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SaaS & startup news

One column per source, newest on top.

techcrunch

20

Tesla, Uber, and Waymo all get the OK to operate thousands of robotaxis in Nevada

AI data startup Micro1 reaches $500M gross run rate amid AI training boom

Learn what VCs actually want, from a founder who’s raised $1B

Signal

OpenAI is gaining on Anthropic with business users, new data indicates

ChatGPT can now send texts for you with new Apple Messages plug-in

The Enhanced Games — tech’s steroid extravaganza — didn’t pay off, as company posts $60 million loss

OK, can we actually cool data centers with our pee?

Someone targeted security researchers using a fake crypto conference as a lure

Mark buys a castle

Google gives publishers a new way to fight AI-driven traffic losses

Runlayer, Rippling drop lawsuits — but the brouhaha is still a cautionary tale for founders

Castelion hits $13B valuation to mass-produce hypersonic missiles

Signal

Linkdaze’s smart calendar is built to run a household, not just track a schedule

Grok keeps sending gibberish responses to users

The investor’s guide to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Everything you need to know 

A third of web pages published since ChatGPT’s launch show signs of AI authorship, study finds

Signal

Early Cerebras investor Adit Singh joins Mayfield as infrastructure partner

Ramp launches its own AI model router, called Router

Signal

Senators demand answers from TikTok over experiment that disabled safeguards

Meta brings Pocket, an app that lets you vibe-code and share games, to US users

venturebeat

7

Slack wants to drag AI coding out of the terminal and into the group chat

One in five enterprises can't stop a runaway AI agent's spending in real time

NanoClaw comes to Slack, letting you create persistent AI agent teams and colleagues from a single message

Serval’s super agent Catalyst creates roving background agents to identify and fix IT issues before they’re ticketed

TrueFoundry's open source AI agent harness TrueForge boasts 30%-75% cheaper task completion than Claude Managed Agents

VentureBeat names Rob Strechay as its first Lead Analyst, expanding its enterprise AI research push

GLM-5.3 hits the API at $1.4/$4.4 per million tokens

saastr

10

Vertical B2B Leader Owner Acclerated After $100M ARR With Agents. The Key Insight: Every Time a Customer Logs In, Owner Has Failed.

Top 10 Mistakes I See New CROs and VP Sales Make The First Week on the Job

Dear SaaStr: Can A Great Sales Rep Sell Any Product?

5 Interesting Learnings from Atlassian at $6.6 Billion in ARR: 28% Growth, 44% RPO Growth, and a 35% One-Day Stock Pop

Dear SaaStr: One of Our Most Respected Team Members Quit and Folks Are Leaving. What Do I Do?

Rippling Ran 2,100 Scored Agent Runs Per Model on Real Payroll Data. The Cheapest Model Tied the Most Expensive One.

On Your Next Big Deal? Double Your Pricing.

We Churned Notion After 7 Years. Our AI Agent Took Its Last Job.

Dear SaaStr: How Can I Become a Better VP of Sales?

Jason’s Takes on This Week’s 20VC x SaaStr: The Agents Never Suggested Canva, The Meme You Can’t Outrun, and Why I Only Underwrite Founders Now

geekwire

35

Seattle keeps No. 2 spot in closely watched tech talent ranking, with some warning signs

Game review: Investigate a haunted (?) ’90s PC in Seattle-made mystery adventure ‘Desktop Explorer’

Former Microsoft product manager launches bid to end clock change in Washington state, Congress or not

Signal

Seattle weighs ban on ‘surveillance pricing’ at grocery stores, but will it save shoppers money?

We’ve entered Seattle’s Third Act

Inside the satellite factory: Portal Space Systems gets set for the debut of Starburst and Supernova

North America’s biggest book sorter just opened in the Seattle area

Qualtrics cuts jobs in Seattle, Utah and overseas as it absorbs $6.75B acquisition

Signal

Want to know what Jeff Bezos brings to Liverpool FC? Study Amazon’s Leadership Principles

Internal memo: Eight execs out at Expedia Group in AI-driven shakeup

TikTok cuts 75 jobs in Seattle area, hitting e-commerce teams

Zeno Power reserves a spot on Firefly moon lander to demonstrate its atomic space heater

Amazon drone delivery set to expand nationally, reaching nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns this year

Startup Spotlight: Tech consultant returns to the farm with Reroot, connecting growers with consumers

BuyWander moves HQ from Spokane to Seattle area as retail-returns startup grows team to 325 people

Filings show Amazon’s stake in electric trucking company that just struck a deal for 500 Tesla Semis

Seismic completes Highspot merger, says it will keep Seattle and B.C. sites

Signal

How an AirTag planted by a reporter led to a secret Amazon site where old books are cut apart and scanned

Adaptive Biotech co-founder raises $15M for new startup to rethink how AI trains on science

Signal

From engineering to elected office: How a generation of Indian Americans is reshaping civic life

GitHub outage disrupts developers worldwide in latest setback for Microsoft coding platform

Protesters dressed as rogue AI agents target OpenAI in Bellevue with balloons and hot pink vests

Go inside Endurance Energy, the Seattle startup tapping underwater volcanoes for geothermal power

Etzioni on AI: Become a power user

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Aug. 9, 2026

Bezos and Liverpool FC, a Meta vet’s AI startup, Auger’s Dallas move, and the demise of Microsoft’s AI blob

Amazon’s Twitch is using livestreams to train its generative AI, and nobody’s happy with it

Closed Pfizer biopharma facility in Everett gets a new owner and a mystery tenant

Tech Moves: AWS government tech VP departs; Funko, Coinme and DAT Freight add to C-suite

Worth a Reid: Friends launch website and guerrilla campaign to land Seattle tech worker a date

Signal

InduPro raises $77M, begins first human trial of cancer drug

Signal

Startup Spotlight: ScopeSys gives drugmakers a closer look inside genomic medicines

Kalshi ordered to shut down sports and election prediction markets in Washington state by Sept. 2

Blue Origin unveils its Quartz network of ground stations, with RBC Signals serving as a partner

Etzioni on AI: Claude is marking its text — Caveat Promptor!

techstartups

20

Venture Capital & Startup Funding Roundup, August 20, 2026: Aramco Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Google, Y Combinator & More

Signal

Twin1 AI emerges from stealth with $20M in funding to give every professional an AI-powered digital twin

Signal

Satellite startup Muon Space raises $250 million at $1.5 billion valuation to scale space infrastructure

Signal

MIT spinoff Apollo Atomics raises $31M to build factory-made nuclear reactors for AI data centers

Signal

Top Tech News Today, August 20, 2026: Amazon, Google, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Siemens, Stripe, TDK & More

UK AI startup Callosum raises $100M to rethink how AI uses models and chips, backed by Sovereign AI Fund

Signal

Airlock Digital Completes Independent IRAP Assessment at the PROTECTED Level

Venture Capital & Startup Funding Roundup, August 19, 2026: Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, ICONIQ, JPMorgan Chase, Prosus & More

Signal

Nvidia in talks to invest in AI data startup Mercor at $20 billion valuation

Signal

Rundoo raises $30M to help independent retailers take on Home Depot and other big-box chains with AI

Signal

Replit launches ‘Free Mode’ with OpenAI, letting users build AI apps without burning credits

Signal

Prevalent AI raises $22M to fix the enterprise data problem holding back AI agents

Signal

Top Tech News Today, August 19, 2026: Apple, LandSpace, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Samsung, Unitree, Z.ai & More

Former Ping Identity and CyberArk Executives Join AppViewX to Scale Machine and Agent Identity Security

China’s LandSpace lands reusable rocket booster, closing the gap with SpaceX

HireQuotient’s EasySource Delivers 65% Reduction in Time to Fill, for North America’s PE-Owned Retail Giant

Crypto Genesys Goes Live on 1win in Limited Platform Release

Washington DC’s Online Casino Bill Is Not a Land Grab. The Bottleneck Is Federal

Venture Capital & Startup Funding Roundup, August 18, 2026: Andreessen Horowitz, Jane Street, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Tiger Global & More

Signal

$21 billion AI chip startup Etched takes on Nvidia, poaches its engineers and lands Jane Street

Signal

crunchbase news

10

From Humanities To AI: How Ali Hussain Built Fintech Tabs Into A $400M Startup

When Should A Board Consider Selling A Company?

Which Investors Have Backed The Most 2026 Unicorns?

Signal

VCs Pour Billions Into Physical AI As The Next Wave Of AI Investing Takes Shape

Semiconductor Giants Are Busy Backing Startups This Year

The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Data, Neolab, AI Infrastructure, Defense And AI Coding Lead

Signal

40 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In July, The Highest Count In 4 Years 

The Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker

How A Teenage Carpenter Became The Founder Of AI Construction Startup Trunk Tools

Exclusive: ClearJet raises $25M to build the ‘Uber of Cargo’

Signal

devcuration

61

Sequoia Capital: The Venture Firm Built to Compound Conviction

Everything [NYC] 2026

Investors for a Better America 2026

Mindsets of $1B Founders with Ankur Nagpal and Andrew Yeung

The AI Enterprise Conference 2026

Last Call of Summer in Chinatown: Breakpoint LIVE with Sentry

Stone Point and Genstar Invest New Capital in Ascensus

Vals AI Raises $40M to Build AI's Evaluation Layer

Signal

Rillet Raises $100M Series C at $1B Valuation

Signal

trutility Launches With Distributed Sun Investment

Signal

Etched Raises $700M at $21B as Inference Race Accelerates

Signal

ALSO Raises $150M Series D to Scale Small-EV Platform

Signal

Velaura AI Raises $110M for Low-Power AI Compute

Signal

KaliVir Adds $14M to Advance VET3-TGI Cancer Trial

Greenstone Biosciences Receives Breakthrough T1D Grant

Singular Photonics Raises $2.15M in Funding

Signal

Ours Privacy Raises $15M in Series A Funding

Signal

Space Raises $2.4M to Build an AI-Native Filesystem

Signal

Boom Raises $15M Series A for Rental Leasing Platform

Signal

OrbiMed: The Healthcare Investor Built for the Full Capital Stack

Molex Invests in CAEPlus for AI Data Center Cooling

Flexential Secures $800M to Build 135 MW of Capacity

Lucrative AI $500K Growth Pledge, Explained

Camo Hospitality Raises $4.1M for Hotel Room Service

Signal

Arthur Ventures Invests in School-Safety Platform Emergent 3

Smack Technologies Raises $61M Series B for Edge AI

Signal

Abcuro Raises $66M Series D to Retest Ulviprubart in IBM

Signal

InfiniG Raises $5.2M to Scale Indoor Cellular Coverage

Signal

Sonic Fire Tech Raises $15M for Acoustic Fire Safety

Signal

Hopscotch Primary Care Raises $53M Series D

Signal

Ripple Ventures Launches Fund IV for Frontier Technology

Signal

Dell x NVIDIA AI Hackathon, NYC

Tech Pickleball NYC

NYC Ultimate Networking Event: Entrepreneurs & Founders Social

ASRC CAT x HB x Activate NY August Innovators Social

GROW NY 2026

Vero's Undisclosed Growth Round Targets Rental Fraud

Terra Industries Adds $18M, Closes $52M Seed Round

Signal

Wispr Raises $280M Series B at $2B Valuation

Signal

VastAdvisor Closes $1M SAFE Round

Worldscape Raises $10M Seed Extension for Mission AI

Signal

Dimension Energy Secures $857M for Distributed Solar

Medicare Platform Secures $50M Revolving Credit Line

Lemma Raises $2.3M Pre-Seed for AI Agent Reliability

Signal

Takt Raises $9.25M to Rewire Warehouse Operations

Signal

Leal Therapeutics’ $30M Series A Advances CNS Pipeline

Signal

Ranchbot Raises $15.8M in Equity Funding

Signal

MyGolfSpy Acquired to Anchor Pin High Golf Platform

Signal

Higgsfield Raises $400M Series B at $5.4B Valuation

Signal

Trajectory Raises $40M as Sequoia Leads New AI Bet

Signal

NYSE Space Summit

Startup Leadership Salon: AI Created New Legal Risks for Companies

Rebooting Tech Culture: A Fireside Chat with Telle Whitney and Maria Klawe

Roundtable: Test and Validation in the Age of Agentic AI

AI Bubble vs. AI Giants: Earning Buyer Trust in the AI Era

NY AI Engineers: w/ Netflix, Fonzi, & Parable Presenting

CTOs at Scale (South Bay): Agentic Experiments

Startup CTOs (SF): Agentic Experiments

Founding CTOs (SF): Agentic Experiments

The Crimson Circle: Why Investors Are Competing for Harvard Access

Databricks New York R&D Launch Party

Signal

dot la

28

Why Samsonite Just Paid $178.5M for BÉIS

Two LA Startups Raised $2.37B to Build What AI Needs

Signal

How Replify Found Its Niche and an Acquirer

From Uber to Atoms: Travis Kalanick’s $1.7 Billion Return

LA’s New Defense Startup Comes Out Swinging

This LA Startup Wants Dealers to Fight Over Your Car

Not Every Robot Wants Your Job

Snap May Have Finally Found AR’s Moment

Evotrex Raises $30M to Electrify the RV

Signal

Apex Hits $2.3B Valuation as Satellite Demand Grows

Signal

Observable Space Raises $90M to Build Beyond Rockets

Signal

From Rocket Motors to Consumer AI

Heaviside Raises $28M for Autonomous Precision Munitions

Signal

The LA Startup Taking on One of Parenting’s Most Frustrating Problems

Match Goes Niche With $100M Move

Netflix Doubles Down on LA

A $26M Push Into Power in LA

Hermeus Moves In. Uber Lines Up. LA Wins.

Valar Atomics Wants to Power AI, Literally

This LA Startup Just Raised $49M for the Chaos Behind High-Stakes Lawsuits

Signal

Arc’s $50M Push Into Commercial Maritime

Inside Tinder’s Biggest Product Shift in Years

Montgomery Summit Is Back at the Fairmont Miramar

Revel’s Afterburner Round: $150M for Hard Tech Infrastructure

Snap’s New Growth Engine Isn’t Ads

💘Zeitview’s New Valentine : Catching Methane Leaks

Skyryse Raised $300M+ to Do What Most Startups Can’t

Signal

$100M and a Space Force Deal: Northwood’s One-Two Punch

alleywatch

10

The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/19/2026

Signal

The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/18/2026

Signal

The Checkout Moment Costing Health Startups Real Revenue

The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/17/2026

Signal

#NYCtech Week in Review: 8/10/26 – 8/15/26

The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 8/17/26

Signal

The 19 Largest Global Startup Funding Rounds of July 2026

Signal

WashWise Raises $1.2M to Build the Clothing Care Category That Happens Between Washes

Signal

The 12 Largest US Funding Rounds of July 2026

Signal

The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/11/2026

Signal