
Unbox Robotics announced a $28 million Series B round led by ICICI Venture, with participation from F‑Prime and other investors. The funding will fuel expansion of its engineering and leadership teams, accelerate development of its modular, swarm‑intelligence warehouse robots, and support international market rollout across Europe, the United States and India. The company reports over five‑fold year‑on‑year growth and profitability, positioning it to challenge traditional conveyor‑based sortation. Its UnboxSort platform claims to reduce floor space requirements by 50‑70% while boosting throughput.

HeyMax, a Singapore‑based travel rewards platform, closed an $11 million Series A round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Betatron Venture Group and notable angels such as Agoda’s co‑founder. The capital will fund AI‑enhanced product features and accelerate expansion from its...

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee held the federal funds rate target range steady at 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent on Jan. 28, 2026. The statement noted solid economic expansion, low job gains, and a stabilizing unemployment rate, while inflation remains modestly above...

The episode highlights Gartner's new survey of 119 chief audit executives (CAEs), revealing that building a culture of innovation and leveraging data analytics and generative AI are the top internal audit priorities for 2026. While 83% of audit functions are...
Checkbox secured a $23 million Series A round led by Touring Capital, with participation from Peak XV, Conductive Ventures, Tidal Ventures, Five V Capital and notable angels such as Jerry Ting. The capital will fuel the rollout of the company’s AI Legal Front Door, a...
Outtake, a digital‑trust platform that safeguards organizations from AI‑driven impersonation, closed a $40 million Series B round. The financing was led by ICONIQ with participation from CRV, S32, and a roster of high‑profile tech and security executives, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and...

Elon Musk is reportedly planning SpaceX’s initial public offering for June, aiming to sync the date with his June 28 birthday and a rare Mercury‑Venus‑Jupiter alignment. The Financial Times says the IPO could raise at least $50 billion, valuing the company at...
Let's go Gabriel Stengel @rogoai...
Annual planning is one of the most over-copied “big company” rituals in startups—and it quietly creates a lot of bad decisions. In large companies, annual planning makes sense. They’re hiring hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people, mobilizing new strategies, changing systems,...

In this 7‑minute episode, host David Brancaccio explores the reliability and usefulness of economic forecasting, debating whether such predictions are valuable or merely speculative. He discusses how fast‑moving news cycles can quickly render forecasts obsolete, yet argues that they still...
Zocks announced a $45 million Series B round co‑led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and QED Investors, lifting its total capital to $65 million since the March 2025 Series A. The funding will accelerate the rollout of its privacy‑first, agentic AI platform beyond routine admin automation...

Origin, a Los Angeles‑based pelvic floor and musculoskeletal care provider for women, announced a Series B financing round led by SJF Ventures with participation from Blue Venture Fund, Gratitude Railroad, the California IBank and several high‑profile angels. The undisclosed amount will accelerate...

Puerto Rico Governor Jenniffer González issued Executive Order 2026‑005 on Jan 27, 2026, declaring a state of emergency in response to an influenza epidemic. The order activates Act No. 37, which adds a special five‑day paid leave for non‑exempt employees who have exhausted vacation and...

The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, a 50‑year standard for validating hiring tools, face possible rescission, creating uncertainty for AI‑driven recruitment. In January 2026, Eightfold AI was hit with a class‑action lawsuit alleging it compiles consumer‑report‑like dossiers without notice,...

Curate, a Los Angeles‑based hospitality platform, announced a $10 million funding round led by ZoomInfo co‑founder Kirk Brown, with participation from K5 Global, NFL star Amon‑Ra St. Brown, and Pieology founder Carl Cheng. The capital will fuel operational expansion and accelerate product development....

BoldVoice, a New York‑based AI voice‑coaching startup, closed a $21 million Series A round led by Matrix with participation from Flybridge, Xfund, Corazon Capital, Alumni Ventures, Umami Capital and Y Combinator. The funding will accelerate its global rollout and the development of proprietary...

Effective leadership today hinges on crafting a compelling narrative that links current realities to future possibilities. The article highlights Satya Nadella’s transformation of Microsoft, where a shift from a "know‑it‑all" to a "learn‑it‑all" culture propelled the company from a $300 billion...

Rogo, a New York‑based AI platform built specifically for finance, announced a $75 million Series C round. The financing was led by Sequoia Capital and featured participation from Henry Kravis, Wells Fargo, and existing backers such as Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, Tiger Global...

Cellares, a San Francisco‑based Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization, secured $257 million in Series D financing. The round was led by BlackRock and Eclipse, with participation from T. Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, and other institutional investors. The new capital lifts total funding to $612 million...

NovaUCD and CeADAR have opened applications for the 2026 AI Ecosystem Accelerator, a six‑month programme aimed at Irish AI‑first start‑ups that have market validation and are seeking to close a funding round in 2026. The accelerator, now in its third...
Zocks, a privacy‑first artificial‑intelligence platform for wealth‑management advisors, announced a $45 million Series B round. The round was co‑led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and QED Investors, with participation from Illuminate Financial and existing backers such as Motive Partners, Expanse Venture Partners, Entrée...
One of the reasons people are successful acquiring startups is simple: they’re not starting from zero. Zach Simmons is a good example of this. Instead of building something new from scratch, he acquired Appraiva (@appraiva) on @acquiredotcom which already had real...
Related, and also worth remembering: make sure you aren't chasing a small market masquerading as a large market. Big transaction volume doesn’t always translate to real market opportunity for startups.
New @ThePeelPod with @JacquelineSYC19 How AI is changing data, getting enterprise customers from cold emails during YC, building an AI BDR in-house, why most functions at @artie_labs report to the CTO (not CEO), and what it's like raising a Series...
Gotham announced the Gotham Growth Project, a cohort‑based accelerator aimed at Black‑owned cannabis consumer‑product businesses operating in New York. The program provides structured mentorship, peer learning, and strategic guidance to help founders move from early traction to scalable, sustainable operations....

The episode examines Waabi, an autonomous trucking startup that just raised a $1 billion funding round, including a $250 million investment from Uber. It highlights Waabi's AI‑first strategy, which relies on advanced simulation to enable rapid learning and generalization across vehicle platforms...

Factify Technologies announced a $73 million seed round, led by Valley Capital Partners and backed by AI veterans and finance leaders. The startup aims to replace static PDFs with "Factified" documents that carry unique identities, version histories, access controls, and programmable...

Agentic AI startup Pace announced a $10 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital to accelerate automation of insurance operations. The funding will be used to replace traditional business process outsourcing with AI systems that handle submissions, claims processing and other...

Waabi announced a $1 billion financing round, including a $750 million Series C led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners and $250 million milestone‑based capital from Uber. The funding fuels a partnership that will place more than 25,000 Waabi‑powered robotaxis on Uber’s ride‑hailing...

Christian Schwenkenbecher of MPC Capital says energy infrastructure offers niche investment opportunities for institutional investors amid Europe's push for decarbonisation and high‑interest‑rate caution. The firm targets majority‑owned renewable generation assets—onshore wind, solar PV, storage—and seeks partnerships across the full value...

Venture capitalists are now treating operational discipline as a core due‑diligence criterion, especially as startups approach Series B. Investors from Accel, Octopus, Cherry, Firstminute and 13books warn that messy finance stacks, inflated ARR figures, and disorganized bookkeeping are strong red flags....

In this episode, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson discuss how and when they choose product names, sharing stories behind names like Fizzy and Omarchy and noting that no name can satisfy every criterion. They explain the practical influence of...

London‑based Pallma AI announced a $1.6 million pre‑seed round led by Marathon Venture Capital, with participation from tech leaders at AWS, Meta, and Google. The startup offers an AI‑native security platform that monitors, detects, and mitigates risks such as prompt injection...

In this 31‑minute episode of CFO Thought Leader, hosts explore how CFOs develop true leadership not through authority or technical skill but through moments that demand emotional intelligence. Interviews with leaders like Shelagh Glaser, John McCauley, and Joe Euteneuer reveal...

Europe’s battery market is overwhelmingly dependent on China, with 85‑87% of imports sourced from Beijing. The article warns that a Chinese suspension of battery exports would destabilize Poland’s energy transition, logistics, industrial output, and military readiness, and could similarly cripple...

In this episode Lily Smith and Randy Silver sit down with AT&T product evangelist Anu Jagga‑Narang to demystify premortems, a forward‑looking technique that imagines a product’s failure to surface hidden risks. Anu walks through the step‑by‑step process—framing failure, voting on...

PitchBook’s 2025 report sees a cautiously optimistic outlook for U.S. venture‑backed IPOs in 2026, noting that the IPO window has reopened but remains thin. Only 48 companies went public last year, delivering modest exit value while more than $4.3 trillion stays...
Jeff Bezos said, "Your margin is my opportunity." Does this apply in software & AI? Yes—but not on price. 🧵
At SaaStr AI 2026, no vanity metrics Founders are sharing real numbers: What AI features actually convert. What pricing actually works. What GTM motions actually scale. May 12-14. SF Bay Bring your Granola. Or even a notebook. https://t.co/BCPo2TiqOt
Tom Tunguz created an AI meeting‑review agent that acts like a coxswain, silently analyzing recordings of pitch meetings, one‑on‑ones and investor calls. The system scores each conversation on a five‑point rubric—active listening, empathy, questioning, clarity and technical depth—providing concrete feedback...

Shadow fleets—aging, flag‑hopping tankers that spoof AIS—now move roughly 12% of global maritime trade and account for at least 48% of the world’s large oil tankers. The United States seized a seventh covert tanker in January 2026, while France and...

Sanctions and economic pressure have strained Russia’s economy, but the war persists. The article argues that historical cases show economic pain rarely forces a state to abandon a large‑scale conflict unless it triggers military defeat, elite fragmentation, or regime collapse....
Ground‑tech startup Northwood Space announced a $100 million Series B round, co‑led by Washington Harbour Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, and disclosed a $49.8 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to bolster the Satellite Control Network. The financing follows a $30 million Series A and...
📣 Calling early stage, early career investors looking for a GREAT team to work with. Katie Jacobs Stanton and Moxxie Ventures is hiring. See posting below. 👇
>be openai >announce plans to take a cut of openai-aided discoveries >release prism, free tool for research teams >rate limit prism >announce prism+, more free credits, latest models >just promise small equity if you build co >openai becomes next yc >sama used to run yc

Boeing reported a fourth‑quarter profit of $8.2 billion, buoyed by the $10.6 billion sale of its Jeppesen software unit and a record 160 commercial aircraft deliveries. However, its Commercial Airplanes and Defense, Space & Security divisions posted losses of $632 million and $507 million...

Western naval forces, aided by Ukrainian intelligence, are disrupting Russia's clandestine oil‑shipping network, known as the shadow fleet. On Jan 22, French helicopters boarded the tanker *Grinch* off Spain, discovering a false Comorian flag and 730,000 barrels of sanctioned Russian crude....
Memcyco announced a $37 million Series A round, bringing its total funding to $47 million. The oversubscribed round was led by NAventures, E. León Jimenes, and PagsGroup, with existing backers Capri Ventures and Venture Guides participating. Memcyco’s real‑time, agentless platform protects enterprises from phishing,...

The IRS issued Notice 2026‑9, pushing the deadline for amending IRAs, SEP and SIMPLE IRA plans to comply with the SECURE 2.0 Act to at least Dec. 31 2027. The extension follows the agency’s need to finalize model amendment language that will guide trustees, custodians...

The article revives a 2020 tweet urging the IRS to create a “practitioner party line” that lets tax professionals on hold talk to each other. It explains the nostalgic concept of party lines from the pre‑internet era, where callers shared...