From Watertown to Roxbury to downtown, the lineup includes hackathons using AI to “vibe code” apps, fireside chats and panel discussions, plus tracks on biotech, deep tech, robotics, and — of course — artificial intelligence. Events are free to attend, though some are invite-only.
It’s the first time Andreessen Horowitz, which does not have an office here, has brought tech week to Boston, though it has run the conference for a few years in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Silicon Valley’s attention waxes and wanes regarding Boston, but has been on the upswing lately, with some AI companies (such as Anthropic) boosting their local presences.
Local companies hosting Tech Week events include Whoop, HubSpot, Klaviyo, DraftKings, and Wayfair, while big-time out-of-towners Stripe, Anthropic, and Cursor are also participating.
“The goal is to bring together entrepreneurial communities that already exist and turbocharge them,” explained Jonathan Lai, a general partner at Andreessen who is helping oversee the Boston events. “We want to give founders, builders, investors, and local partners a place to basically congregate and convene.”
Tech Week’s arrival did not go unnoticed by the city’s power brokers in tech and politics. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu touted it at an innovation forum she convened in Cambridge last week.
“We work hard every single week of the year to support the innovation that’s happening here,” Wu said after her Cambridge event. “But to showcase it all at once, to have a jam-packed schedule of various examples and the spotlight that that provides will be great for our whole region.”
The schedule of events includes a vast diversity of sponsors and subjects. Lai will be interviewing HubSpot cofounder Brian Halligan, followed by a panel of other local startup founders on Wednesday evening.
The Perkins School for the Blind is hosting a vibe-coding hackathon focused on solving challenges faced by special education teachers on Tuesday at Boston University, and a four-hour summit on Wednesday about disability tech at the headquarters of MassBio in Cambridge.
The school established an innovation center in 2023 and has been working to encourage the development of more accessibility apps. Getting involved with Tech Week could help attract more VC investors, Sandy Lacey, executive director of the school’s Perkins Howe Innovation Center, said.
“We want to bring to light the importance of solving challenges and investing in this space,” Lacey said. “I really want to call investors in who haven’t invested in disability or accessibility technologies before to please come join us.”
Each Tech Week has a different emphasis or “unique local flavor,” Lai said. New York has had a ton of financial tech events and L.A. focuses most on entertainment and Hollywood, for example. Boston has a strong startup culture for biotech, deep tech, and robotics, along with its many colleges and universities.
Andreessen has invested in more than a dozen companies around Boston over the past three years, including engineering AI software firm Leo AI, AI drug developer Boltz, and AI model maker Liquid AI.
Lai runs the firm’s accelerator program for new startups, called Speedrun, and said he’ll be on the lookout for companies and founders to include.
“AI is reshuffling where companies get built, and there’s a rare opportunity to build a generational company or two in Boston that just defines the next century,” Lai said. “I think it’s the best time in a decade to start a company in Boston.”
💻 Trapped in the dark web: A crisis grows in the shadows. Read more from reporters Janelle Nanos and Shelley Murphy.
🤩 Tom Brady, Cynthia Erivo to headline conference in Boston. Read more from living arts editor Matt Juul.
🙅♂️ Amid boom in data centers and AI, Massachusetts towns are pushing back. Read more from tech columnist Hiawatha Bray.
🤑 AI startups can succeed in Massachusetts. This billion-dollar deal shows why. Read more from health care reporter Jonathan Saltzman.
👀 She tried unionizing a Bellingham Amazon facility. Then she was fired. Read more from Globe contributor Bryan Hecht.
💵 Chip maker Analog Devices in Wilmington is acquiring California-based Empower Semiconductor for $1.5 billion in cash.
🛋️ Online furniture seller Wayfair in Boston raised $400 million of debt through the sale of secured notes.
🤝 Internet company Akamai Technologies in Cambridge is acquiring Israeli AI security firm LayerX for $205 million. Akamai raised $3 billion through the private sale of convertible notes.
🔥 Critical metals manufacturer Boston Metal raised $75 million from Tata Steel and existing investors.
⛅ Weather satellite service Tomorrow.io in Boston raised $35 million from investors including Pitango and Harel Insurance.
💰 Circuit board manufacturer CircuitHub in South Deerfield raised $28 million in a deal led by Plural and Sten Tamkivi.
💬 Employee communications software firm Blink in Boston raised $17 million from Enlightened Hospitality Investments, the growth equity fund affiliated with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group.
🏘️ Real estate software startup Rely in Portland, Maine, raised $4.5 million in a deal led by 2048 Ventures and including Range Ventures and Better Tomorrow Ventures.
💦 Water tech company Gradiant in Woburn raised an undisclosed amount of financing in a deal led by Safar Partners and Hostplus Superannuation Fund that valued the company at $2 billion.
💸 Payments tech company WEX in Portland, Maine, following its agreement with activist investor Impactive Capital, named independent director David Foss as chair of the board.
🪼 Software tracking firm Jellyfish in Boston hired Adam Ferrari as senior vice president of engineering. Ferrari previously held the same position at Starburst and was chief technology officer at Endeca.
🔒 Cybersecurity company N‑able in Burlington hired Robert Johnston as chief innovation officer. Johnston previously founded Adlumin.
🔍 Google is changing its search box for the first time in 25 years to add more AI features.
🏛️ A federal jury in California needed only two hours to decide that Elon Musk was not owed any damages from OpenAI after the AI startup he helped found decided to become a for-profit company.
Meet the Sad Wives of AI (Wired)
Closing time: What did we learn throughout Musk v. Altman? A lot of gossip. (The Verge)
As other automakers retrench, Toyota has four new EVs in the works (Charged EVs)
👋 Thanks for reading. We’ll be will be back next Wednesday.
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Aaron Pressman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @ampressman.
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