Thinking Machines Lab released its first AI model, called Inkling, in July 2026. The open-weight model can be downloaded and modified by researchers and startups, and was trained from scratch to…
July 15, 2026: Whatnot acquired Shaped to improve real-time discovery in live shopping, with ex-Meta CEO Tullie Murrell leading a new Applied AI Research group. Whatnot processes 500,000+ hours of live video and millions of interactions weekly, and cut recommendation latency from ~a day to minutes over six years.
OpenAI launched its first piece of consumer hardware in July 2026 — not the much-discussed AI device in development with former Apple designer Jony Ive, but a compact control pad built for its coding platform, Codex. The device, called Codex Micro, is a limited-run collaboration…
Gidi Littwin, co-inventor of Apple’s FaceID and Vision Pro technology, has raised $52 million for his startup Hemispheric, which is developing an AI model designed to diagnose cognitive disorders by…
Emergent’s $130M Series C (July 2026) values it at $1.5B, a five-fold jump from $300M six months earlier, as it posts ~$120M annualized revenue (+70% in four months). The round led by Creaegis includes MNI Ventures-Claypond and Sentinel Global; the June 2025 Bengaluru startup has ~200 employees and plans to grow its San Francisco team by 30–40.
Senra raised a $65M Series B in July 2026, co-led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos, to modernize defense/space wire-harness manufacturing. CEO Jordan Black says its Amp software creates a digital twin and helps scale output from 1,000/month (two factories) to 10,000/month by 2027.
Reflection AI inked a $1B deal with Nebius in July 2026 for access to Nvidia’s latest chips, weeks after a similar SpaceX compute arrangement. Founded in 2024 by ex-DeepMind researchers, the $8B startup has raised about $2.6B from Nvidia, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Singapore-based video-generation startup PixVerse announced on July 14, 2026, that it has closed a Series C extension round totaling $439 million, pushing its valuation past $2 billion. The company…
Antonio Pinto, TV Time’s original founder, announced Bingers in July 2026 as a replacement before TV Time leaves app stores on July 15. TV Time has 26.4M lifetime installs and drew a 25,000-user petition; Pinto blames high server costs (premium covers ~10%) and says Bingers will be cheaper, faster, and import GDPR-compliant history/comments.
Phia, the shopping app co-founded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, has been accused of “cookie stuffing” — a practice that allowed the startup to claim commissions on purchases it did not generate…
Bluesky made Toni Schneider its permanent CEO, ending the interim role he started in March 2026; Schneider posted the update July 10, 2026: “The interim part of the title is gone.” He previously founded Automattic and is a True Ventures partner, with both firms investing in Bluesky; Jay Graber led it to 43M users and AT Protocol expansion.
A new iOS app called HyperTexting is repackaging the open web as a scrollable, social media-style feed, letting users follow websites, blogs, newsletters, and podcasts in a single interface. The app…
