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Quartermaster is building a maritime hive mind; plus, NanoClaw creator turns down $20M buyout offer May 21, 2026

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The Arlington, Virginia-based startup has raised $42 million to equip ships with sensors that blow the current AIS tech out of the water.

Also, NanoCo, the company behind OpenClaw alternative NanoClaw, has raised a $12 million seed after a viral launch, the founders tell TechCrunch.

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Status AI raises $17M to turn social media into interactive entertainment; plus, Stilta helps companies rediscover the patents they forgot they had May 20, 2026

Show notes

Interactive social media site Status announced Tuesday $17 million in combined seed and Series A funding, with investors including General Catalyst, YC, LightShed Ventures, and Abstract.

Also, Stilta announced Tuesday a $10 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round include YC and operators from companies like OpenAI, Legora, and Lovable.

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South Korea’s LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses; plus, Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo May 19, 2026

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A lens the size of a thumbnail — and the South Korean startup that makes it could become the optical backbone of the AI glasses era.

Also, AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic.

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Lovable just backed a company that’s looking to bring vibe coding to hardware; plus, Meridian Ventures launched $35M fund to back MBA-deferred founders May 18, 2026

Show notes

Hardware company Atech raised $800,000 in pre-seed funding, including from a16z’s scout fund, Sequoia Scout Fund, and Nordic Makers.

Plus, Meridian Ventures, the venture firm founded by Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney, announced on Friday the raise of a $35 million second fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage companies founded by those who have deferred MBAs.

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Khosla Ventures is betting $10M on Ian Crosby; plus, Cerebras raises $5.5B, then stock pops $108% May 15, 2026

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Crosby is building Synthetic, a fully autonomous AI bookkeeping service for other startups.

Also, a year ago, it looked like this day would never happen for Cerebras.

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Clio’s $500M milestone arrives just as Anthropic ups the ante; plus, Anduril raises $5B, doubles valuation to $61B May 14, 2026

Show notes

Legal tech startups, including Clio, which just hit $500 million in ARR, are seeing massive customer adoption.

After achieving $2.2 billion in revenue in 2025, the defense tech startup has raised another massive round, led by Thrive and a16z, it says.

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Exaforce raises $125M Series B to build AI for catching and stopping cyberattacks as they happen May 13, 2026

Show notes

The round valued the three-year-old startup at $725 million.

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Riding an AI rally, Robinhood preps second retail venture IPO; plus, Korea’s biggest manufacturers back Config, the TSMC of robot data May 12, 2026

Show notes

Robinhood files confidentially for its second venture fund, this time targeting growth as well as early-stage startups.

Also, Samsung, Hyundai and LG just bet on the startup that wants to be robotics' data backbone.

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Cowboy Space raised $275 million to build rockets for space data centers; plus what will the whisper-filled office of the future sound like May 11, 2026

Show notes

Cowboy Space Corporation wants to put data centers in orbit. First, it has to build the rockets to get them there.

Also, how will work setups change if we spend more and more time talking to our computers?

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A 20-minute pitch wins Indian startup Pronto backing from Lachy Groom; plus, Khosla-backed robotics startup Genesis AI has gone full stack May 08, 2026

Show notes

The investment comes as Pronto scales to 26,000 daily bookings and the market heads toward a potential $18 billion size.

Also, Genesis AI, a startup that raised a $105 million seed round to build foundational AI for robotics, has unveiled its first model, GENE-26.5, but also a demo showcasing a set of robotic hands performing complex tasks.

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