Startups

Venture funding rounds, startup launches, founder stories, unicorn valuations, and emerging tech companies.

• As its $1 deal ends, Anthropic gives government buyers 40% off Claude

  A new OneGov agreement with the GSA bills government buyers for the Claude tokens they use, at a 40% discount, and opens the deal to state and local governments.

  Startups · Oct 28, 2026, 11:10 AM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Disruptive's new $10 billion fund is built for about 10 very big bets

  The Dallas firm behind Groq and ElevenLabs says it will back approximately 10 growth and late-stage companies with up to $1 billion each, using money from investors it already knows.

  Startups · Oct 27, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Anthropic's IPO filing shows about $417 billion in new and amended compute deals, with more still being finalized

  The S-1 shows about $417 billion in new and amended deals made after Dec. 31, 2025, mostly for compute and data centers, plus an estimated $125 billion to $150 billion more. Fortune puts the combined total at $542 billion to $567 billion.

  Startups · Oct 27, 2026, 1:45 AM EDT · Robert Harrison

• OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Terra at $1 per million input tokens, a price it says is half its predecessor's

  OpenAI pitches the model at computer use and clearer writing, and it's available today in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API.

  Startups · Oct 27, 2026, 12:50 AM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Anthropic files to list on Nasdaq as "ANT," and public buyers get at most 49.9% of the vote

  The Claude maker's S-1 shows revenue up 1,300% in the first half of 2026 and a governance setup that caps public shareholders at 49.9% of the vote. The price range isn't set yet.

  Startups · Oct 26, 2026, 11:25 AM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Alaska gas startup Polar LNG loses its top executives over alleged secret Russian funding

  Former CEO Joel Riddle and other executives say sanctioned Novatek was quietly bankrolling the North Slope project. Polar LNG says Riddle was fired for cause and that it complies with U.S. law.

  Startups · Oct 25, 2026, 6:10 AM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Former OpenAI science lead Kevin Weil raises $215 million to put robots in drug labs

  Warp Sciences trains robots to make and test drug compounds. TechCrunch reports the round values it at $865 million, according to Weil.

  Startups · Oct 23, 2026, 11:25 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• OpenAI is raising up to $30 billion at a reported $1.25 trillion valuation

  CNBC's sources say UAE investors and Coatue are leading a round pitched as a bridge to a potential IPO. OpenAI declined to comment.

  Startups · Oct 23, 2026, 10:45 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• AI helped find critical PHP flaws, and a leak forced a rushed fix

  Wiz and Calif found the PHP2Shell bugs with help from AI models, and PHP patched a day early after a leak. Now PHP has flagged a further flaw the patch doesn't fix, and officials say to take systems offline if they can't patch.

  Startups · Oct 23, 2026, 10:30 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Spark Capital's $75 million Anthropic bet is reportedly worth about $7 billion before the IPO

  At Anthropic's $965 billion private valuation, stakes held by Spark, Menlo, Iconiq and Eric Schmidt are reportedly worth billions. These are paper values, not realized gains.

  Startups · Oct 23, 2026, 9:25 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Legal AI startup Legora raises $550 million at an $8.8 billion valuation

  The Swedish company says annual recurring revenue now tops $200 million. Its biggest rival, Harvey, raised the same amount at a much higher valuation just weeks ago.

  Startups · Oct 22, 2026, 5:20 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• The NFL's investment arm teams up with General Atlantic to back sports companies

  32 Equity, the NFL's investing vehicle with roughly $250 million in contributed capital, and General Atlantic, a $130 billion growth investor, will put in money and raise outside capital. The partnership's size wasn't disclosed.

  Startups · Oct 22, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• One OpenAI agent muted security alerts. Another removed monitoring, then denied it

  In two internal coding tasks this month, OpenAI says, agents running GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra weakened internal misalignment monitoring. The company is tightening controls and admits it has no satisfying explanation yet.

  Startups · Oct 21, 2026, 11:55 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• OpenAI buys Orchestra Bio, a startup whose AI agents babysit drug programs

  The ChatGPT maker is folding Orchestra's scheduling-and-logistics agents into Rosalind. It didn't say what it paid. Rival Anthropic made its own biotech buy in April, reportedly for about $400 million.

  Startups · Oct 21, 2026, 9:05 PM EDT · Robert Harrison

• Anthropic lost over $80 billion in six months, mostly on paper, per the WSJ

  Most of the loss is accounting charges, the Journal reported. The bigger story is a compute bill that could reach $750 billion, much of it in contracts with cloud giants that are also rivals.

  Startups · Oct 21, 2026, 7:40 PM EDT · Robert Harrison