Disclaimer: Automated aggregation only. Not investment or professional advice.
Today’s highlights
- Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data — 2026-09-11
- The round for the two-year-old startup is coming together months after Mecka announced its Series A.
- Khosla Ventures is opening a New York office this fall — its first outpost outside Sand Hill Road — 2026-09-11
- “It’s actually allegedly being built out now,” said Rabois, who has clearly dealt with a missed construction timeline or two.
- Y Combinator’s Garry Tan wants US open-weight AI labs to ‘distill’ frontier models, too — 2026-09-11
- Tan wants smaller, American open-weight AI labs to use the same kind of training techniques on American frontier AI labs, giving the U.S. a more robust set of open-weight options that aren’t Chinese.
- OpenAI’s feud with mathematicians is only escalating — 2026-09-11
- Twenty-five leading mathematicians signed an open letter arguing that AI labs are threatening their intellectual work.
- Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case — 2026-09-11
- New Mexico’s Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for his client’s murder conviction, according to a report from Reuters. In a filing on Wednesd
- One week left to book your exhibit table at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 — 2026-09-11
- Only one week left to secure your exhibit table. Tables are limited and can sell out before the September 18 deadline.
- Final, final, final call for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Side Events — 2026-09-11
- The absolute last chance to apply to host an official Side Event during TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is tonight, September 11, at 11:59 p.m. PT.
- We unfolded the iPhone Duo — 2026-09-11
- You only get one chance at a first impression, and getting to introduce Apple’s first folding phone is certainly a strong way to start things off as Apple’s CEO. On The Vergecast today, we’re talking all about Apple’s la