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Explore every episode of the podcast TechCrunch Startup News
Dive into the complete episode list for TechCrunch Startup News. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dili raises $21.7M to bring AI compliance to the infrastructure boom; plus Fusion power darling Commonwealth Fusion Systems raises another $1B | 31 juil. 2026 | 00:07:40 | |
Dili's Series A was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Allianz, Rebel Fund, Brick and Mortar Ventures’ Darren Bechtel, and Y Combinator’s Garry Tan.
Also, Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $1 billion as the startup moves toward its first commercial fusion power plant.
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| As AI content floods the internet, Pangram raises $9M to detect it | 30 juil. 2026 | 00:06:39 | |
Pangram has raised $9 million to scale its AI detection software. The startup has also released a new AI text detection model, Pangram 4, and an AI image detection model in research preview.
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| MCP startup Runlayer accuses Rippling of stealing its product idea; plus, Ozlo’s Sleepbuds 2 build on Bose’s sleep earbud legacy | 29 juil. 2026 | 00:08:46 | |
Runlayer is suing Rippling after Rippling evaluated the startup's MCP gateway product and then opted to build one itself.
Also, Ozlo unveiled Sleepbuds 2, an updated version of its original product that tackles key areas of improvement, including battery life, connectivity, and sound quality.
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| Antares raises $470M to build nuclear reactors for the US military; plus, Thea Energy lands $20M federal grant to build its magnets for fusion reactors | 28 juil. 2026 | 00:07:02 | |
Antares has raised $470 million to build small modular reactors — 100 kW to 1 MW — for U.S. Air Force bases.
Also, fusion power startup Thea Energy snagged a $20 million award from ARPA-E to scale production of its high-temperature superconducting magnets.
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| AI chip startup Etched defies skeptics; plus, Imagi raises $4.5M to help teach students how to vibe code | 24 juil. 2026 | 00:09:09 | |
Etched, founded by three Harvard dropouts, has created new chips and memory components that speed up inference on any AI model -- no GPUs required, it says.
Also, Imagi announced a $4.5 million seed round, with investors including Brighteye Ventures, Day One Capital, and artist Wil.i.am.
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| Colossal Biosciences reportedly in talks to raise new capital at $20B–$30B valuation; plus, Passionfroot raises $15M to expand its B2B creator marketplace to the US | 23 juil. 2026 | 00:07:00 | |
Colossal Biosciences is in talks to raise new funding at a $20 billion to $30 billion valuation, Axios reported.
Also, Passionfroot, a German startup building a marketplace connecting B2B creators with brands, has raised $15M in a Series A round led by Insight Partners.
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| Gritt exits stealth with $34 million for robots to build solar plants; Bluecore Energy raises $10M to build portable nuclear reactors | 22 juil. 2026 | 00:09:31 | |
Gritt is coming out of stealth with $34 million and plan to automate the hardest tasks on construction sites.
Also, maritime nuclear energy startup Bluecore Energy has raised $10 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Slauson & Co.
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| Nuclear startup Valar Atomics in talks to raise new funding at $6B valuation; plus, Databricks hits $188B valuation, extending its run as AI’s favorite second act | 21 juil. 2026 | 00:09:01 | |
The potential deal highlights a growing trend of complex, multi-stage funding rounds that mask true entry prices.
Also, Databricks has remade its image into an AI company and has published research on the cost savings of open weight AI models for coding.
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| Applied Computing wants to give oil and gas operators an AI model for the entire plant, plus, AI-powered travel agency Fora hits unicorn status | 20 juil. 2026 | 00:07:31 | |
Applied Computing has raised a $20M Series A to build a foundation AI model for the oil, gas and petrochemical industry.
Also, travel agency Fora announced a $60 million Series D round led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, valuing the company at $1 billion.
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| Why AMI Labs’ Alexandre LeBrun won’t call his AI ‘AGI’ or ‘superintelligence’; plus, Lululemon backs nylon recycling startup Syntetica | 17 juil. 2026 | 00:11:47 | |
While everyone in AI is chasing "superintelligence." Alexandre LeBrun, CEO of Yann LeCun’s world model startup, AMI Labs, dismisses the word.
Also, Syntetica, a French startup that has developed a novel approach to recycling nylon, has already obtained big-name partners and investors.
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| Rime picks up $24M Series A to help enterprises field customer calls; plus, the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not models | 16 juil. 2026 | 00:11:25 | |
Rime is handling over 100 million calls each month across multiple companies
Also, Anthropic-backed Ode launches as AI labs bet that embedding forward-deployed engineers inside enterprises is the key to accelerating enterprise AI adoption.
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| Hermes agent maker Nous Research in talks for new funding at $1.5B valuation; plus, Pinwheel launches a retro-inspired landline phone for kids | 15 juil. 2026 | 00:06:47 | |
The company is raising at least $75 million, led by Robot, with significant participation from USV and other prominent investors.
Also, kid-friendly tech company Pinwheel announced the launch of a new landline phone designed to let children stay connected without the distractions of a smartphone.
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| Phia accused of ‘cookie stuffing,’ an AI agent startup just let its agent run its $100 million fundraise, plus, Oratomic to build a viable quantum computer that needs only 20K qubits | 13 juil. 2026 | 00:07:31 | |
Phia, the shopping startup founded by Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe, and her friend, Sophia Kianni, is under fire for a practice known as “cookie stuffing,” which helped the product receive commissions and credit for sales it did not actually generate, per a Bloomberg investigation.
Also, Lyzr, a startup that builds AI agents for enterprises, used its own AI agent to raise a $100 million round — proof, evidently, that the product actually works.
Plus, the new startup raised $300 million co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Khosla Ventures.
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| AI chip maker SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, 5 months after last mega round; plus, popular open source AI developer tool Ollama raises $65M | 10 juil. 2026 | 00:10:37 | |
AI chip maker SambaNova has raised at an $11 billion valuation months after Intel was rumored to be trying to buy it for about $1.6 billion.
Plus, Benchmark-backed Ollama has amassed 176,000 stars, and nearly 17,000 forks on Github by helping developers easily run AI on their PCs.
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| Venus Aerospace raises $90M Series B to build a new kind of rocket engine; plus, Blue Origin reportedly raising $10B at $130B valuation | 09 juil. 2026 | 00:06:27 | |
Build a new kind of rocket engine, and the world will beat a path to your door.
Also, Blue Origin is raising $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation from Coatue Asset Management, Bezos himself and other big-name investors, the New York Times reported.
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| Bidbus pits dealerships against each other to bid on your used car; Savi’s app aims to protect consumers from realistic AI scams like kidnappers demanding ransom | 08 juil. 2026 | 00:12:06 | |
Bidbus, which lets dealerships bid on used cars, has raised $15 million in a Series A round that was led by early-stage mobility fund Ibex Investors.
Also, Savi just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday.
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| Station F ramps up as a launchpad for Europe’s hottest AI startups; plus, Smart glasses maker Even Realities hits $1B valuation | 07 juil. 2026 | 00:09:51 | |
Station F, the Paris-based startup hub founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel in 2017, is gearing up for a new edition of its selective acceleration F/ai program that will cement its role as a stepping stone for AI startups.
Also, Even Realities, an ex-Apple team building camera-free smart glasses, raised $150M from Meituan and Tencent at a $1B valuation.
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| Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage; plus, Thiel Capital’s Jack Selby nabs stakes in hot startups | 06 juil. 2026 | 00:06:20 | |
As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, Midjourney is seeking to compel those studios to reveal how they use AI themselves.
Also, Selby's VC firm Copper Sky Capital is currently raising a $300 million second fund, according to a regulatory filing.
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| Nvidia competitor Etched hits $5B valuation, $1B in sales for AI chip; plus, Indian tech tycoon bets $30M of his own money to build AI alternative to Microsoft Office | 02 juil. 2026 | 00:07:44 | |
Nvidia AI chip competitor Etched says it has already booked $1 billion under contract for the inference systems powered by its chip.
Also, Neo is Bhavin Turakhia’s fifth venture and his latest involving enterprise software. This time he's taking on Microsoft Office, Google Apps with AI.
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| Arena, the AI leaderboard everyone uses, is now a $100M business | 01 juil. 2026 | 00:04:39 | |
The startup, which runs a popular free AI leaderboard, launched its commercial service just last September.
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| Corgi says it didn’t steal an open source product; plus, Omen AI’s plan to optimize data centers is all wet | 30 juin 2026 | 00:10:14 | |
Corgi became embroiled in controversy when Papermark accused it of stealing its software. Corgi says it did not, raising new questions about vibe coding.
Also, Omen AI raised a $31 million Series A to monitor chip coolant and stop bacterial outbreaks in data centers.
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| Robotaxis drive miles just to get cleaned and charged; Aseon Labs wants to fix that; plus, General Intuition bets that video games can train AI agents for the real world | 26 juin 2026 | 00:16:12 | |
Aseon Labs, which came out of Y Combinator's 2026 spring cohort, has raised $10 million from Crane Venture Partners and others.
Also, General Intuition has raised $320 million to scale AI trained on millions of hours of gameplay, betting action data can help AI develop something closer to human intuition.
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| Slate Auto’s radically simple electric truck starts at $24,950; also, Valor Equity Partners looks to raise a $2.5B Fund VII | 25 juin 2026 | 00:06:06 | |
The Jeff Bezos-backed startup finally revealed more pricing details for its debut EV, including a $29,950 starting price for the SUV variant, and boosted the base range to 205 miles.
Plus, new details have emerged about Valor's latest fund, which last year announced it was raising an unspecified amount of capital.
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| Fika Jobs raises $4M to build a video-first hiring platform where AI agents interview candidates | 24 juin 2026 | 00:05:34 | |
Fika Jobs announced on Tuesday a $4 million pre-seed round, which will be used to continue developing the platform, grow the team, and prepare for a wider launch later this year.
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| Seedcamp raises $320M for its new fund to expand its US footprint | 23 juin 2026 | 00:03:47 | |
After 18 years of focusing on Europe, early-stage investor Seedcamp said that it has raised $320 million for its latest fund which will see it expanding its presence in the United States.
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| He made your free video player run smoothly. Now he’s doing that for robots. | 22 juin 2026 | 00:05:17 | |
French serial entrepreneur and open-source legend Jean-Baptiste Kempf has been building Kyber, an infrastructure layer to control remote devices in real time.
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| World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names; plus, General Intuition in talks to raise $300M at around $2B valuation | 19 juin 2026 | 00:05:09 | |
World models are the next big thing in AI beyond LLMs and, with this round, Odyssey has cemented itself as one of the startups to watch.
Also, General Intuition is in talks to raise around $300 million at a roughly $2 billion valuation from backers including Jeff Bezos. The startup trains AI agents on spatial-temporal reasoning.
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| SpaceX alum nabs $22M to turn rocket engines into geothermal power plants | 18 juin 2026 | 00:04:57 | |
Critical Energy is turning rocket engines into geothermal power plants, and it wants to build 300 GW per year by 2045.
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| Startup Foundation Alloy developed a new alloying technique; plus, Probably raises $9M to build a more reliable kind of AI | 17 juin 2026 | 00:08:13 | |
Instead of heating metals, Foundation Alloy beats them into submission. The startup has raised $22 million to scale up production of its alloys.
Also, the company Probably wants to prevent hallucinations and factual errors from reaching users, and achieve accuracy on par with deterministic systems.
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| Jeff Bezos’s Prometheus raises $12B to build an ‘artificial general engineer’ for the physical world; plus, Theker building a factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything | 15 juin 2026 | 00:06:54 | |
The new round values the physical AI startup that aims to automate heavy engineering and drug design at $41 billion.
Also, unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form — think Boston Dynamics — Theker's machines are built to be reconfigured.
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| Endurance Energy raises $54M to harness a massive untapped energy source; Jedify raises $24M to help companies arm AI agents with context on their businessplus, | 12 juin 2026 | 00:12:11 | |
SpaceX alumni Andrew Redd is betting the ocean has vast amounts of untapped geothermal energy.
Also, the funding round was led by Norwest, with participation from S Capital VC, Cerca Partners, and Oceans Ventures. Snowflake Ventures also participated as a strategic investor.
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| Datadog veterans launch AI coding startup Niteshift on a bet against Big AI lock-in; plus, Zest launches a restaurant discovery app | 11 juin 2026 | 00:10:40 | |
AI coding agent startup Niteshift has raised a $7 million seed round from a who's who of angels. It's betting companies will want power over, not lock-in, with model makers.
Also, backed by Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Kindred Ventures, Zest uses transaction data and AI to generate restaurant recommendations based on users’ real dining habits and the places they frequent.
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| Evotrex raises $30M to build the RV that doesn’t need a charging station; plus, so long FAANG and hello to MANGOS | 10 juin 2026 | 00:06:43 | |
The startup is one of many entering the RV space, but it's banking on a hybrid power system that can go far beyond campsites.
Also, with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all eyeing massive public debuts, the tech industry may soon have a new class of corporate overlords — and a new acronym to match. Say goodbye to FAANG and hello to MANGOS.
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| Helion, the Sam Altman-backed fusion startup, raises $465M to build a power plant for Microsoft | 08 juin 2026 | 00:04:35 | |
Fusion startup Helion is racing to complete a power plant for Microsoft by 2028. A fresh infusion of cash should help with that.
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| Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is. | 05 juin 2026 | 00:09:04 | |
The California startup released the fourth-generation of its home assistance robot, Stretch.
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| Brynn Putnam's Board raised $20M; plus, ZeroDrift raises $10M to protect AI models from themselves | 04 juin 2026 | 00:06:38 | |
Board, the startup building what it calls "together tech" designed to bring people into the same room, has closed a Series A led by Union Square Ventures.
Also, a new AI compliance service sits between AI models and end users to flag and replace any messages that might present a compliance problem.
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| Pacific Fusion’s latest prototype packs 440 gigawatts into an 80-nanosecond burst; plus, Rocket engine startup Impulse raises $500 million to hire people, not AI | 03 juin 2026 | 00:08:34 | |
Pacific Fusion's sub-scale prototype delivered enormous amounts of power in a flash, setting the company up for its demonstration power plant.
Also, engineering physical systems still depends on human talent, according to Impulse Space president Eric Romo.
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| Snap alums unveil Ghost Angels fund; Defense tech darling Mach Industries hits $1.8B valuation | 02 juin 2026 | 00:08:44 | |
A group of 20 Snap alumni has come together to launch a fund called Ghost Angels to back the next generation of social media.
Also, in a wild ride for 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, Mach Industries has raised another $300 million. It already has five autonomous vehicles in development and completed a major acquisition.
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| This chip startup just raised $135M on a bet that AI’s biggest bottleneck isn’t compute — it’s memory; plus, Glean’s top line crosses $300M as AI budget-cutting becomes its major selling point | 01 juin 2026 | 00:09:26 | |
South Korean chip startup Xcena is betting that AI's real bottleneck is not compute, but memory.
Also, the enterprise AI search startup tripled its annual revenue even as tech giants entered the category.
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| Corgi doubled in value in 3 weeks; plus, Anthropic raises $65 Billion, nears $1T valuation ahead of IPO | 29 mai 2026 | 00:08:00 | |
Insurance tech Corgi announced today an $106 million Series B1 raise, valuing the company at $2.6 billion, just three weeks after announcing a $160 million Series B.
Also, Anthropic has closed a $65 billion Series H round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, marking what could be the AI startup's final private fundraise before a highly anticipated IPO.
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| SOND, a sleep tech startup, exits stealth with $7M; plus, Airbnb-backed WeRoad raises $58M | 28 mai 2026 | 00:11:31 | |
SOND, a startup led by Bose’s former head of sleep products, emerged from stealth with $7M in funding for its AI-powered sleep earbuds.
Also, WeRoad, the Milan-based group travel startup, has raised a $58 million Series C round led by Airbnb as it prepares for its first major expansion outside Europe
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| Amazon fulfillment competitor Stord raises $250M at $3B valuation; OpenRouter more than doubles valuation to $1.3B in a year | 27 mai 2026 | 00:04:34 | |
Stord offers a network of physical warehouses and inventory management software for e-commerce. It bills itself as a sort of anti-Amazon, giving brands "the speed to compete" while still owning their customer relationships.
Also, OpenRouter has raised a $113 million Series B led by CapitalG. Its 5x growth in usage over six months indicates the multi-AI-model future is here.
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| Maka Kids is redefining kids’ screen time with a streaming app; also, Peec, one of Berlin’s rising startups, more than doubled ARR | 26 mai 2026 | 00:09:52 | |
Maka Kids is building a streaming app for children ages zero to six featuring content designed for healthy development. The startup has now raised $3 million in seed funding to scale its platform.
Also, Peec, which helps brands track their presence in AI searches, offers proof of a key trend among European startups.
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| This young startup is taking on a fragrance industry that hasn’t changed in almost half a century | 25 mai 2026 | 00:06:22 | |
This young startup is taking on a fragrance industry that hasn’t changed in a almost half century
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| Imperagen raises £5 million to use quantum physics, AI on enzyme engineering; plus, Beauty booking startup Fresha hits $1 billion valuation | 22 mai 2026 | 00:06:07 | |
Biotech company Imperagen announced on Thursday a £5 million ($6.7 million) seed round led by PXN Ventures, with participation from IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone.
Also, beauty and wellness booking marketplace Fresha says it has raised $80 million investment from KKR’s Next Generation Technology Growth fund, KKR's growth equity arm.
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| Quartermaster is building a maritime hive mind; plus, NanoClaw creator turns down $20M buyout offer | 21 mai 2026 | 00:10:21 | |
The Arlington, Virginia-based startup has raised $42 million to equip ships with sensors that blow the current AIS tech out of the water.
Also, NanoCo, the company behind OpenClaw alternative NanoClaw, has raised a $12 million seed after a viral launch, the founders tell TechCrunch.
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| Status AI raises $17M to turn social media into interactive entertainment; plus, Stilta helps companies rediscover the patents they forgot they had | 20 mai 2026 | 00:08:51 | |
Interactive social media site Status announced Tuesday $17 million in combined seed and Series A funding, with investors including General Catalyst, YC, LightShed Ventures, and Abstract.
Also, Stilta announced Tuesday a $10 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round include YC and operators from companies like OpenAI, Legora, and Lovable.
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| South Korea’s LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses; plus, Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo | 19 mai 2026 | 00:08:07 | |
A lens the size of a thumbnail — and the South Korean startup that makes it could become the optical backbone of the AI glasses era.
Also, AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic.
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| Lovable just backed a company that’s looking to bring vibe coding to hardware; plus, Meridian Ventures launched $35M fund to back MBA-deferred founders | 18 mai 2026 | 00:05:06 | |
Hardware company Atech raised $800,000 in pre-seed funding, including from a16z’s scout fund, Sequoia Scout Fund, and Nordic Makers.
Plus, Meridian Ventures, the venture firm founded by Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney, announced on Friday the raise of a $35 million second fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage companies founded by those who have deferred MBAs.
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| Khosla Ventures is betting $10M on Ian Crosby; plus, Cerebras raises $5.5B, then stock pops $108% | 15 mai 2026 | 00:07:13 | |
Crosby is building Synthetic, a fully autonomous AI bookkeeping service for other startups.
Also, a year ago, it looked like this day would never happen for Cerebras.
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