This Week In Startups
Search is changing for marketplaces. Airtable gets acquired, hot funding rounds, and Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta joins the podcast.
NEWSLETTER | PODCAST | NEW MEDIA
Hey readers!
Welcome back to your regular tech digest, a quick snapshot of the most recent tech news worth paying attention to.
This week was packed with major developments across tech. Airtable was acquired by Bending Spoons, SpaceX reported its first quarterly earnings, Nikita Bier stepped down from X, and billions more flowed into AI, defense, energy, and infrastructure startups. We also explore why AI search is becoming a powerful new customer acquisition channel for marketplaces, alongside the week’s biggest startup news, acquisitions, new VC funds, and our latest conversation with Thumbtack co-founder and CEO Marco Zappacosta.
This edition covers:
🗝️ Trend of the week: AI search is becoming the new lead-gen channel for marketplaces
🔍 Top startup tech news
💰 Startup funding highlights easily sourced by using Harmonic
🤝 Acquisitions
👀 New VC funds launched
🎤 Must-watch interviews from our podcast show
and much more.
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🗝️ Trend of the week: AI search is becoming the new lead-gen channel for marketplaces
Marco Zappacosta, co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack, joins us on the podcast to explain why Google search volume has reaccelerated to an all-time high post-ChatGPT, why customers who convert through AI chat are more qualified and further into their decision than any channel Thumbtack has seen before, and why marketplaces for hiring humans, unlike commodity marketplaces such as Uber or food delivery, are mediated by certainty and confidence rather than speed and price.
About Thumbtack
Thumbtack is a technology company helping millions of people confidently care for and improve their homes. Every day in every county of the U.S., people turn to Thumbtack to complete small fixes, routine maintenance, and major improvements. With over 12 million 5-star projects and counting, they help homeowners and home professionals accomplish more.
Watch Now: Marco Zappacosta - co-founder of Thumbtack
🔍 Top startup tech news
Airtable gets acquired by Bending Spoons for $1.28B. Once valued at $11B, now picked up at a fraction, the third brand-at-a-discount play this year after AOL and Eventbrite.
Google’s AI leadership reshuffle. Demis Hassabis moves from CEO of DeepMind to Alphabet Chief Scientist.
Nikita Bier steps down from X as Chief Product Officer.
Revolut founder in line for a mega payout. Nik Storonsky’s incentive package could push his fortune to £57B if Revolut hits $200B valuation, not far-fetched after its latest secondary at $115B.
SpaceX posted its first quarterly earnings. Revenue reached $7.8B (nearly 2x YoY, beating estimates).
💰 Startup funding highlights
Valar Atomics raised $1B Series B led by Sequoia to build safe, next-gen nuclear reactors.
Base Power Company raised $1B Series D to deploy distributed home battery storage that strengthens grid reliability and manages peak demand without solar.
Mariana Minerals raised $310M Series B led by Khosla Ventures to supply critical minerals for energy, AI, and defense.
Volta raised $300M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz to build a fully vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform from capital to clusters to software.
Horizon3.ai raised $250M Series E led by NEA and NightDragon to scale its autonomous penetration testing platform that continuously finds and prioritizes vulnerabilities.
Moove raised $250M Series C led by the likes of Mubadala to expand revenue-based vehicle financing for mobility entrepreneurs in underserved markets.
HappyRobot raised $150M Series C led by Eurazeo and Prysm Capital to scale its AI-native operating system that autonomously manages complex supply chain operations.
Zenity raised $115M Series C led by Norwest to secure low-code/no-code development environments and AI agents across enterprises.
Decade raised $85M Seed led by Greenoaks to build AI-powered wealth management for individuals, founded by Nubank’s former CTO and first Brazilian Thiel Fellow.
Convex raised $57M Series B led by Insight Partners to power real-time backend development for TypeScript apps.
Ore Energy raised $43M Series A led by HV Capital and Plural to develop long-duration grid energy storage.
Aurelius Systems raised $40M Series A led by the likes of Draper Associates to build autonomous directed energy systems that neutralize aerial drone threats with high-power lasers.
Moss raised $35M Series C led by the likes of Cherry Ventures and Portage Ventures to automate spend management, invoice processing, and corporate card workflows for businesses across Europe.
Ambrook raised $30M Series B led by Lachy Groom to build the financial platform purpose-built for agriculture operations.
Sourced by using Harmonic
🤝 Acquisitions
Deel acquired Israeli deepfake security startup Clarity in a $40-50M deal.
AI chip startup Taalas was acquired by AMD.
Firefly Bio was acquired by Johnson & Johnson for $1B (cash).
eBay acquired Depop from Etsy for $1.2B.
👀 New VC funds launched
White Star Capital closes $350M for their fourth fund.
Robinhood Ventures launched Fund II centered on Y Combinator startups.
🎤 Must-watch interviews from our podcast show
Tanay Kothari, founder of Wispr Flow, joins NEW ECONOMIES to unpack why most startups don’t die from bad ideas but from chasing too many good ones, and why matching your number of initiatives to your organizational capacity matters more than simply working longer hours.
Previous episodes include
Canva Co-Founder: AI Is Useless Without This 1 Skill | Cam Adams
Hollywood is Secretly Replacing Films With AI | Justine Moore.
Why most people are underusing AI and why the winners won’t just be OpenAI and Anthropic | Reid Hoffman.
Base44 Founder: The Strategy Behind Building a Million Dollar Company Solo | Maor Shlomo (Base44) & Mark Tluszcz (Wix).
AI is a Better Writer Than You But Here’s What it Can’t Replace | Mark Manson.
The Couple That Bootstrapped a Billion Dollar Company | Julia & Kevin Hartz.
Email Never Died | Rahul Vohra founder at Superhuman.
Replit’s President & Head of AI | Michele Catasta.
Watch and subscribe now!
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