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Flipkart Founder's Fintech Play Breaks Its Bootstrapped Streak

After eight years funding Navi with his own Walmart windfall, Sachin Bansal opens the cap table to Prosus at a $1.3 billion valuation - well below the $2 billion he sought two years ago.

By Priya Nair·Aug 20, 2026·6 min read
Startups

SpaceX Alumni Launch Automated Steel Factory Targeting Data Centers and Nuclear Reactors

1872's Cincinnati facility aims to automate steel fabrication with AI-driven software and robotics, starting with modular infrastructure com…

Marcus Halloran ·   · 4m
Startups

Acoustic Suppression Tech Raises $15M to Fight Fires With Sound Waves

Sonic Fire Tech's infrasonic system promises seconds-fast response without water damage, targeting commercial kitchens and wildfire defense …

Marcus Halloran ·   · 5m
Startups

African Defense Startup Hits $52 Million Seed as Global South Military Tech Heats Up

Terra Industries is betting it can displace Turkish, Chinese, and Western contractors by manufacturing autonomous systems and combat vehicle…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 4m
Startups

Uber Bets on Zipline Drones to Reach One Million Daily Deliveries by 2029

The ride-hail giant's partnership with the San Francisco-based drone startup marks its latest play in quick commerce, targeting 5-10 minute …

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

Wispr Secures $280M as Dictation Wars Heat Up and Quality Stumbles Surface

The AI speech startup hit a $2B valuation ten months after its last raise, while users flag accuracy drops and rivals multiply across Androi…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

Relay Closes After Five Years as Founder Returns to Lead Chrome Product

The workflow automation startup's leadership and team are joining Google's browser division, signaling a renewed push to embed AI agents dir…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

Higgsfield Closes $400M at $5.4B Valuation as Enterprise Video AI Demand Surges

The Alex Mashrabov-founded startup now serves 390 Fortune 500 companies and reports $700M in annualized revenue, underscoring the enterprise…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

Groq Secures $350M as Neocloud Pivot Replaces Chip Ambitions

After losing its founder to a multi-billion-dollar licensing deal, the former LPU maker is betting its future on Nvidia-powered infrastructu…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

Uber and Zipline Chase One Million Daily Drone Orders

The ride-hail giant's strategic bet on aerial logistics aims to reshape last-mile delivery across US metros by 2029, starting with Arkansas …

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 4m
Startups

Alibaba Exits Gaming, Sells Lingxi to Trustar Capital

The Hangzhou giant offloads its gaming subsidiary as it doubles down on e-commerce and AI infrastructure, marking the latest retreat from no…

Wei Zhang ·   · 4m
Startups

China's CXMT Crosses $570 Billion as Memory Boom Rewrites Asia's Chip Hierarchy

The Hefei DRAM specialist now trades above Tencent, riding an AI-server cycle that has made memory the hottest bet in Chinese semiconductors…

Wei Zhang ·   · 5m
Startups

Beijing Chipmaker Ingenic Eyes HK$3.2 Billion as Hong Kong Becomes Semiconductor Fundraising Hub

The dual-listing move reflects a broader pattern: mainland chip firms are leveraging Hong Kong's capital markets to fund overseas ambitions …

Wei Zhang ·   · 5m
Startups

Stripe Closes $7 Billion Acquisition of AI Gateway OpenRouter

The payments giant's largest-ever deal signals a race among infrastructure players to own the model-switching layer as enterprises demand fl…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

SpaceX Completes $60 Billion Cursor Acquisition, Tying AI Code Editor to GPU Empire

The deal connects one of Silicon Valley's hottest developer tools to what SpaceX claims is the world's largest GPU fleet, as Musk consolidat…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 4m
Startups

The Billion-Dollar Bet on Fusion Power

Eight startups have raised over $100 million each as advances in magnets, chips, and AI reshape the race to commercialize the sun's energy o…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 7m
Startups

Stripe and Advent Eye PayPal in $53 Billion Payments Consolidation

The proposed takeover would create a payments colossus processing nearly $4 trillion annually, as legacy platforms wrestle with post-pandemi…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

PayPal Weighs $53 Billion Bid as Stripe and Advent Push Forward

Negotiations for a fintech megadeal could wrap in weeks as CEO Enrique Lores pursues a turnaround that may now include selling the company i…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 4m
Startups

Waymo Wins Approval to Launch Robotaxis in Sacramento and San Diego

California regulators clear the autonomous driving firm to expand across 18 counties, adding two new metro areas and extending reach in LA a…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 6m
Startups

French Startup Bets on Software to Unlock Hidden GPU Performance

Kog targets inference speed gains through low-level optimization, drawing 200 business leads with a demo that sparked skepticism and interes…

Mei-Lin Tan ·   · 5m
Startups

Joshua Kushner Questions the Herd Mentality in AI Venture Capital

Thrive Capital's founder argues for investment discipline over deal volume as his firm returns $1 billion to LPs and hits 41% gross IRR acro…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 6m
Startups

Silicon Valley Capital Meets Tokyo Deep Tech

A cross-Pacific fund is preparing to channel US licensing deals and venture capital into Japan's AI, space, and defense startups, betting th…

Kenji Watanabe ·   · 4m
Startups

Bluesky's New Leadership Tests Whether Open Protocols Can Outrun Platform Giants

As CEO Toni Schneider and COO Rose Wang take the stage at Disrupt 2026, the startup faces a critical question: can decentralized architectur…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

Pony.ai and Uber Target 2,000 Autonomous Vehicles Across Four European Markets

The expanded partnership clarifies the joint-deployment model as Chinese AV maker and American platform giant push into a fragmented regulat…

Arjun S. Mehta ·   · 5m
Startups

WeRide's Revenue Nearly Doubles as Robotaxi Fleet Scales Across Four Continents

The Guangzhou-based autonomous vehicle operator posted triple-digit quarterly growth while gross margins climbed above 37%, signaling operat…

Wei Zhang ·   · 5m