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Startups & Venture Capital News

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TechCrunch

OpenAI hires new CRO as executive shake-up continues

OpenAI has appointed former Wiz president Dali Rajic as Chief Revenue Officer, replacing Denise Dresser amid a broader executive shake-up. The move signals a strategic shift toward enterprise deployment and repeatable revenue execution as the company prepares for a potential IPO.

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🤖 AI🚀 Startups
TechCrunch

Can social media start over? Bluesky’s CEO and COO deliver their case at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider and COO Rose Wang will discuss the platform's transition toward scaling and execution at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. The company is testing whether a social network built on open protocols can successfully capture market share from AI-driven incumbents like Meta and X.

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🌐 Internet📱 Software🚀 Startups
Gizmodo

Comedians’ Fake Tech Ads Make Fun of ‘Slop Voice’ in AI Marketing

Comedians Harris Alterman and Dave Ross created a series of fake AI advertisements in the New York City subway to parody the vague jargon and minimalist aesthetics of modern tech marketing. The project highlights a growing public fatigue toward "slop voice," where inscrutable terminology like "agentic" and "orchestration layer" obscures actual product utility.

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Gizmodo

Anthropic Is Reportedly Looking to Buy This Seemingly Un-Anthropic-Like Startup

Anthropic is reportedly considering the acquisition of AI lab Decart for approximately $6 billion. The deal centers on Decart's Optimization Stack (DOS), a vertically integrated platform designed to increase hardware utilization and reduce the cost of real-time AI inference and training.

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🤖 AI🚀 Startups☁️ Cloud
Gizmodo

Bill Gates’ Daughter Knew For Months That Her App Claimed Sales It Didn’t Drive, Report Claims

A Bloomberg investigation alleges that shopping startup Phia, co-founded by Phoebe Gates, used 'cookie stuffing' to falsely claim affiliate commissions by injecting codes into background tabs. The report claims executives were aware of the practice for months, highlighting systemic compliance risks and deceptive monetization tactics in the browser extension ecosystem.

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📱 Software🚀 Startups🛒 E-commerce
TechCrunch

AI nuclear power firm Fermi finally has a new CEO

Fermi has appointed former TerraPower CEO Lee McIntire as its new chief executive to lead the development of Project Matador, a nuclear-powered AI campus in Texas. The leadership change follows a period of executive instability and coincides with the company signing TensorWave as its first binding customer lease.

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🌱 Green Tech🤖 AI🚀 Startups
The Verge

The next big indie game publisher is taking some exciting swings

Kinetic Publishing, founded by the Phasmophobia development team, announced five new indie titles scheduled for release in 2027 and 2028. The move signals a strategic expansion from game development into publishing for ambitious indie projects, including a new title from Sam Barlow.

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🎮 Gaming🚀 Startups
Gizmodo

An AI-Powered News Site Scooped Human Journalists. Now What?

AI-native news startup RuntimeWire beat human journalists to a scoop on the Hugging Face hack by using LLMs to monitor feeds and automate reporting. This demonstrates a shift toward high-speed, low-depth informational aggregation that challenges traditional journalism's value proposition and traffic models.

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🤖 AI🚀 Startups🌐 Internet
TechCrunch

AI coding startup Cognition reportedly already in talks to raise at $40B valuation

AI coding startup Cognition is reportedly seeking a new funding round at a $40 billion valuation, driven by a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate for its agent, Devin. The company's growth is fueled by enterprise adoption from clients like NASA and Goldman Sachs for automating legacy software updates and platform migrations.

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🤖 AI🚀 Startups📱 Software
TechCrunch

OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings raises $2B to bring AI to the enterprise

Thrive Holdings raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation to acquire traditional businesses and integrate AI into their workflows via a partnership with OpenAI. This model demonstrates a shift toward 'AI private equity,' where elite engineering teams are embedded into fragmented industries like accounting and infrastructure to automate mission-critical operations.

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