Tech & Startups
Technology and startups: funding rounds and exits, product launches, AI companies, growth and SaaS, European startups, founder stories and technology trends.
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This ex-Pleo exec plans on taking on US rivals with his ‘AI CFO’ startup
Light began its US expansion last year, opening an office in New York after its Balderton-led $30m Series A in September.
Where can I meet former H‑1B startup founders in the Bay Area? I will not promote
I’ll be in San Francisco October 25–31 and hope to learn from founders who moved from an employer-sponsored H‑1B to running a startup, particularly solo or bootstrapped founders. What public meetups, communities, or events would you recommend for meeting people with that experience in person? I’m interested in how they approached the transition and what they learned. I’m seeking places to have those conversations, not legal advice or contacts by DM. I will not promote. submitted by /u/Cute_Health6112 [link] [comments]
What skill actually moves the needle when you're building with a tiny team?
YC startups often start with just 1-3 founders handling everything. Building a good product is one thing, but getting it in front of the right users without a dedicated sales or marketing team is another. For YC founders, what skill helped you get your first real users and gain traction when your team was still small? submitted by /u/AtoRafael [link] [comments]
How have you reduced the adoption cost of a developer tool? I will not promote
I’m building in the developer-tools space, and I’m learning that making a tool easy to try can be as important as building the feature itself. For founders who’ve launched devtools, what made the biggest difference in getting developers to try one in a real workflow? A working example or demo they could run quickly? A lightweight integration that doesn’t require replacing existing tools? A free pilot or open-source option? Hands-on onboarding with a few design partners? Something else?
$50k/month founder nearly killed his app by spending thousands on UGC 😊
Bro spent thousands on UGC with zero winning format and nearly killed the business. Lino went straight to big fitness influencers before he had any proof of what actually converts. Thousands per video, margins at 5-10%, barely scraping $3-4K in revenue. The fix: he partnered with one big fitness creator for equity instead of chasing deal after deal. Suddenly the content was free, the creator had skin in the game, and AbMaxx took off. From there he cut every other UGC deal, doubled down on Meta ads at 2-2.5X ROAS, then moved the same creatives to TikTok and hit 4-5X ROAS targeting a younger audience.
After trying many things nothing really stuck, so how to choose what to work on next?
I'm the kind of person that gives up really quickly when I don't like it anymore or don't see a future in it. Like in the past year I've probably worked on 7 "initiatives" which are startups that I either built, or launched, or tried to validate. But looking back, it caused me a lot of stress + hours behind the laptop (as I do this beside a full-time job) and didn't really amount to a whole lot, at least result-wise.
Energy unicorn 1Komma5 raises €70m as IPO plans remain on ice
The Hamburg-based startup secured fresh funding at a $1.35bn valuation, with plans to invest heavily in its AI-powered energy management software.
Recursive Self-Improvement and the Future of AI
a16z General Partner Martin Casado sits down with MakerMaker.AI co-founders Dhaval Adjodah and Owen He to unpack recursive self-improvement, or RSI, and separate the increasingly popular term from what it would actually mean for an AI system to improve itself. Dhaval and Owen distinguish true RSI from simply using AI to automate pieces of AI development. Their goal is a closed loop where the system being improved is also doing the improving, across components including models, harnesses, and eventually more of the AI stack. They explain why closing that loop still doesn’t guarantee runaway “takeoff,” and why measuring real progress requires accounting for both capability gains and the resources required to achieve them. They also share what they’re seeing in their own research, including early signs that self-improving systems can increase performance while improving efficiency. And they dig into the practical challenges of proving those gains are real, from variance and reward hacking to the enormous difficulty of distinguishing genuine improvement from noise. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:58 - What actually counts as RSI 05:10 - Capability as a numerator and denominator 06:58 - Closed loop vs takeoff 08:32 - Humans as agents in the system 13:39 - Why most RSI papers don't scale 17:41 - Why they chose inference 24:00 - "It's not a belief, it's happening" 25:42 - The Viceroy of Variance 29:39 - The garden hose company in Wisconsin Resources: Follow Dhaval Adjodah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rand0m Follow Owen He on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-he-b7b064279/ Follow Martin Casado on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Pod
B2B sales ideas - I will not promote
We're a startup selling technical software into a conservative industry. The buyer pool is small (no more than a couple of thousand people in our first, home country), the price point is high, sales cycles are usually long, and buyers mostly stick with vendors they already know. Despite these challenges, we have received a lot of positive feedback for the significant value we can bring to our initial ICPs.
How Meta designed Muse: an AI agent people actually want to talk to | Alex Cornell (Design Director)
Listen now | 🎙️Alex Cornell explains how Muse serves your mom and an engineer with the same interface, and demos a SkyMall-style catalog, golf recaps, and a blog turned podcast
Everyone saying software is dead? I got the most amount of active trials for months?!
I see everyone saying here or on X, that software is dead, and all SaaS is going to be replaced etc. I get where its coming from, as I changed a lot of my subscriptions to my own internal tools, as its' really easy, but this is normal as I'm a really high-tech person. Most people don't want to vibe-code or spend time on something that they would have to maintain, and I don't get why do the mass indie hackers think their "mom" is going to vibe-code her services.
20VC: Atlassian CEO on Why Agents Won't Replace Interfaces | Why Enterprises Won't Trust Chinese Models | Why The Jury Is Still Out On The Benefits of Specialised Models with Mike Cannon-Brookes
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Atlassian, the company behind Jira, Confluence, Trello and Loom. Atlassian generated $6.5BN in ARR in 2026, and serves more than 350,000 customers, including over 85% of the Fortune 500. Today, Mike is leading its expansion into enterprise AI through Rovo and the Teamwork Graph, connecting company knowledge with AI agents. AGENDA: 03:00 Do AI Agents Turn Traditional Software Into Just Databases? 16:00 Will Enterprises Ever Trust Chinese AI Models?
Europe’s fastest-growing fintechs are queueing up for growth-stage funding rounds
Twelve of the 22 startups on the Sifted 250 planning a Series B or C by Q3 2027 are fintechs, with eight based in the UK
The ‘biggest threat’ China poses for European startups isn’t what you think
While many startups are trying to cut China out of their supply chains, some investors think it’s unrealistic
Exclusive: Project Europe leads step down as fund readies next chapter
Kitty Mayo and Jade Yarrow are handing over the reins of the high-profile initiative, which has backed almost 30 startups since launching last year.
Scarcity is the mother of European AI invention
As the US and China pour billions into AI, Europe’s startups are betting ingenuity can trump spending power.
Solid idea, have experience being the solo engineer building similar successful products for other startups, between 3 to 9 months to get it to market, however, possible contractual issues from previous employer. What to do? I will not promote
So, I have a good idea for a SaaS, I know I'd be first to market with it, and based on a somewhat similar product I have seen before, this is certain to be a profitable endeavor.
Jaan Tallinn would like us to survive
Listen now (67 mins) | An early backer of DeepMind and Anthropic makes the case for an AI pause.
OpenAI has more than 120 ex-YC founders
Typing fast is trending down. Great taste is trending up. Tibo Sottiaux, Head of ChatGPT & Codex, on the skills that matter in hiring now and why OpenAI has more than 120 ex-YC founders.
The AI Work Transformation Isn't Over
OpenAI's Tibo Sottiaux explains why he thinks that AI will keep radically transforming how we work.
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