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A hub for startup news, trends, and insights, covering the global startup ecosystem for founders, investors, and innovators. Community: @startupdis Buy Ads: @strategy (this is our only account).
📈 Figma stock pops on IPO debut, hits $47B market cap
Figma finally went public—and Wall Street couldn’t get enough. The design platform opened at $33, surged to $124, and closed at $115.50, ending the day with a $47B market cap.
🔸 IPO demand was so high, trading was briefly halted due to volatility
🔸 Retail buyers joked online about being allocated just 1 share
🔸 Market cap doubled Adobe’s failed $20B acquisition offer from 2023
🔸 After-hours trading stayed hot, with continued price action
Figma didn’t just rebound from a blocked deal—it sprinted past it.
🚀 Australia's first orbital rocket lasted just 14 seconds in the air
Eris, the 30-ton rocket from Gilmour Space, launched from Bowen Spaceport — and promptly crashed. But the company is calling it a win.
🔸 First Australian-made rocket to launch from local soil
🔸 Flew for 14 seconds, with 23 seconds of engine burn
🔸 Crash caused no injuries or environmental harm
🔸 Valuable flight data collected for next test
🔸 Prior attempts were delayed by power surges and high winds
🔸 CEO: "Getting off the pad is a huge step forward"
💡Even failure is a milestone when you're building a space industry from scratch. Australia's now officially in the orbital launch game — and they’re just getting started.
🫂How small teams build big revenue
A new report from Growth Unhinged breaks down how early-stage SaaS startups structure their teams.
The takeaway?
You don’t need a huge headcount to hit $1M ARR.
Startups under $1M typically run lean — with just 7 people.
That’s your classic "two-pizza team."
Here’s what that usually looks like:
🔸 3 engineers
🔸 1 product/design
🔸 1 sales
🔸 1 support
🔸 1 admin/ops
Some skip marketing hires early on — founders often handle GTM themselves. Others outsource one-off tasks instead of hiring full-time.
The key is not just who you hire, but how clearly each role maps to revenue. If a founder understands that every teammate should drive profit, not just burn cash — investors will notice.
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🔑 30 Key Terms Every Founder Should Know
Project management isn’t just for PMs — every startup founder runs dozens of micro-projects every week.
This cheat sheet covers 30 must-know terms: from backlog and scope creep to MVP, burn rate, and milestone tracking.
A great refresher or onboarding tool for early team members.
💰OpenAI-backed health AI hits $1B+ valuation
Ambience Healthcare, a startup building AI tools to eliminate doctors’ admin work, has raised $243M at a valuation above $1B.
The round was led by a16z and Oak HC/FT, with support from the OpenAI Startup Fund and others.
🔸 The product uses OpenAI models to transcribe visits, prep records, and generate billing codes
🔸 Clients include Cleveland Clinic, Houston Methodist, and St. Luke’s
🔸 CEO says goal is to “fully offload paperwork” so doctors focus only on care
🔸 OpenAI’s deeper push into biotech includes Chai-1, Retro Biosciences, and more
A quiet reminder: OpenAI isn’t just building AGI — it’s building billion-dollar verticals.
🎬 “Bolt for video”: AI video editing by text command
Tailored Labs won the $1M Bolt hackathon with a tool that turns video editing into a conversation.
Built on the Bolt platform, it lets users edit videos just by describing changes in plain English — no timeline dragging or manual cuts.
🔸 One-Shot Generation: creates a finished video from raw clips in minutes
🔸 Chat-to-Edit: instantly applies text-based commands to the timeline
🔸 Smart Media Library: uses AI to find takes, trim footage, and sort scenes
🔸 Professional Timeline: supports multi-track editing and transitions
🔸 Cloud Rendering: renders high-quality videos via Remotion, no fan noise
More winners from the hackathon 👉 here
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🛠 Google launches Opal — an AI tool for "vibe coding"
Google is testing Opal, a new AI-powered app builder under Google Labs.
You describe what you want — Opal generates a working web app.
Users can edit each step or tweak the app visually. Final projects can be published and shared via link, and there’s a remixable project gallery.
No coding skills required — Opal is built for devs and non-devs alike.
Early access now live in the US.
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🤖 China’s Unitree launches humanoid robot for just $5,900
Chinese robotics firm Unitree has started selling its R1 humanoid robot at an industry-low price of $5,900 — compared to $200,000 for top-tier models in 2024 (Morgan Stanley).
The 25kg robot has 26 joints and comes with AI-based speech and image recognition.
🔸 Cheapest humanoid robot on the market
🔸 Includes voice and vision AI capabilities
🔸 Aims to rival US players like Boston Dynamics
🔸 Low price could drive mass adoption across home and industrial use
China’s humanoid push is accelerating — and now it’s getting affordable.
⭕️ Why Smart Startups Use Growth Loops, Not Funnels
Funnels worked when ads were cheap. Push users in, optimize conversion, repeat. But today’s growth environment is different — CAC is high, privacy changes killed targeting, and funnels leak.
That’s why the best startups now build growth loops.
A growth loop is a system where every user action creates value that brings in the next user. It’s not push — it’s pull. Calendly links, Loom videos, GPTs, Substack posts — each one spreads the product by being used.
You don’t need a new ad budget every month. You need a loop that spins on its own.
🧭 The 7 Growth Loop Archetypes
🔸 Viral — users share content that attracts others (TikTok, Spotify)
🔸 Referral — incentives drive invites (Dropbox, Revolut)
🔸 Usage-based — every use exposes new users (Loom, Calendly)
🔸 UGC — users create content that brings in more (Reddit, Substack)
🔸 Collaboration — team tools that spread through invites (Notion, Figma)
🔸 Sales-led — revenue funds sales, which closes more revenue (Salesforce)
🔸 Product-led — the product expands through usage alone (Slack, ChatGPT)
🧮 OpenAI won the math olympiad
A new reasoning-focused model from OpenAI solved 5 out of 6 problems at the International Math Olympiad — a feat no other AI has ever achieved.
🔸 9 hours, no internet, full proofs required — judged like a human
🔸 Previous LLMs couldn’t even get close to this level
🔸 OpenAI’s new model beat most top national teams
🔸 It didn’t just guess — it reasoned through problems and wrote full solutions
🔸 Acing the hardest high-school math exam on earth
The era of neuro-calculators is here.
🤖 RoboNeo — a Visual AI Agent That Actually Does Stuff
RoboNeo is a Chinese startup building a real AI design agent — with chat + Figma-style canvas.
You drop files, describe the task, and it does the work: animates, edits, styles, adds music.
One prompt = full video.
Example: Timelapse of world capitals, auto-generated.
Features:
🔸 Animate images into 10s videos
🔸 Stylize visuals (anime, watercolor, etc.)
🔸 Upscale, retouch, add/remove objects
🔸 Create editable design mockups
🔸 Generate music and basic sound
Limits:
🔸 10–20 free generations daily
🔸 $2.99 = 24h unlimited
🔸 Output: 1248×704, 10s per video
Try it here 👉 RoboNeo 👈
Feels like Midjourney + Sora.
Still rough with text and audio — but fast, visual, and promising.
🧠 Turn ChatGPT into anyone — from therapist to web developer
A new site just dropped with hundreds of prompts that instantly turn ChatGPT into any expert you want.
🔸 Become a tutor, lawyer, coder, coach — pick a role
🔸 One click and you’ve got an AI investor or language teacher
🔸 Just copy the prompt and paste it into ChatGPT
🔸 Works with the free version too
Try it here 👉 Agentic Workers 👈
Tried any good ones? Drop your favorites.
🧠 Real-time AI avatars just got a serious upgrade
While Musk experiments with Grok-powered characters like Ayna and Rudy, Hedra has quietly launched a real-time avatar engine — and it might change the game.
🔸 Costs just $0.05/min — 15x cheaper than HeyGen or Character.ai
🔸 Built on LiveKit infra with sub-100ms latency
🔸 Compatible with any LLM or TTS model — not tied to one stack
🔸 Lets you create avatars from a single image in any style: photorealistic, animated, or stylized
Live demo now available 👈
If this holds up, we’re looking at the future of interactive AI interfaces — cheap, low-latency, and model-agnostic.
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🎵 ChatGPT promised a feature — so the founder built it
The music app Soundslice never supported ASCII tablature. But ChatGPT kept telling users it did — until the founder gave in and made the hallucination real.
🔸 Soundslice helps musicians practice by syncing notation with video
🔸 It also has an AI sheet scanner that turns photos of standard sheet music into interactive scores
🔸 Users began uploading ASCII guitar tabs — text-based notation like —3—5—7—
🔸 ChatGPT had confidently told people these would work on Soundslice
🔸 Founder Adrian Holovaty discovered the bug after spotting strange uploads in error logs
🔸 He faced a choice: publish disclaimers everywhere — or make it real
🔸 In the end, he built the feature, calling it a “weird case of being forced by misinformation”
It’s likely the first time an AI hallucination turned into an actual product feature. But in a world where LLMs drive user behavior at scale, this might become the new normal.
🚕 Taxi drivers are hacking the system — with helper apps
As Uber and Lyft squeeze driver margins, a new class of “driver aid” apps is emerging to fight back quietly, but effectively.
Apps like Mystro, GigU, and Maxymo intercept incoming ride requests and enhance them with real-time info: estimated hourly earnings, mileage, tax impact, and a color-coded profitability score. Green means go — red means decline.
🔸 Drivers can set filters and let the app auto-decline bad rides
🔸 Monthly subscriptions cost up to $20, but net earnings rise
🔸 Apps now bypass detection by using Android accessibility services — originally designed for disabled users
🔸 This lets them read screen data and “click” buttons invisibly
🔸 Uber sued GigU in Brazil, but lost on appeal — even regulators backed GigU
Drivers are using tech to fight back — not strikes. It's automation from the bottom up. A shadow market for worker tooling is growing, one ride at a time.
📣 Why Sam Altman Says You Shouldn’t Track User Growth Early On
In the early stages of a startup, it’s not about how many users you have — it’s about how much they love your product.
Altman explains why obsession with absolute growth is a mistake, and what you should focus on instead:
🔸 A small group of obsessed users is better than a wide pool of casual ones
🔸 Deep engagement signals product-market fit more than raw numbers
🔸 Retention and frequency are your best early metrics
🔸 Word-of-mouth is the ultimate validation
Almost all great companies start with a product that a few people love.
🤖 Neural Agent — your AI-powered desktop assistant
A powerful open-source AI agent that can take full control of your computer: search files, browse the web, fill forms, send emails, and more.
🔸 Automates all routine tasks while you code, design, or think
🔸 Runs on Claude, GPT-4, Azure OpenAI, and Bedrock — top-tier models
🔸 Fully integrated UI — type commands into a small bar and get results instantly
🔸 Simple setup with an easy-to-use API and step-by-step install guide
👉 check it out 👈
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🧠 The Perplexity story: From DeepMind intern to Google’s challenger
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas is quietly building what Google once dreamed of—an “answer engine” that replaces search.
And the industry is starting to notice.
🔸 Srinivas grew up in the same Indian city as Sundar Pichai—his childhood hero
🔸 Inspired by Google’s origin story, he started Perplexity after a stint at DeepMind
🔸 Unlike OpenAI, the team refused to build their own model—focusing instead on product and UX
🔸 Their AI-native browser Comet is gaining traction with early adopters
🔸 Investors now value the company at $18B, while acquirers circle
Perplexity may be the most credible threat to Google’s search empire—and it’s still playing the long game.
⚙️ 100 free tools for every task
A single site with tools for all your daily needs — no sign-up, all free:
🔸 Text tools — grammar check, plagiarism, converters
🔸 PDF tools — merge, compress, split
🔸 Video tools — trim, convert, resize
🔸 Image tools — crop, remove background, compress
🔸 And many others across dozens of categories
Grab it here 👉 ezytoolz.com 👈
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🧠 1000+ ChatGPT prompts for every task
A massive prompt library for studying, coding, business, medicine, entertainment, and more.
Grab it here 👉 superhuman.ai 👈
Well-organized, easy to use, and completely free.
🚕 Pony AI goes 24/7 with robotaxis in three major cities
Unlike Tesla’s zigzagging path to full autonomy, China’s Pony AI is moving steadily. In Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, the last restriction on commercial robotaxi service has been lifted — they now operate 24/7, including overnight hours.
That’s a big step: night coverage improves access for users and signals real confidence in the tech.
🔸 50M km driven fully autonomously
🔸 Fleet to exceed 1,000 vehicles by year-end
🔸 Coverage expanded across three of China’s biggest urban markets
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is still stuck in the sandbox.
💡Investor fear beats investor love
Your goal isn’t to be liked by investors.
Your goal is to make them afraid to miss you.
You want them thinking:
Damn, if we don’t invest, this might become the next Uber — and we’ll have missed it.
⚖️ Law ChatGPT — AI that reads contracts so you don’t have to
Law ChatGPT helps you review documents, flag suspicious language, and explain legal terms.
🔸 Spots risky clauses in contracts
🔸 Explains complex legal jargon
🔸 Handles PDFs, agreements, and official docs
👉 LawChatGPT 👈
No more paying lawyers just to tell you not to sign.
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🧠 The ultimate AI agent playground — live on GitHub
If you want to master AI agents, don’t just read whitepapers — run the code.
This GitHub repo is a hands-on goldmine of real, open-source AI agents you can test, break, and rebuild.
🔸 Curated directory of AI agents grouped by type (starter, RAG, multimodal, etc.)
🔸 Explore agents for investment analysis, product launches, research, travel, and more
🔸 Includes autonomous loops, multi-agent teams, browser and GitHub automation
🔸 Agents are plug-and-play — designed to be cloned and tested right from GitHub
🔸 Highlights: Self-evolving agents, financial modeling, full-stack code planners
👉 Awesome LLM Apps 👈
If you're serious about building, this is your lab.
🧠 Top 5 prompts to get better results from ChatGPT
Simple tweaks in how you ask can turn basic answers into powerful insights.
Here are 5 prompts that upgrade your conversations with AI:
🔸 “Let’s think about this differently” — avoids generic replies
🔸 “What am I missing here?” — surfaces hidden angles
🔸 “Break it down step by step” — gives full process, not just the answer
🔸 “What would you do in my position?” — adds clarity when you're stuck
🔸 “What else should I know?” — captures blind spots you didn’t consider
Save this list — and use it often.
📚 Readwell is building the IMDb for books — with AI on top
Picking a new book takes effort. Movies last two hours. Books take days. And if you're the kind who has to finish, a bad pick hurts even more.
That’s why Readwell is gaining traction — it’s like IMDb, but for books, powered by AI.
🔸 Snap a photo of your bookshelf to get instant AI-curated picks
🔸 Get a “Read Match Score” to see how well a book fits your vibe
🔸 Search by mood, idea, or theme — not just genre or author
🔸 Skip long reviews — AI summaries give you the core in seconds
🔸 Build and share smart book playlists with friends
Goodreads may own the UGC side of the market, but lacks the AI ease-of-use modern readers expect. If Readwell can scale, it might win the crowd that just wants fast, smart book recs — no friction, no fluff.
What’s your go-to for picking your next read — an app, a friend, or GPT?
🧪 Latent Labs brings push-button protein design to the browser
Latent Labs has launched Latent-X — a web-based AI model that lets anyone generate novel protein structures with a click.
Built by ex-DeepMind researchers, it aims to democratize protein engineering with atomic-level precision.
🔸 No-code platform generates protein binders and macrocycles from a simple target
🔸 Lab tests show 91–100% hit rates for macrocycles and 10–64% for mini-binders
🔸 Delivers picomolar to micromolar binding affinities, not just predictions like AlphaFold
🔸 Free access for academia and startups; licensing for commercial use
With traditional wet-lab work costing millions and taking months, Latent-X offers a software-like approach to biotech — fast, cheap, and accessible from any browser.
This could mark the start of programmable biology for real.
🎯 10 phrases that instantly raise red flags for investors
These aren’t always mistakes — but they can signal the wrong things if not framed carefully.
🔸 “We’re targeting a $20–100M exit.”
Sounds like you’re building a quick flip, not a long-term company.
🔸 “We’re a bit burned out.”
Honest, but makes me question whether the team can go the distance.
🔸 “We need money to start sales and marketing.”
Do you already know what works? Having proof of early traction builds trust.
🔸 “Our CTO is leaving.”
That happens. Just have a plan and communicate it clearly.
🔸 “Our burn rate is high, so we need more capital.”
Show that you’re in control. It’s not about the spend — it’s about the strategy behind it.
🔸 “We haven’t really looked into competitors.”
If the market exists, you need a clear position within it.
🔸 “Sales are flat, but we’re confident they’ll grow.”
Optimism is great — but show a go-to-market strategy, not just hope.
🔸 “The market is still small.”
Fine — if you can clearly explain how it gets big.
🔸 “We’re cheaper than competitors.”
That’s not a moat. Focus on value, not discounts.
🔸 “They’re not paying customers, just trials.”
Free users aren’t revenue. Be precise. Real traction beats inflated metrics.
Small things kill trust. Investors don’t just back the idea — they back the team.
🔗One site to replace 100 browser tabs
Someone built the Swiss army knife of online tools — and it’s completely free, unlimited, and ad-free.
Here’s what it can do:
🔸 Calculate mortgages, calories, interest, travel time
🔸 Help devs with JSON, RegEx, JWT, and more
🔸 Generate passwords, QR codes, even horoscopes
🔸 Transfer playlists between music platforms
🔸 Convert images, text, time zones, units
🔸 Yes — it can even build your Elden Ring setup
Bookmark it now: 4me.tools
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🧪Varda: Making drugs in space
What if the biggest breakthrough in pharma isn't on Earth?
Varda is betting that microgravity can unlock new ways to manufacture complex drugs — and they’re already proving it in orbit.
The startup has raised $329M and completed three missions, becoming the first private lab to operate outside the ISS.
Rethinking pharma through microgravity
🔸 Produces medicines in space to enable unique molecular structures
🔸 Successfully returns drugs to Earth via hypersonic capsules (Mach 25)
🔸 First private lab operating beyond the ISS
🔸 Opened a ground lab in California to prep and analyze payloads
🔸 Already working with major government clients like the Pentagon
🔸 Focused on next-gen monoclonal antibody therapeutics
If they can scale this, the economics will take care of themselves.