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Startup News
Medium
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9
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Beyond the Deck: Why Behavioral Due Diligence Is the Missing Piece in Early-Stage VC
- Startups don't fail because of lack of code but due to conflict, ego, burnout, fear, and indecision, highlighting the importance of evaluating behavioral risk in early-stage VC.
- Behavioral due diligence focuses on the founder's ability to endure, lead, and grow, emphasizing founder composition and resilience as critical factors for success.
- In the current venture landscape, the best founders are securing funding while others are left behind, underscoring the significance of supporting founders with the tenacity and self-awareness to navigate challenges.
- The call is to prioritize character over charisma, back resilient individuals over those who can simply raise capital, and champion founders who possess the determination to see their visions through in the face of adversity.
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Economic Times
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228
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Wealthtech startup Stable Money raises $20 million in round led by Nilekani’s Fundamentum Partnership
- Wealthtech startup Stable Money has raised $20 million in a funding round led by Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum Partnership, with participation from existing backers Z47, RTP Global and Lightspeed.
- The Bengaluru-based company plans to use the funding to expand its suite of wealth products, accelerate customer acquisition, and onboard new banking partners.
- Stable Money offers fixed-return investment products, including fixed deposits, recurring deposits, secured credit cards, and bonds on its platform.
- Since its launch in 2022, Stable Money has onboarded over 150,000 users, managing assets worth over Rs 3,000 crore, and aims to target underserved investors in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
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Pymnts
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Snowflake to Acquire Crunchy Data to Strengthen AI Agent Business
- Snowflake plans to acquire Crunchy Data to enhance its ability in building and deploying AI agents and applications.
- The acquisition will incorporate Crunchy Data's Postgres technology and products into Snowflake's AI Data Cloud.
- The deal is pending regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
- Snowflake aims to introduce Snowflake Postgres to the AI Data Cloud to enable faster operations for PostgreSQL users.
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Medium
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Starting my Startup!
- A mechanical engineering student took on the challenge of building an app after being constantly engaged in building physical products and art.
- Inspired by the love for giving and receiving opinions, the student created an app named Raay, which means "opinion" in Urdu.
- After conducting market research and learning app development, Raay was launched in April 2025 and gained over 100 users from 10 countries within a week.
- The experience of building the app provided insights into app development, product management, and entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of dedication and accepting imperfections.
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Siliconangle
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Neuralink raises $650M at reported $9B pre-money valuation
- Neuralink Corp. announced a $650 million funding round with a pre-money valuation of $9 billion.
- The funding round had about a dozen backers, including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed, and Thrive Capital.
- Neuralink's N1 implant enables quadriplegic individuals to control computers with their thoughts.
- The company is also developing implants for restoring vision and speech and plans to use the funding for hardware development and research acceleration.
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Medium
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365
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How the role of the Product Manager is evolving
- The role of the Product Manager is evolving with a focus on understanding the changing landscape and responsibilities associated with the position.
- Product Managers are regarded as orchestrators who combine various elements to ensure the product aligns with its purpose, rather than just being executors of tasks.
- The value of a Product Manager lies in their ability to read data, challenge metrics, prioritize effectively, and make informed decisions based on judgment and context.
- While artificial intelligence can enhance decision-making, it is essential for Product Managers to maintain human contact, cultivate strategic thinking, and embrace the evolving nature of their role.
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TechCrunch
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Console raises $6.2M from Thrive to free IT teams from mundane tasks with AI
- Console, a startup founded by Andrei Serban, aims to automate basic IT help desk tasks with AI to free up time for IT teams to focus on more strategic projects.
- Console differentiates itself from competitors by offering easy integration with Slack, enabling quick deployment without the need for complex installation processes.
- The AI assistant developed by Console can handle over 50% of tasks independently and involves IT professionals for more complex issues, enhancing efficiency and productivity.
- Thrive Capital has invested $6.2 million in Console, recognizing the potential of its AI technology to revolutionize IT assistance and eventually expand into supporting functions like HR and finance.
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Medium
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420
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Go-to-Market Motions Explained: Product-Led, Sales-Led, and Beyond
- Product-led growth (PLG) relies on the product to acquire new customers, eliminating heavy reliance on marketing or sales teams.
- This approach is suitable for products offering immediate value, quick onboarding, and accessible pricing, targeting individual users and SMBs.
- Notion exemplifies PLG, allowing users to experience benefits quickly without sales interaction, leading to natural team adoption.
- Sales-led strategies rely on personalized interactions to communicate value, ideal for complex products with longer sales cycles.
- Cybersecurity companies often adopt sales-led approaches due to the technical nature of their products requiring validation and longer sales cycles.
- Marketing-led GTM strategies focus on building awareness and lead generation through various tactics such as content marketing, paid acquisition, and email nurture.
- Canva's success with SEO-optimized landing pages and tailored content exemplifies a marketing-led GTM strategy.
- Community-led GTM relies on user communities to drive product awareness and expansion through mutual support, feedback, and advocacy.
- Figma utilized community-led growth by allowing users to collaborate, share resources, and learn from each other within its platform.
- Partner-led GTM strategies involve collaborating with external partners for customer acquisition, suitable for expanding into new geographies or industries.
- Blending multiple GTM strategies like Figma, combining product-led, community-led, and sales-led approaches, allows companies to cater to diverse customer needs effectively.
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TechCrunch
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Digg’s founders explain how they’re building a site for humans in the AI era
- Digg aims to bring back the spirit of the old web in the AI era, prioritizing human-created content over AI-generated content.
- Digg's new vision, under founders Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, focuses on enabling discovery and community reminiscent of the early internet days.
- Ohanian's venture focuses on businesses aligned with values, seeing Digg as a step in that direction, away from AI-dominated content.
- Digg founders want to create a community focused on serving real people, not AI or bots, reflecting on the dead internet theory and the rise of AI-generated content.
- To counter bots infiltrating communities, Digg plans to use zero-knowledge proofs to verify human users and prioritize authentic human connections.
- The site may offer varying levels of service based on the likelihood of someone being human, utilizing techniques like owning a device for a longer period.
- Digg plans to use AI for site moderation but also aims to compensate moderators and creators financially for their contributions.
- The founders believe in aligning all stakeholders to make Digg successful by empowering creators to monetize their work and improve user experience.
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Gritdaily
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Canadian Health Tech Cuts Hospital Emergency Department Triage Time by up to 60%
- EmergConnect, a digital triage platform, has been helping Canadian hospitals reduce emergency department triage times by up to 60%.
- The platform allows patients to begin their emergency visits remotely, providing real-time wait estimates and streamlining nurse workflows.
- By eliminating manual steps and directing non-urgent cases to nearby clinics, EmergConnect aims to reduce staff pressure and improve patient care.
- The company has raised $2 million CAD and plans to expand to other Canadian provinces and potentially address healthcare challenges in the U.S.
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Inc42
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425
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Govt Unveils State-Backed Multimodal LLM For Indian Languages
- Union minister Jitendra Singh launches state-backed multimodal large language model (LLM) for Indian languages.
- The multimodal AI models can process text, images, audio, and video, offering solutions in 22 Indian languages.
- BharatGen project aims to create ethical and inclusive AI deeply rooted in Indian values, focusing on sectors like healthcare, education, agriculture, and governance.
- Project developed under National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems, backed by Department of Science and Technology and academic consortium.
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Hackernoon
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What Happens When Purpose Is Assumed, Not Discovered
- Lessons learned from a startup set up to fail reveal the importance of discovering, rather than assuming, purpose.
- The author reflects on a startup experience mirroring the cautionary tale from 'What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars.'
- Joining a fledgling firm with unclear customer needs and insufficient validation led to inevitable failure.
- Issues arose from a top-down approach, lack of industry experience, and an ambiguous problem statement.
- Outsourcing the core value proposition and neglecting customer feedback further compounded challenges.
- The belated realization that no specific problem was being solved marked the startup's downfall after two wasted years.
- A rushed pivot to Marketing Mix Modelling highlighted the team's lacking expertise in solving industry challenges.
- The parallels drawn between the startup CEO and Jim Paul emphasize false confidence and a failure to accept losses.
- Key lessons include prioritizing validated solutions, customer-centric approaches, and prudent investment strategies.
- The author concludes that despite the invaluable learnings, this startup failure remains a pivotal professional experience.
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TechCrunch
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23
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Salesforce buys Moonhub, a startup building AI tools for hiring
- Salesforce has acquired Moonhub, a startup specializing in AI tools for hiring.
- Moonhub's team, based in Menlo Park, California, will join Salesforce, which was also an early investor in the startup.
- Moonhub, founded in 2022 by former Meta engineer Nanxy Xu, offers AI tools for recruiting, evaluating, and hiring job candidates.
- Salesforce's acquisition of Moonhub aligns with the increasing trend of integrating AI tools in hiring processes, as observed in Fortune 500 companies.
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Economic Times
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141
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Elon Musk's Neuralink raises $650 million in latest funding round
- Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink has raised $650 million in its latest funding round.
- Investors including ARK Invest, DFJ Growth, Founders Fund, G42, and others participated in the Series E fundraising.
- Neuralink aims to bring life-changing capabilities through brain-computer interfaces with the funding.
- The company's implant is being tested to help individuals with spinal cord injuries to perform tasks like playing video games and browsing the internet using their brain.
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Inc42
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COAI Hails Govt Move To Ban ‘Illegal’ Online Sale Of Walkie-Talkies
- COAI has welcomed the government decision to ban the 'illegal' online sale of walkie-talkies, terming it as a much-needed regulatory response.
- The guidelines prohibit online platforms from listing or selling mobile signal boosters and wireless jammers.
- The new rules require ecommerce platforms to specify frequency ranges, verify regulatory compliance, and prohibit misleading ads regarding the legal usage of such devices.
- The central consumer protection authority has issued notices to ecommerce platforms regarding the sale of unauthorised radio equipment, and penalties are outlined for violations.
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