During the well-known accelerators first of two pitch days from the Winter 2024 cohort, a covey of TechCrunch staff tuned in, took notes, traded jokes and slowly whittled away at the dozens of presenting companies to come up with a list of early favorites.AI was, not shockingly, the biggest theme, with 86 out of 247 companies calling themselves an AI startup, but were reaching bubble territory given that 187 mention AI in their pitches.From AI-generated music and grant applications to neat new fintech applications and even some health tech work, there was something for everyone. Max Williamson, Peter Crocker and Greg Miller know this well: Theyve worked between them at The Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where grants are common currency. Co-founded by Ethan Sayre and Matt Tengtrakool, who previously launched a startup to help loan-takers based in Nigeria, Givefront offers banking, spend management and financial governance services for nonprofits. Its also smart that Numo is building a banking product on top of its payroll system so that these contractors, many of whom would be based in countries with currencies that fluctuate frequently, have a more secure place to store their earned funds. Deep fakes are of particular concern for women, as seen by what happened to Taylor Swift and with slow government regulation in this space, I welcome any research and technology focused on trying to address our ever-increasing cybersecurity needs.