Hey!
Let’s discuss the past week, starting with an event that is not so much significant as it is entertaining.
“Crypto. com” co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek announced the largest domain purchase. He acquired “AI. com” for $70M and now plans to use it as a platform for creating personal AI agents.
To be fair, it is worth noting that Marszalek may be mistaken (or deceiving his audience). In 2014, a larger domain acquisition deal was recorded: “Cars. com” was sold for $872.3M.
Anyway, here’s your latest startup recap:
⚖️ From 30 Under 30 to Fraud Charges
📰 + Quick News That Matters
💰 + Last Week in Seed Funding
🛠️ + New Tools to Try
📚 + Weekend Picks
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What’s Happening: U.S. prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged Gökçe Güven, the founder and CEO of loyalty-and-rewards startup Kalder and a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, with securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Authorities say she raised about $7 million by presenting inflated customer and revenue claims, and that she was arrested on November 27, 2025.
The DOJ alleges she pitched Kalder as having 26 paying brands and 53 brands on freemium, and claimed revenue growth reaching roughly $1.2M ARR by March 2024—while allegedly maintaining two sets of books, including a version with boosted figures shown to investors. Prosecutors also say the same narrative supported her O-1A “extraordinary ability” visa process, including recommendation letters that she allegedly signed herself, and that she received the visa in fall 2025.
The Context: This isn’t the first time a “rising star” story collides with prosecutors. Two other Forbes 30 Under 30 names also come to mind: Charlie Javice (Frank) and Joanna Smith-Griffin (AllHere Education). In Javice’s case, SDNY and the SEC alleged she inflated Frank’s user numbers to help sell the company to JPMorgan for $175M.
In Smith-Griffin’s case, SDNY charged the AllHere CEO with misleading investors about key business claims tied to the company, including counts for securities fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
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New Ad Claude Deeply Offended Sam Altman: It doesn’t happen often, but there are public feuds among the largest AI startups too. Against the backdrop of the appearance of advertising in ChatGPT, Anthropic made a series of videos (see an example below) clearly mocking the changes in OpenAI’s policy.
In response, Sam Altman posted a lengthy message. He noted that Claude is a product for wealthy users, while ChatGPT is a solution for everyone, including through additional monetization approaches.
You can read Altman’s entire post here. Whose side are you on?
ElevenLabs Raises $500M: The leading provider of AI for voice generation has secured a new round of funding. The company is now valued at $11B, which is three times its valuation a year ago. According to ElevenLabs, it closed last year with $330M in ARR.
YC Introduces Request for Startups for Spring 2026: As part of a long-standing tradition, Y Combinator partners shared what they expect from founders in the coming months. YC is currently focused on AI-native companies in product management, government services, industrial enterprises, and market analysis.
Two Stanford Students, Roman Scott and Itbaan Nafi, Have Launched Breakthrough Ventures: It’s a $2M startup accelerator targeting college students and recent grads across the US. The program focuses on AI, healthcare, consumer products, deep tech, and sustainability, offering up to $10K in grants, compute credits, legal help, mentorship, and $50K follow-on funding.
Legal Plugin Claude Cowork Caused a Stock Market Crash in Legal Tech: Antrhopic’s new platform, which automates tasks such as contract review, NDA triage, and compliance checks, wiped billions off the legal software market. The main damage was suffered by Thomson Reuters (-18%), RELX (-14%), and Pearson (-8%).
Not as prominent as OpenAI or Anthropic, but still important players in the industry: startups that have raised their first fundings. Here are the ones that caught my eye.
Refute (London, UK) builds an AI platform that detects and helps counter coordinated disinformation campaigns across social and online channels. The company raised a £5M seed round led by Amadeus Capital Partners, with participation from Playfair, Episode 1, Osney Capital, and the UK’s NSSIF.
Founders: Tom Garnett (CEO) and Vlad Galu (CTO).
Runeasi (Leuven, Belgium) offers an AI-based running analysis platform used by physios, coaches, and sports retailers to assess technique and injury risk from sensor data and deliver clear, actionable reports. The company raised a €1M round to fund international expansion; it’s a KU Leuven spin-out.
Founding team: Prof. Jesse Davis, Dr. Tim Op De Beeck, Prof. Benedicte Vanwanseele, and Dr. Kurt Schutte.
€2.9M for “No-alignment” Wireless Power
Willo (Finland) is developing wireless power tech designed to work without precise alignment—so devices can keep charging even if they move or rotate, unlike typical inductive setups. The startup secured €2.9M to push development and commercialization, in a round led by byFounders with Interface Capital, Unruly Capital, and Wave Ventures also participating.
Founders: Harri Santamala (CEO), Dr. Nam Ha-Van (CTO), and Marko Voutilainen.
Sapiom (San Francisco, US) is building a payments and procurement layer that lets AI agents securely purchase SaaS, APIs, and compute—so “agentic” workflows don’t break the moment they need a new service or capability. The startup raised a $15M seed round led by Accel, with participation from Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures.
Founder: Ilan Zerbib (ex-Shopify payments engineering leader).
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The creators at PH are not resting on their laurels and continue to explore AI in every way possible.
Here are a few tools worth trying:
Lums — Turns transactions into a simple budget + short-horizon cash forecast without spreadsheets.
Supaboard AI — “ask your data in plain English” analytics that turns company data into answers and charts without SQL.
Voice Anywhere — a floating mic that turns speech into text anywhere. Makes dictation usable across apps and browsers via an always-on-top mic + shortcuts.
PopAir — an all-in-one AI copilot for macOS. Speeds up small daily tasks (rewrites, summaries, quick answers) without switching between tools.
OpenClaw Creator: Why 80% Of Apps Will Disappear — Y Combinator
Chatbots Make Terrible Doctors, New Study Finds — 404 Media
5 Startup Sectors Seeing Big Funding Growth — Crunchbase
When Your AI Hobby Becomes a Supermeme — WSJ
From Svedka to Anthropic, brands make bold plays with AI in Super Bowl ads — TechCrunch
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