Are Agent Managers The Next Big Role?
New AI roles, Airwallex's $11B valuation, startup funding, VC moves and acquisitions.
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Hey readers!
Welcome back to your regular tech digest — a quick snapshot of the most important recent tech news worth paying attention to.
This week, AI infrastructure funding surged, WhatsApp introduced usernames, and one prediction stood out above everything else: in the near future, the most valuable managers may not manage people first — they'll manage teams of AI agents.
This edition covers:
🗝️ Key trends: Managers become Agent Managers
🔍 Top tech news
💰 Startup funding highlights
👀 New VC funds
🤝 Acquisitions
🎤 Must-watch interviews
and more… let’s dive in.
🗝️ Key Trends: Managers become Agent Managers
One of the most thought-provoking conversations we recently had was with Michele Catasta, Head of AI at Replit, who predicts that 2026 will be the year of the “Agent Manager.”
As he put it:
“It’s more about waking up in the morning, mapping exactly what you want to accomplish in the day, launching several agents... The rest of your workday is vetting what the agents are doing.”
His point isn’t that AI replaces people. It’s that our role shifts from execution to orchestration. Instead of doing every task ourselves, we’ll direct teams of AI agents, review their outputs, and apply the judgment that machines still can’t.
The competitive advantage won’t simply be knowing how to use AI — it will be knowing how to manage it effectively.
See the episode in full here.
🔍 Top tech news this week
WhatsApp just launched usernames!
Tennis icon Novak Djokovic has a new tech job — advisor to private equity firm General Atlantic.
Amble, street-legal EV built for short local trips, with no doors, fewer screens, and a modular design inspired by the 1960s lunar rover just launched!
💰 Startup funding highlights
8090 Labs founded by Chamath Palihapitiya’s raised $135M Series A.
General Intuition raised $320M to use video game data to train robots.
Caplight raised $16M Series A led by BlackRock to power private market data and secondary liquidity.
Runlayer raised $30M Series A to help enterprises go all in on AI.
Lama AI raised $12M Series A to bring AI agents to banking.
Fomo raised $75M Series B to scale on-chain trading.
Tsuga raised $35M in Series A funding to build observability for the AI era.
Allium raised $40M Series B to power blockchain for institutional finance.
Warp raised $60M Series B to rebuild HR software with AI.
Partly raised $50M Series B led by DST Global to power AI infrastructure for the vehicle repair industry.
Patronus AI raised $50M to build ‘digital worlds’ that stress-test AI agents.
Assort Health raised $120M Series C to scale voice AI agent platform for healthcare.
Netris raised $15M Series A from a16z to help AI neoclouds go live faster.
Taxwire raised $25M Series A to simplify sales tax compliance.
👀 New VC funds
8VC closed their seventh fund at $1.5B.
Ashton Kutcher exits from Sound Ventures to set up new venture firm.
Daybreak raised $100M Fund II.
Discipulus Ventures raised $30M oversubscribed fund.
Harpoon Ventures launched Fund IV at $155M.
Cantos launched Fund IV at $70M.
🤝 Acquisitions
Qualcomm acquired Modular.
AMD acquired MEXT.
Superhuman acquired AI detection startup GPTZero.
Walmart acquired connected TV platform Vibe.co for $1.4B.
HubSpot acquired Warmly.
SpaceX acquired Mesh Optical.
MoonPay acquired Entendre.
🎤 This week on the NEW ECONOMIES Podcast Show
Ben Miller, CEO and Co-Founder at Fundrise, joins NEW ECONOMIES to explore the future of investing in an AI-driven world.
From democratizing private markets to backing the next generation of technology companies, Ben explains why software is entering a new era of disruption, and how AI could reshape everything from work and housing to healthcare and human longevity.
Previous episodes include:
Email Never Died | Rahul Vohra founder at Superhuman
Replit’s President & Head of AI | Michele Catasta
Inside Mercury’s Founding Story | Co-Founder & CEO Immad Akhund
Inside Gusto’s Founding Story | Co-Founder & CTO Eddie Kim
We Had to Reimagine Nextdoor | CEO & Co-Founder Nirav Tolia
5 Grand Slam Champion Maria Sharapova: Tennis Icon | Entrepreneur | Investor | New Media Creator
How Many $10 Billion Startups Will There Be? | Eric Hippeau
Will AI Models Ever Compensate Creators? | Tony Stubblebine
No More Traditional School Teachers | Joleen Liang
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