Much of Silicon Valley has spent years chasing mega-rounds and buzzy AI deals. Meanwhile, Stacy Brown-Philpot is running Cherryrock Capital like a throwback to venture capital’s earlier days, writing smaller Series A and B checks to founders that larger firms routinely overlook.

The former TaskRabbit CEO and decade-long Google veteran launched Cherryrock a year ago after seeing what she calls a persistent gap: access to capital for “underinvested entrepreneurs” building software companies at the crucial growth stage.

“When I left TaskRabbit, I took some time off to figure out what was next and saw this gap in the market, which was access to capital, particularly for underinvested entrepreneurs,” Brown-Philpot told TechCrunch. She’d originally come to the Bay Area 25 years ago, planning to become a VC and even writing her Stanford Business School essay about it. After spending a decade at Google and leading TaskRabbit to a successful exit to IKEA, she’s finally back to that original plan.

She circled back to it for a reason. Before launching Cherryrock, Brown-Philpot was a member of the investment committee for the SoftBank Opportunity Fund, a $100 million vehicle started in 2020 to back underserved entrepreneurs. That experience proved there was no shortage of overlooked founders.

SoftBank itself sold the Opportunity Fund to its leadership team in late 2023, divesting from the diversity-focused initiative. Brown-Philpot, meanwhile, doubled down, and launched her own fund. By the time she closed Cherryrock’s debut fund in February 2025, she already had more than 2,000 companies in her pipeline. 

Cherryrock is targeting 12 to 15 investments from its first fund — a concentrated approach and stark contrast to the seed funds that make dozens of bets, or massive funds that write nine-figure checks. Brown-Philpot’s also taking her time; a year after announcing the fund, she and her team, including cofounder Saydeah Howard, who spent nine years at the venture firm IVP, have backed just five companies, putting them about a third of the way toward their goal. In an era when many funds race to deploy capital almost as quickly as it’s raised, Brown-Philpot’s measured pace is another throwback to an earlier generation of VCs.

Brown-Philpot’s focus on “underinvested” founders — a careful choice of words in today’s political climate — means backing entrepreneurs who might not fit the typical Silicon Valley mold.

When asked directly about the current political environment, where DEI has become a lightning rod, Brown-Philpot is unfazed. “It doesn’t change the pitch at all,” she said. “When we look at the people who decided to back Cherryrock, like JPMorgan and Bank of America…these are financial institutions who expect to generate a return. Our job as investors is to do just that.”

In addition to those investors, Cherryrock’s LP roster includes Goldman Sachs Asset Management, MassMutual, Top Tier Capital Partners, and Melinda Gates’s Pivotal Ventures. Some of these have stepped back from explicit diversity pledges amid pressure from the Trump administration. Yet Brown-Philpot may find herself in an unexpectedly advantageous position. 

A new diversity reporting law in California requires VC firms with a California nexus to report demographic data on their portfolio companies’ founding teams, with the first deadline in April. Unlike some corporate diversity initiatives that have faced legal challenges, the law focuses on transparency rather than mandates, requiring reporting but not quotas. For a firm like Cherryrock that’s already tracking and prioritizing investments in diverse founders, compliance is “table stakes,” as Brown-Philpot puts it. “You accomplish what you measure.”

Brown-Philpot’s perspective is informed by her vantage point across multiple institutions. Beyond Cherryrock, she sits on the boards of HP, StockX, and Stanford University — roles that give her insight into both enterprise buyers and the next generation of founders. At Stanford, she’s watching students navigate questions about AI’s impact on employment. “What I see on campus is the students are charting a path and finding a way to create opportunities for themselves,” she said.

Her portfolio reflects her thesis. One investment is Coactive AI, led by Cody Coleman, an MIT grad with advanced degrees in philosophy and engineering from MIT and Stanford. The company provides multimodal AI infrastructure to the media and entertainment industry, a sector now under intense scrutiny following controversies around AI-generated content. Cherryrock led Coactive’s Series B alongside Emerson Collective.

Another bet is Vitable Health, founded by Joseph Kitonga, a Thiel Fellow and Y Combinator alum. The Philadelphia-based company provides on-demand, primary care-based health insurance to employers and hourly workers – the kind of population Brown-Philpot came to know well as the CEO of TaskRabbit during its last years as a standalone company. Kitonga “is the exact kind of founder that we want to back,” Brown-Philpot said. “He does what he says he’s going to do.” Brown-Philpot first invested at the seed stage of Vitable through her work with the SoftBank Opportunity Fund.

When asked about her operating philosophy, Brown-Philpot is pragmatic about exits. “It’s very difficult to go public,” she said. “Most companies don’t go public, they do get acquired.” It’s a refreshingly honest take in an industry that often overpromises on IPO prospects. She points to TaskRabbit’s sale to IKEA as proof that the right acquisition can create lasting value.

As for 2026, Brown-Philpot’s priority is simple: “We are actively deploying capital.” She’s looking for Series A and B companies that have achieved product-market fit at scale, letting founders define what that means. And while the broader venture ecosystem debates the future of diversity initiatives, she is focused on finding great founders, wherever they are.

“I’m from Detroit,” she says. “Hard things are hard, but we know how to do hard things.”

The widespread protests in Iran have exposed both Tehran’s brutal tactics in the streets, where state authorities have killed thousands of demonstrators since early January, and extreme measures to block access to the global internet.

As it has done repeatedly in the past, the Iranian regime cut off the country’s residents from the global internet during the latest anti-government uprising. But it also shut down access to the country’s intranet, known as the National Information Network, which new research found is becoming a mechanism of constant and pervasive surveillance that may ultimately be the only way Iranians can get online.

The last remaining major nuclear weapons treaty between the United States and Russia just expired. So what will take its place? Artificial intelligence, of course. At least, that’s what some researchers believe. Combined with satellite imagery and human reviewers, AI-powered systems could replace in-person inspection of countries’ nuclear facilities. Obviously, there are flaws to this plan.

Cryptocurrencies may be only 16 years old, but they’ve already become the money form of choice for the world’s worst people. Crypto-tracing firm Chainalysis this week revealed that blockchain-based transactions linked to the sale of human beings into prostitution and forced scamming has nearly doubled over the past year, with hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions annually. Chainalysis researchers say that amount is likely an underestimate.

While the Trump administration says it is winding down its immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, the damage is still being done to the US court system in that state. A WIRED analysis found that court filings meant to give people the chance to be released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody skyrocketed in January, leaving US attorneys stretched to the breaking point and people left imprisoned far beyond when they should have been let free.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection has signed a $225,000 deal with Clearview AI that gives Border Patrol intelligence units access to the company’s face-recognition technology.

And that’s not all. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Ring is once again backtracking over the public’s distaste for mass surveillance. In an announcement first reported by The Verge, Ring explained that after a “comprehensive review,” it determined that its plan to integrate its sprawling network of privately owned surveillance cameras with Flock Safety, a company that sells license plate reader technology to police departments across the US, “would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated.”

“The integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety,” Ring said.

The cancellation of its Flock partnership comes just days after the company aired an ad during the Super Bowl featuring its new Search Party feature that “uses AI to help families find lost dogs.” Many people reacted to the feature by asking, essentially, “If Search Party can find lost dogs, that’s definitely going to be used to hunt down people too, right?”

Owned by Amazon since 2018, Ring for years drew condemnation from privacy advocates over its partnerships with police departments and a tool in its Neighbors app that allowed authorities to obtain surveillance footage directly from people who have Ring cameras installed rather than through any process with judicial oversight, like getting a warrant. The company eliminated the tool in early 2024. Flock has sparked similar ire due to its dragnet surveillance network that, according to 404 Media, ICE has surreptitiously tapped into as part of its relentless quest to remove immigrants from US soil.

Face recognition is not having a great moment in American society: Democratic lawmakers have asked ICE to stop using face recognition in the streets, and ICE itself keeps getting freaked out about people potentially using it on its agents.

This “dynamic political environment,” as an internal Meta memo obtained by the Times put it, is one where Meta might be updating its smart glasses to include a new face recognition feature that has internally been referred to as Name Tag.

When choosing a home security system for your home, you may be tempted to start by deciding between a DIY setup or professionally installed systems with monitoring services. Remember to make your decision after considering the equipment, installation, monitoring options and other features you want. Here are some bits of information to keep in mind about these parameters when shopping around.

Equipment choices

Do you just need to keep watch over your entryways? A good video doorbell for your front door and an outdoor camera covering the back may be all you need; easy to install and monitor yourself. If you want to keep closer tabs on your home inside and out with 24/7 monitoring and quick access to emergency response services, you’ll want a more robust system. DIY and professional brands offer home security bundles with most, if not all, of the equipment you’d need to get started and the ability to add single devices as needed.

Smart home and AI

Most home security devices are compatible with Alexa and Google Home smart hubs, but if you prefer Apple HomeKit or another smart home ecosystem, you may have to do a bit more shopping and comparing to find a system compatible with your existing smart home devices. Don’t fret over compatibility too much as Matter is making it easier to connect previously non-compatible devices (although it hasn’t quite come for security cameras yet).

Smart home features are also always changing, especially with AI. Just in the past two years, SimpliSafe has added AI face and movement detection to help its monitoring agents, ADT has added support for Nest’s familiar face AI recognition features and Arlo has increased services to include AI detection of fires, barking, screaming and more. You’ll have to pay a lot more for these features and consider your own privacy if you’re interested in the cutting-edge upgrades.

Installation

Keep in mind all that equipment will need to be installed. While there isn’t much to installing a security camera or even a wired video doorbell, whole-home systems can be a bit more demanding to install and set up. Some are DIY-friendly and use adhesive to position devices without leaving permanent marks but not all systems do this. If you’d rather leave that to an expert and have them walk you through how to use the system, a professional home security service may be the way to go.

Monitoring and alerts

Virtually all home security systems allow for self-monitoring, likely via an app on your phone. They’ll also send you push notifications when there’s an event, such as when a package is delivered to your doorstep. Basic sensors can send alerts about what specific sensor was triggered or tampered with, while adding a camera allows for more complex recognition. You can customize these alerts to get only the information you want (such as only when a person is detected), while most will automatically ignore things like vehicles.

Professional monitoring and emergency features

Consider whether you want to be in charge of all the monitoring or if you’d like some support. Most systems allow you to add a professional monitoring plan, some even require it from the beginning. These services often cost more than $30 per month and sometimes much more if AI features are added.

More advanced features, such as facial recognition, glass break sensors and communication with emergency services may not be available from all manufacturers and devices. Consider the level of monitoring you want, and who you want to do it, along with the emergency response options, when choosing a home security system.

Expandability

Most home security systems allow you to buy single sensors or compatible devices and add them, one at a time, whenever you want to upgrade or address a specific problem. But they go about this in very different ways. Some only allow you to purchase its own brand devices, while others are compatible with a variety of third-party smart home devices. Some have very limited add-on options, while others have many choices. No matter what you decide, we recommend checking out the add-on options on a security system website to see what potential upgrades will look like.

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Initial costs

We listed “cost” last for a reason. A complete home security system will likely cost you at least a couple of hundred bucks, so be prepared for that. There’s the potential to spend a lot more on equipment or a lot less. Also, keep in mind that the size of the system greatly affects the cost. Starter systems like many we listed here typically cost between $150 and $300, and allow you to add other compatible devices over time. Larger systems with 10 devices or more will cost at least several hundred dollars and can go up to $1,000 or more, depending on the tech that’s included.

Ongoing costs

Ongoing costs can carry a bit more weight when choosing the best security system. Expect ongoing monthly fees from a professional service and possibly a contract to lock you into those fees for a year or two (although we favored picks without a required contract). Signing a contract may not be ideal, but it may also come with free equipment or installation and lower upfront costs.

If you’re comfortable with self-monitoring, DIY systems may not come with any ongoing costs. Monthly subscriptions (without a contract) for cloud storage, enhanced features and possibly even professional monitoring are typically an option with DIY systems, often for lower monthly fees than professional services.

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Privacy and security

Always look for a brand that’s going to keep your data safe and has a good track record of security, encryption and protection against data breaches. That’s not always easy — many security companies have had issues in the past with breaches, privacy violations or even employees spying through home security cameras.

We look at a company’s current practices, track record and how they’ve been improving in the past few years when making recommendations. SimpliSafe is consistently one of the standout performers in security, which is one reason they earned a top spot on our list. While Ring has had missteps in the past, it’s improved in recent years and has even retracted its policy on providing police with video footage, so we feel comfortable recommending Ring at this time.

Lenses sure can be expensive for mirrorless cameras. When I first bought a Nikon Z camera, I picked up the versatile 24-70mm F2.8 S to go with it, and that fabulous lens tied me over for a few years until I could afford a second one.

Recently, I have been able to pick up a few more optics because I have found an affordable alternative that doesn’t compromise on quality, and that’s Viltrox.

Our slow-moving queue curves around a two-story wooden boathouse filled with props from explorations through distant lands. At the front of the line, a Disney cast member dressed in khaki helps us step onto a quaint little boat for a tour around the jungle.

This is Disneyland’s world-famous Jungle Cruise, filled with animatronic animals and painful puns from your skipper, and old-world set pieces depicting scenes straight out of the Amazon, Congo, Mekong and Nile rivers. It’s a ride that Walt Disney himself had a hand in developing, but something new is coming that separates it from its 1950s origins: a 3D-printed prop.

You may have seen small-scale 3D printing being done by hobbyists at home. But that’s child’s play compared to what industrial-scale 3D-printing workshops can do.

Haddy, a 3D-printing business based in Florida, says it can build worlds. More specifically, Jay Rogers, co-founder and CEO, tells me the company is installing its first boat in a Disney park.

“It’s in the Jungle Cruise ride,” he says during Disney Demo Day at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, at the end of last year.

3D printing burst onto the scene in the mid-2010s. These printers take little pellets or strands of polymer or liquid resin and turn them into fully fleshed-out designs, like the purple toy octopus and Prada purse that my 3-year-old daughter got from her Uncle Zach for her recent birthday. Using a digital file, you can send a project to the printer to produce — whether it’s a small octopus or an armchair.

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You can buy small 3D printers, priced between $180 and $400, for home projects, while larger operations require enormous machines that churn out items as big as cafe counters and even houses. 

And, yes, boats.

Haddy’s Jungle Cruise boat is a prop canoe that has now been placed on the ride at Disneyland, becoming part of the scenic journey alongside those fake animals on the banks of the Amazon-Congo-Nile-Mekong river.

Walt Disney Imagineering collaborated closely with the Haddy team to adapt the plans for the boat, ensuring it captured the spirit of the existing props while using 3D-printing technology.

“We had the old boat, and we did do a 3D scan in order to get it dimensionally,” Chris Hill, associate R&D imagineer for Disney, said in January when Disneyland installed the canoe right across from the loading dock. “For the creative part of it, we had a photo of the boat from the 1960s, and so using the dimensions from the 3D scan, I modeled the new boat, which is what we used to 3D print the boat.”

Do 3D-printed boats have that Disney whimsy?

Founded in 2022, Haddy creates home decor like planters, and furniture like outdoor benches, chairs and tables. Its gig of working with Disney’s Imagineers came about after it was selected as one of the four startups to receive financing, platforming and mentoring via the 2025 Disney Accelerator Program.

Rogers says Haddy can quickly transform imagination into reality, saving a lot of time (and presumably money, although the companies wouldn’t provide specifics). This is in addition to being able to recycle any 3D-printed material for new objects, because once a prop reaches the end of its life, it can be melted down and 3D-printed again into something new.

A 20-foot boat made by a traditional boat-maker can take 1,000 human hours, but not so for the Jungle Cruise canoe prop, says Rogers. “It’s not just faster to make, it’s faster to develop.”

He describes the traditional process, which unfolds over weeks and months: designing the boat, creating and securing a master mold, repeating the mold-making process an average of 30 times per boat and then manufacturing the parts that go onto the boat. 

By comparison, it would take Haddy 70 robot hours in manufacturing. Both processes use a digital file as a starting point. The difference is that Haddy can simply make tweaks to the file and reprint the boat if there are any problems with the final product — no more mold-making necessary.

Nick Blackburn, executive of technical business operations at Disney, says his team went to a series of conventions and conferences to find the right company to partner with on 3D printing. 

“This project right now is the premiere project that we’re working on to show that we can use advanced fabrication, robotic manufacturing and new materials to bring parks to life faster and more effectively,” Blackburn says.

Still, how much of the whimsy remains? Can a 3D-printed boat evoke the same feelings of nostalgia and fantasy as the ride’s existing set pieces? 

During Disney’s Demo Day, I spot what appears to be a wrought iron fence leaning against a tree, and Rogers says it was 3D-printed. Maybe guests won’t even notice if a boat is made of polymer instead of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, and printed by a robot.

Even the light fixtures in the Main Theatre at Walt Disney Studios, where I had just watched a video showcasing various new technologies being used by startups backed by Disney, were made by Haddy for this event. (I had assumed the intricate, glowing blue lights were a remnant of when Frozen 2 was being workshopped in the theater.)

Perhaps 3D-printed objects have a whimsy of their own? CNET Senior Editor James Bricknell, an expert on 3D printing, says yes. The canoe would not only have all the whimsy that an Imagineer can conjure, but would also be manufactured faster and in a far less expensive way — and would definitely float.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Bricknell says. “You can make them look any way you like, just like the normal boats, but instead of injection molding, you can make each one individual for much less cost.”

Disney’s Imagineers are continually seeking new technologies to incorporate into the parks and on Disney cruise ships.

Walt Disney Imagineering is “the tip of the spear when it comes to emerging technologies” like AI, robotics and drones, according to Michael Hundgen, portfolio executive creative producer of Walt Disney Imagineering.

With Haddy, Imagineers are exploring the creation of set pieces for attractions in Disney’s theme parks. Beyond the Jungle Cruise, these products could also include closet doors from Monstropolis — for the new Monsters, Inc. ride being constructed at Walt Disney World — and rock work for various lands, such as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. There might even be the creation of furniture for thousands of hotel rooms across the Orlando property.

“We’re not just creating technology for technology’s sake; we’re doing it to help our creative teams bring the stories from the company to life,” Hundgen says.

So now it’s out with the fiberglass-reinforced plastic and in with the polymer pellets. We’ll have to see whether guests truly can tell the difference between the old props and the new.

Google has just updated the Deep Think mode for its Gemini 3 model, and it’s a massive step forward for chores involving 3D printing. For the unaware, Deep Think mode focuses on enhanced multimodal understanding and reasoning, and its latest upgrade pushes it further for engineering, research, and scientific tasks. The core focus is going from theoretical to practical applications. One of those application areas is 3D printing.

Essentially, Gemini 3 Deep Think is going to turn your rough sketches into a proper 3D model and generate a file ready for feeding to a 3D printer. What you have here is a tool that can basically take a look at physical objects or a 2D image, and turn them into a 3D blueprint while making changes you request in natural language.

Why is this a big step forward?

For anyone interested in 3D printing, even for personal usage, going from idea to execution is a hassle. You must know CAD modeling, own the right software, and have a powerful computing machine to turn those ideas into a 3D file. The whole process is pretty intensive and time-consuming, in addition to posing a steep learning curve. And when it comes to product prototyping in engineering labs, or even companies testing new products, the whole ordeal of physics modeling and prototyping ends up taking a lot of time and resources.

With Gemini 3 Deep Think, Google wants to replace those technical challenges, letting users go from ideas to the 3D printing stage without having to deal with complex physics-based modeling and software. But it’s not just the sheer convenience of turning drawings into 3D files that is going to speed things up.

Iterating on an existing design is an equally crucial step, and Gemini 3 Deep Think is aiming to ease that, as well. The benefits are huge, not just for DIY enthusiasts but also for material scientists, engineers, and product developers.

A huge practical shift for AI

“I used it to engineer new metamaterials and a spider-web inspired bridge design, 3D printed it, then validated the structural integrity with a @nvidia DGX Spark load test. A mind-blowing example of the future of material and architecture design – image in, fabrication-ready design out,” Markus Buehler, an engineering professor at MIT, wrote on X.

Taking a conversation approach to fixing and tweaking the complex models of objects, and then having a CAD model ready for printing in minutes, is a huge step forward. Gemini 3 Deep Think is available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, and it will also be made available via API for the first time to interested companies and researchers.