Author: Editor-in-Chief

Y Combinator-alum Rulebase is betting that the next wave of automation in financial services won’t be about flashy AI interfaces, but the unglamorous back-office tasks like compliance. The startup, founded in 2024 by Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, two Nigerian engineers who met in London, just raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round led by Bowery Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Commerce Ventures, Transpose Platform VC, alongside several angels. Financial services firms spend enormous amounts of effort on support tickets, resolving disputes, ensuring quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. Rulebase’s software, which it calls an agent coworker, replaces much of the…

Kayak co-founder Paul English is back with a new venture—this time, he’s taking on Calendly. The entrepreneur has launched Supercal, a free scheduling platform that’s designed to make booking meetings more efficient and simple. Supercal was born out of English’s personal experience with the challenges of booking meetings. As a member of eight boards of directors, English says he and others often struggled to coordinate schedules. He then set out to create an email system for booking group meetings and to challenge Calendly by building a similar tool that offered similar functionality, but for free. “Instead of having the…

Amazon is continuing its annual tradition of hosting a second Prime event of the year, called Prime Big Deals Day, in October. Following the pattern established in recent years, the company announced the event will take place on October 7-8, with sales starting at 12:01 AM PT on October 7. Amazon is betting that shoppers will embrace various AI tools during the event, such as its shopping assistant Rufus, along with visual search tools like Amazon Lens and Lens Live, which allows customers to point their cameras at any object around them and find it on the Amazon’s website. Additionally,…

Rodatherm Energy, a new geothermal startup, emerged from stealth Monday with $38 million in funding and a plan to build a pilot plan in Utah. The startup differentiates itself by plumbing its boreholes with a closed loop, likely made of steel, that’s filled with a refrigerant. That contrasts with other enhanced geothermal companies, which tend to use water to transport heat from deep within the Earth. The Series A round was led by Evok Innovations with participation from Active Impact Investments, Giga Investments, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, MCJ, TDK Ventures, Tech Energy Ventures, and Toyota Ventures. Rodatherm…

Amid an ongoing surge in defense tech investing, advanced manufacturing company Divergent Technologies raised $290 million to expand production of missile parts and other specialized components for the military. The round, which values the company at $2.3 billion, was first reported by Bloomberg. Divergent’s customers include major defense primes Lockheed Martin, RTX, and General Dynamics. The new capital, of which $40 million is debt, will help the company expand its manufacturing facilities in Los Angeles and to break ground on a new factory in Oklahoma next year. Divergent’s specialized 3D printers make up to 600 parts, and CEO and co-founder…

Y Combinator hosted its Summer 2025 Demo Day last week, showcasing the latest batch of over 160 startups. As with recent batches, the majority of startups presented AI-centric solutions. However, a clear evolution was evident. Instead of  “AI-powered” products, many companies are now building AI agents or the infrastructure and tools needed to develop them. For instance, this batch had a flurry of voice AI solutions and new businesses focused on helping others monetize the “AI economy” with ads and marketing tools. We spoke with a handful of YC-focused  investors to learn which startups they found most interesting and which…

Kering confirmed a data breach affecting customers of its luxury brands Gucci, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Lauren, and others, on Monday. Hackers stole sensitive customer data such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and the total amount of money they spent in stores all over the world. The BBC first reported the breach. Kering said the hackers did not steal credit card numbers and that it has contacted the customers whose data is part of the breach, without saying how many were affected. The BBC said the hackers behind the hack are an infamous group called ShinyHunters,…

A new iOS app called Awake, designed specifically for heavy sleepers who must complete missions to turn off their alarms, launched Monday. The app is only available to users with the iOS 26 update, which also came out on Monday. Unlike traditional alarm clocks that can be silenced with a simple tap, Awake is intended to actively engage users’ brains to ensure they fully wake up. Once the alarm sounds, users must complete a series of interactive missions to turn it off. These tasks include a variety of challenges, such as rotating the iPhone, completing a set of push-ups,…

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 in San Francisco, industry leaders will explore how founders can build lasting companies while navigating rapid shifts in AI, markets, and consumer behavior. Catch this dynamic panel on the Going Public Stage, where three seasoned leaders will explore how AI is transforming go-to-market (GTM) strategies from the inside out. Meet the speakers Nirav Tolia, CEO, president, and co-founder of Nextdoor, leads one of the most recognized community platforms in tech. He previously co-founded Epinions.com, served as COO at Shopping.com, and is non-executive chair at Hedosophia. Jane Alexander, partner…

OpenAI announced Monday that it’s releasing a new version of GPT-5 to its AI coding agent, Codex. The company says its new model, called GPT-5-Codex, spends its “thinking” time more dynamically than previous models and could spend anywhere from a few seconds to seven hours on a coding task. As a result, it performs better on agentic coding benchmarks. The new model is now rolling out in Codex products — which can be accessed via a terminal, IDE, GitHub, or ChatGPT — to all ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Edu, and Enterprise users. OpenAI says it plans to make the model…