Startups
Companies to watch, momentum, milestones.
- Worker.ai buys DeltaGen as it launches AI tools for small businesses
John Roberts and Rene Bystron are pairing a private equity playbook with DeltaGen's voice technology, backed by Veeam co-founder Ratmir Timashev.
- Armada starts building its Leviathan AI data centers in Dublin for Europe
Dan Wright's Armada completed its first Dublin-built Leviathan for Fossefall as Armada and Johnson Controls target at least 500 MW of joint production capacity in 2027.
- Foundation Capital's FC Build takes no equity and writes no accelerator check
The 16-week San Francisco program offers credits, office space and investor access, but no guaranteed investment.
- Blue's $1,299 Pixel 10 Pro wins over iPhone switchers with an AI chief of staff
Ten iPhone users switched to Blue and none wanted their old phone back, and the Y Combinator startup is making the move easy with a Pixel 10 Pro, a free trade-in path, and three months of unlimited use.
- Pomerado wants agents to stop clicking through websites and call an API instead
Akshay Manglik and Alan Ma are building Pomerado to mint deterministic APIs from legacy portals and consumer sites, with an open-source core and hosted cloud.
- Startup Spotlight: Sorce lets job seekers swipe right and sends an AI agent to apply
Oluwapelumi Dada, Daniel Ajayi and David Alade say 850,000 people have used Sorce to swipe on jobs and let an AI agent submit the applications. Sorce launched in August 2024 and joined Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch.
- X-energy and Dow say NRC approved four Xe-100 reactors for Texas chemical site
X-energy and Dow announced on November 9th, 2026, that the NRC approved construction of four Xe-100 reactors at Dow's Seadrift site, with an operating license and Dow's final investment decision still ahead.
- Val Town is winding down after four years, with services ending January 10th
Founder Steve Krouse gave users migration guides, refunds and an open-source date after saying Val Town could not compete in cloud computing.
- Munira Alkharraz rebuilt a bank commercial around its actors in five days
The UNTAGD founder planned the AI pass on set in Riyadh, then used Nano Banana and Seedance to rebuild scenes around live actors in about five days.
- Washington trader seeks $580,545 from Kalshi in September lawsuit
Scott Bright's case began in September, after Washington sued Kalshi and obtained preliminary relief in a separate case.
- FAA clears Skyways to fly autonomous aircraft from Louisiana coast to offshore Shell platform
Co-founder Charles Acknin's Austin company will use a V2 aircraft to inspect a Shell pipeline route and simulate a delivery to a Gulf platform.
- DataAgent opens a local lab for building autonomous SREs on K8sGPT
Yaari and Shalom, the Cloudify veterans behind DataAgent, released a free local K8sGPT lab on November 9th alongside their commercial remediation platform.
- TitanX walked away from a mid-six-figure Grok Bot deal after the pilot succeeded
TitanX CEO Joey Gilkey says a successful Grok Bot pilot died at signing over quality drops, no model control, and Musk's unsustainable-cost comments.
- SpaceX plans to catch both Starship stages on Flight 15
Elon Musk's SpaceX released Flight 15 mission details on November 7th for a November 13th launch, with a Super Heavy catch planned minutes after liftoff and a Starship catch planned at about T+22:32:34 after roughly 14 orbits, pending regulatory approval.
- Startup Spotlight: Deeptrace puts an AI first responder on every production alert
Andy Lee and Sri Somasundaram are building Deeptrace, which described March 1st, 2026 as its official launch. Deeptrace's AI agents investigate alerts in Slack, cite evidence, and draft fixes.
- Startup Spotlight: Goldbridge wants landlords to find the cash hiding in their own portfolios
Alvin Salehi's Goldbridge, a Fall 2025 YC startup, raised a reported $9M pre-seed. Actions Capital reported in June 2026 that Goldbridge was live with its first pilot customer.
- Theseus Robotics wants humanoids restocking supermarkets overnight and picking orders by day
The YC F26 startup, led by Samarth Malhotra, says Theo can work existing aisles with no retrofit, with retailer pilots planned for 2027.
- Startup Spotlight: Smart Bricks says AI agents can compress a six-month acquisition cycle into minutes
Mohamed Mohamed's Smart Bricks raised a $5M pre-seed led by a16z Speedrun, reported on February 10th, 2026. An undated Speedrun profile separately reports an approximately $12M annualized run-rate without a measurement date or calculation basis.
- AST SpaceMobile plans its own rocket with a $1.3B Firefly engine deal
AST SpaceMobile will pay about $800M upfront in cash and stock for Firefly's engine license, plus $500M for engines and support for three rockets.
- Tau Robotics sells $60 humanoid cleanings to teach robots to work without the human driver
Koch and Weinzierl launched Tau's invitation-only San Francisco service in July 2026, using remote operators and recorded visits to train future autonomous robots.
- Diamond Foundry says it grew a 200mm single-crystal diamond after 25 years
Diamond Foundry CEO Martin Roscheisen credits Stefan Gsell and Martin Fischer's 25-year pursuit, but the crystal is as-grown and unpolished, not yet a qualified wafer.
- Findhelp will digitize Hawaii reentry referrals in statewide rollout
Erine Gray's Findhelp plans to replace manual follow-ups with closed-loop tracking from pretrial to release, expanding statewide by summer 2027.
- Pentagon gives Machina Labs $9M to try building LUCAS airframes in modular factories
Machina Labs founders Edward Mehr and Babak Raeisinia have an 18-month contract to test building LUCAS metal airframes in modular factories.
- Agility Robotics begins Nasdaq trading as AGLT without a bell-ringing ceremony
Co-founded by Jonathan Hurst and Damion Shelton in 2015, Agility started trading as AGLT on November 5th with no bell-ringing ceremony, three paid manufacturing programs, and a milestone-based order book now open to quarterly scrutiny.