#ai-startups

#ai-startups

Roy Lee, CEO of AI tech startup Cluely, which makes software for job interviews and work calls, told The New York Times that he leased eight apartments for employees in a recently-built luxury complex situated just a one-minute walk away from the office. The rents in the 16-story building range from $3,000 to $12,000 a month. "Going to the office should feel like you're walking to your living room, so we really, really want people close," Lee told The Times on Thursday.

Wabi will enable users to create their own mini-apps without any coding. "It's a platform to discover, remix, and share, create mini apps for daily life," Kuyda said. "We'll tell a little bit more when we launch publicly. Right now, it's a very close private beta." Wabi is a 10-person team, Kuyda said, and plans to launch its product "soon." The idea for Wabi, a "personal software platform," led Kuyda to step away from Replika, she said.

It's likely safe to say-creative accounting's been around for as long as accounting itself. In 1494, for example, mathematician and 'father of modern accounting' Luca Pacioli wrote of Venetian merchants willfully rendering their ledgers illegible. In the Gilded Age, inflating assets and understating liabilities was standard practice across a booming system. And who can forget the "channel stuffing" of the 2000s?

In less than three years, Midjourney's ARR went from zero to $200 million. In 20 months, ElevenLabs, a voice AI startup, saw its ARR soar from zero to near $100 million. In three months, vibe coding darling Lovable went from zero to $17 million in ARR, this summer hitting $100 million in ARR. In its first six months, Decagon hit "seven figures" in ARR, the company reported.

From model infrastructure to niche applications, AI is producing a new breed of founders and a new set of investor expectations. In this candid conversation on the , at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 - taking place on October 27-29 in San Francisco - top VCs will share what's catching their eye (and what's not), how they're thinking about defensibility in a world of AI monopolies, and what founders need to show to get that next term sheet.

The AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27-29 in San Francisco, is officially locked and loaded, featuring the powerhouses shaping the future of artificial intelligence. Join the leaders from Character.AI, Hugging Face, Mercor, Runway, Wayve, and many more top tech voices, as they tackle everything from generative AI and developer tools to autonomous vehicles, creative machines, and national security.

You are seconds away from signing up for the hottest list in NYC Tech! Sign up today Octane - $24.5M Funding Round Octane, an end-to-end financing platform for powersports equipment purchases, has raised $24.5M in funding according to a recent SEC filing. The filing indicates that there were five investors in this round. Founded by Jason Guss in 2014, Octane has now raised a total of $245.7M in reported equity funding.

Cohere, the Toronto-based startup building large language models for business customers, has long had a lot in common with its hometown hockey team, the Maple Leafs. They are a solid franchise and a big deal in Canada, but they've not made a Stanley Cup Final since 1967. Similarly, Cohere has built a string of solid, if not spectacular, LLMs and has established itself as the AI national champion of Canada.

It's knowing that the city itself wants you to to build something great, is willing to actually put the money where the mouth is, right? And help you do that.

Nominal plugs into a company's existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and helps CFOs and controllers automate tasks to reduce manual work and errors.

"It's such a critical part of the internet," Sinha, a partner at Point72 Ventures, said regarding the creator economy's enduring significance. He noted that initial hype might have subsided but remains confident in its importance.

VAST Data is in discussions for financing that could elevate its valuation to $30 billion, positioning it among the top valuable AI startups.

Cursor is capitalizing on the disparity in the AI startup landscape by acquiring talent from startups like Koala to enhance its enterprise offerings and compete with major players.

Digital health startups raised $6.4 billion in venture capital funding during the first half of 2025, slightly more than the preceding two years' totals.

Belgium's startup ecosystem is thriving with strong public-private partnerships and innovative deep tech, highlighted by AI-first startups positioning it on Europe's innovation map.

While the UK excels at startup creation, we struggle to retain our most promising companies as they scale, said Carolyn Dawson, CEO of the Founders Forum Group.

Cactus's AI aims to assist solopreneurs, who are often overwhelmed, by identifying new opportunities and allowing them to focus on their core business activities.

Join 1,000+ founders, investors, researchers, and innovators on June 5 at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall for a full day of cutting-edge insights, networking, and discovery.

AI is enabling startups to build solutions at a scale and speed that simply wasn't possible before.