August 07, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

How Lightspeed found their newest hire… via Instagram DM: Lightspeed partners Josh Machiz and Claire Zau stopped by the Equity studio to talk about the strategies behind their growing social media presence and their podcast, Lightwork. Read More

Robinhood to list a fund that lets anyone back Y Combinator startups: Robinhood's latest financial instrument intends to let any retail investor feel like they, too, can make money by backing Y Combinator startups. Read More

Meet the eight startups pitching at Startup Battlefield Australia: The applications are in, and the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield team made their decisions! Read More

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Must-Reads

Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B: At its peak in 2021, Airtable was valued at over $11 billion, but earlier this year, its shares were said to be trading on the secondary markets at a valuation of $4 billion. Read More

Naïve raises $28.5M to automate the grunt work of setting up and running a company: Taking vibe-coding a step further, Naïve claims its infra can automate most of the work in setting up and running a business. Read More

Today's the last day to get up to $400 off your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 ticket: Starting today, you can take an additional $100 off your founder, investor, or attendee TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 pass, which is a nice bonus on top of our current discounted pricing. Read More

Klaviyo acquires Elias Torres’ Agency in full-circle reunion for tech founders: The serial entrepreneur joins the e-commerce company as CPO to lead its AI agents. Read More

Trump's DOJ gains oversight of OpenAI’s green-card employee sponsorships: The DOJ alleged that OpenAI did not meaningful attempt to hire U.S. citizens before seeking permanent residence for Visa-holding employees. Read More

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Last but Not Least

Defense tech Hadrian raises $1.37B at $8B valuation: Hadrian is building automated factories to mass-produce parts for defense vehicles like submarines. It's backed by a long list of well-known investors. Read More

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