbit, health for me became bigger than just thinking about myself,” Park said in a press release. “I was caring for my parents from across the country, trying to piece together my mom’s health care across various portals and providers, with a language barrier that made it hard to get complete, timely context from her about doctor visits. I didn’t want to constantly check in, and she didn’t want to feel monitored. Luffu is the product we wished existed—to stay on top of our family’s health, know what changed and when to step in—without hovering.”
The pair note that today’s consumer health market is filled with tools for individuals, but that real life health is shared across partners, kids, parents, pets, and caregivers. Family information is scattered across devices, portals, calendars, attachments, spreadsheets, and paper documents.
With Luffu, people will be able to track the whole family’s details, including health stats, diet, medications, symptoms, lab tests, doctor visits, and more. Users can log health information using voice, text, or photos. Luffu proactively watches for changes, and surfaces insights and alerts, such as unusual vitals or changes in sleep.
The pair told Axios that people can ask questions using plain language to ask about their family’s health, such as “Is Dad’s new meal plan affecting his blood pressure?” or “Did someone give the dog his medication?”
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“We designed Luffu to capture the details as life happens, keep family members updated and surface what matters at the right time—so caregiving feels more coordinated and less chaotic,” Friedman said in the press release.
People who are interested in Luffu can join the waitlist for the limited public beta.
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