The 9 buzziest startups from Y Combinator’s latest Demo Day, according to VCs

Recapping this week in startups

View this email online in your browser  September 18, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 The 9 buzziest startups from Y Combinator’s latest Demo Day, according to VCs: From floating reactors to brain chips: VCs picked their favorite YC startups from the summer batch. Read More Pulley, a Carta rival, is shutting down: Cap table management platform Pulley, backed by General Catalyst, Stripe, and Founders Fund, announced that it's closing shop in December. Read More AI infrastructure company Cornelis raises $205M to chip away at Nvidia's dominance: The company also announced a product called Active Compute Fabric, a network technology that targets the fact that much GPU time is wasted waiting for data to arrive. Read More A message from PTC for Startups Turn breakthrough ideas into market-ready products Early-stage companies can access no-cost product development software from PTC. Spend less time overcoming engineering obstacles and more time building products customers want. Apply Today Must-Reads Clean tech startup Fluxnium found a way to tap 50,000 years' worth of nuclear fuel: Fluxnium's fibers can extract uranium directly from seawater, which has enough of the nuclear fuel to power thousands of generations. Read More PrismML hopes its tiny LLM will change how we all use AI: If AI lab PrismML isn't on your radar yet, it should be. Read More Former Infosys chief's AI startup nabs another $53M: The Palo Alto startup says it has landed multiple seven-figure enterprise contracts within months of launch. Read More Robinhood’s Abhishek Fatehpuria on winning the modern financial consumer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Robinhood’s Abhishek Fatehpuria on winning the modern financial consumer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register now to save up to $200 before September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Read More Open or closed AI? Nvidia's Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes take on one of the decisions shaping next-gen startups at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Nvidia's Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes discuss one of the decisions shaping next-gen startups on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Read More A message from Invest Hong Kong Asia’s #1 Fintech Center Welcomes U.S. Fintechs to HONG KONG Hong Kong – Asia’s Fintech capital, Innovation Hub to the Greater Bay Area and gateway to the Chinese Mainland – invites U.S. Fintechs to join a U.S. delegation for Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026, November 2–6. Access a curated program, meet key players in Hong Kong’s fintech ecosystem and discover how YOU can grow YOUR Fintech in Asia’s World City! More Information Here Last but Not Least Khosla-backed Mazama Energy just raised $135M to drill deeper into superhot-rock geothermal: Geothermal startup Mazama is drilling three miles underground to tap superhot rock, with one well capable of generating 15 MW of electricity 24/7. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy raises $50M seed round, just two months after launch

Recapping this week in startups

View this email online in your browser  September 11, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy raises $50M seed round, just two months after launch: Bluecore Energy announced Tuesday an oversubscribed $50 million seed round — just months after raising a $10 million pre-seed and coming out of stealth.  Read More Cognition hits $48B valuation, signaling investors believe AI coding is far from a winner-take-all market: Cognition's valuation multiple is higher than Cursor's was before selling to SpaceX. Read More Travis Kalanick’s Atoms might be getting into the robotaxi business: The Uber founder has said that Atoms will allow him to complete "unfinished business." Read More A message from Invest Hong Kong Asia’s #1 Fintech Center Welcomes U.S. Fintechs to HONG KONG Hong Kong – Asia’s Fintech capital, Innovation Hub to the Greater Bay Area and gateway to the Chinese Mainland – invites U.S. Fintechs to join a U.S. delegation for Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026, November 2–6. Access a curated program, meet key players in Hong Kong’s fintech ecosystem and discover how YOU can grow YOUR Fintech in Asia’s World City! More Information Here Must-Reads Bending Spoons to buy collaboration tools maker Miro for $1.36B, 90% less than its 2022 valuation: Bending Spoons is buying Miro for $1.36 billion, a huge dip in valuation for the workplace collaboration startup, which was valued at $17.5 billion in late 2021. Read More Harvey hits $15.5B valuation, months after reaching $11B: The legal AI startup and VC darling has nearly doubled its valuation in nine months. Read More Defense tech Mach Industries doubles valuation to $3.7B in 3 months: The buzzy startup raised another $600 million in a Series C extension round, bringing the total of the round to $900 million. Read More Maven Robotics wants to steal your robot deployment deal: Maven Robotics emerged from stealth today with a $100 million Series A and active deployments. Read More Google signs its biggest rice-methane carbon credit deal with Indian startup Mitti Labs: The four-year agreement will cover rice farms across three Indian states, reaching about 100,000 hectares at peak delivery. Read More Last but Not Least Furo's founders left Silicon Valley — and it's paying off: The three 28-year-old founders behind energy startup Furo moved from Silicon Valley and back to Germany, and yet secured $4 million in funding from mostly U.S. backers.  Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107