WindBorne Systems’ August 2026 $37M Series B (co-led by Khosla Ventures and Galvanize) scales its balloon network—20 launch sites with ~600 balloons aloft—and expands its AI forecasting beyond government users. CEO John Dean says balloon data beats satellite per data point, helping the U.S. National Weather Service, Air Force, and Navy, with new work on ocean-dropping buoy sensors.
Mitti Labs, a climate-tech startup headquartered in New York and Bengaluru, announced in August 2026 that it has raised $9.5 million in a Series A round led by Aramco Ventures, the venture arm of…
Whip Media shut down TV Time (26.4M installs; pulled July 15, 2026), and co-founder Antonio Pinto launched Bingers in August 2026. The app tracks watched/planned titles, supports discovery, and adds social features (comments, ratings, photos/GIFs, emojis, character votes) with TV Time history import, offloading processing to devices to cut server costs.
On Aug 4, 2026, Bending Spoons agreed to buy Airtable for $1.28B in cash, valuing it at about $2.25B including net cash, after a 2021 peak above $11B. Airtable (founded 2013) serves 500,000+ orgs, has ~$480M ARR (June 2026), and launched Superagent in Jan 2026.
Smallest.ai, a voice AI startup founded in late 2024, announced in July 2026 that it has raised $13 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to over $21 million. The round was…
Ellis AI emerged from stealth on July 31, 2026, announcing $10 million in seed funding to build an AI-powered platform for private credit managers. The round drew backing from First Round Capital,…
Synthetic-user startup Simile has closed a $200 million Series B round at a $2 billion valuation, just five months after emerging from stealth with a $100 million Series A led by Index Ventures, the…
Friend’s July 2026 second AI pendant adds audible responses with a back speaker, running OpenAI’s latest models, and costs $249 versus $129 for the original. Each unit comes with a randomly assigned, unchangeable voice/personality, plus a $10/month option to extend conversation memory beyond 30 days.
AI compliance startup Dili announced in July 2026 that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding, bringing its total capital raised to $21.7 million following a previous $6.7 million seed…
Winamp and Deezer announced a partnership on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, that will see Deezer power a new premium music subscription service under the Winamp brand. The deal is part of a broader…
Lilian Weng said she stepped down from Thinking Machines because months of “consistent stress and workload” made it unsafe to keep up a startup pace, sharing it on X July 27, 2026. On July 29, OpenAI confirmed she’s returning to lead a top-level internal research team focused on cross-research for recursive self-improvement.
Polar, founded by Kevin Jiang (ex-Perplexity Comet), raised a $5.7M seed in July 2026 led by Madrona to build an AI-first browser for knowledge work. It lets users schedule workflows, save prompts, and assign agent tasks from open tabs; the browser is free with limited daily AI credits, with paid plans starting at $20/month.
