Dominic-Madori Davis

Dominic-Madori Davis follows how capital, power and new technologies move through the startup ecosystem, with a particular focus on venture deals and who they benefit. She covers venture capital and startups as a senior reporter at TechCrunch, tracking funding rounds, valuations, new funds and the founders behind them. Her work combines deal coverage with attention to structural questions around inclusion, policy and the cultural impact of technology.

Venture capital, funds and startup deal flow

Davis’ core beat is the flow of money into startups and venture funds, and how those deals reshape the market.

She regularly reports on major fundraises and valuations, such as a16z-backed EliseAI raising $350 million and doubling its valuation to $4 billion, Higgsfield’s $400 million Series B that quadruples its valuation, and Kalshi doubling its valuation to $22 billion in just five months. Her coverage includes both company-side rounds and new venture funds, writing on Reach Capital’s $265 million fund to back AI founders, Ventures Platform’s second Africa-focused fund, and Thrive raising $10 billion for its largest fund.

She also tracks specialist funds and platforms, including Fiat Ventures combining its venture and advisory divisions into a new brand and raising a $35 million second fund, and Meridian Ventures launching a $35 million fund focused on MBA-deferred founders. Across these stories she lays out investors, round sizes, valuation changes and strategic positioning in direct terms, giving a clear picture of who is writing checks and why.

Her deal coverage extends across sectors and geographies. She reports on African defense tech startup Terra Industries closing a $52 million seed round to build defense infrastructure for the Global South and on African-focused fund Ventures Platform expanding its remit with a larger fund.

Earlier work includes fintech and banking-related deals for underrepresented founders, such as Guava’s $2.4 million raise to provide banking services to Black small-business owners and SaaS platform Stimulus’ oversubscribed seed round. In payments and fintech, her reporting on Flutterwave’s multibillion-dollar valuation backed by Ripple fits the same pattern: funding size, lead investors, valuation and regional significance presented plainly.

AI, defense and frontier technology

Davis consistently uses funding and product stories to chart the advance of AI and other frontier technologies.

Recent articles cover AI infrastructure and applications, such as MAVI betting on the AI boom to create demand for a new kind of accountant, two Google alumni raising $11.3 million to back AI startups enterprises will actually pay for, and Status AI’s $17 million raise to turn social media into interactive entertainment. She writes on enterprise-focused AI plays like Reload, which aims to give AI agents a shared memory, and Rillet, an AI accounting startup that raised $100 million and became a unicorn within 48 hours. On the defense side, she reports on the Pentagon tapping Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to help decide future military directions and Terra Industries building defense infrastructure for emerging markets.

Her frontier tech coverage often combines deal terms with the physical and political stakes of the technology. She reports on body-scanning startup Neko Health’s expansion to the U.S., including a $700 million bet behind full-body scans, and on Slovenia’s.si domain seeing a surge in registrations after a high-profile U.S. executive order citing “super intelligence.” She covers Ando, a team messaging app designed for humans and AI agents working together, and Vogue World’s use of robots on the runway, showing how automation and AI seep into cultural and creative spaces as well as enterprise tools.

In some pieces she brings herself into the story, as in the article where she creates an interactive digital avatar of herself that readers can talk to, using a personal experiment to illustrate how AI-enabled identity and presence are changing.

Diversity, equity and the politics of venture funding

Davis has an extensive body of work examining how venture capital treats underrepresented founders and fund managers.

She has repeatedly reported on funding levels for Black founders, including stories stating Black founders raised just $187 million in a quarter, received 0.13% of capital in another quarter, and still drew only around 1% of all VC funds over a full year. Her reporting on women-founded companies includes data-driven pieces on women-founded startups raising 1.9% of all VC funds in 2022, the highs and lows of venture data for women founders, and women-founded AI startups seeing a boost in funding despite broader market headwinds.

She also covers Latin American founders and other underrepresented cohorts seeing VC funding drop as investors retreat, broadening the lens beyond the U.S.

Beyond data, her stories address backlash and policy. She has written on tech’s DEI backlash, on who followed through on diversity commitments three years after major public pledges, and on how a high-profile investment into Adam Neumann reinforces barriers for underrepresented founders. She reports on California’s law mandating VC firms to release diversity information on their investments and tracks the contested legal fight around the Fearless Fund’s grants to Black women founders, including coverage of an appeals court ruling that the fund cannot issue specific grants. She profiles vehicles like the Open Opportunity Fund being sold to Black and Latino executives, Black Farmer Fund’s work, and Nex Cubed’s partnership with HBCU-focused programs, showing how alternative capital structures are being built.

Across these pieces she treats diversity as a core dimension of the venture beat, not a side topic.

Founders, products and culture

Alongside deals and policy, Davis writes about individual founders, products and cultural shifts that reveal how technology lands in everyday life. Her stories include features on a 22-year-old building Roblox developer tools to make gaming more efficient, companies like Communia and Kinhub trying to build safer and more supportive spaces for women and employees, and consumer-facing platforms like Keychain for CPG manufacturing.

She covers female-focused health and wellness products, including Mira’s efforts to fill hormone knowledge gaps and femtech startup Perelel acquiring a sexual health startup. Event coverage and interviews, such as consumer, culture and creators sessions with Erin and Sara Foster at TechCrunch Disrupt, further show her attention to how tech intersects with cultural production and celebrity.

Her work also surfaces the experiences of founders navigating difficult conditions. She has reported on an insurance startup cutting staff after a long fundraising effort, on AI fintech LoanSnap facing lawsuits and regulatory action after raising significant capital, and on lawsuits and board fights involving organizations like Black Girls Code. In these stories she connects structural issues like governance and bias with the day-to-day reality of building companies, maintaining a consistent focus on who gets to build, on what terms, and with what consequences.