June 19, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Orbio raises $21 million to automate hiring and onboarding for frontline workers: Orbio announces $21 million Series A in round led by Dawn Capital. Read More

Malaysia's AI agent-powered messaging app Respond.io raises $62.5M, eyes acquisitions: Respond.io, one of Malaysia's startups to watch, uses AI agents to handle high volumes of customer inquiries and charges per convo, not per seat. Read More

Probably raises $9M to build a more reliable kind of AI: Probably wants to prevent hallucinations and factual errors from reaching users, and achieve accuracy on par with deterministic systems. Read More

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Must-Reads

The 11 standout startups from YC's Demo Day, according to VCs: TechCrunch spoke to investors to find the hottest startups in the Spring 2026 YC batch. Some of them commanded valuations of over $175 million, VCs said. Read More

Source: Elastic agrees to buy CRV-backed DeductiveAI for up to $85M: DeductiveAI, a startup that uses AI to catch and resolve bugs in software, was founded just three years ago. Read More

As Anthropic suspends access to new models, India debates its AI future: Tech leaders debate whether the Anthropic episode is a wake-up call for India’s AI ambitions. Read More

AI inference startup Baseten reportedly raising $1.5B months after its last mega-round: Startup Baseten is reportedly close to finalizing a $1.5 billion round at a $13 billion as the “inference gold rush" marches on. Read More

Anthropic's latest feud with the Trump admin may actually help it, sales data suggests: Anthropic's popularity with business users is growing so well that the latest beef with the government might actually boost it, data from Ramp suggests. Read More

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Last but Not Least

Andrew Yang thinks the next big startup opportunity is lowering the cost of living: Andrew Yang made a list of everything Americans overpay for — housing, food, wireless — and thinks the next startup gold rush is giving that money back. Read More

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