The secret to fast startup growth isn’t early sales say top names in tech; plus, Rivian bought a world model startup to accelerate self-driving ambitions

Helion now has another $225 million to help speed development of its first fusion power plant, due to provide Microsoft with electricity in 2028. Also, at TechCrunch Disrupt last week, two founders and a VC discussed how to not just gain an early following but keep one. And Daytona is building a cloud for agents that's like giving every agent its own computer. It has attracted founders of Stripe, Perplextity, Datadog, Mercor and others as angels, it says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At this year’s Disrupt, Lovable GTM lead Luke Arno, Polska’s Ben Broca, and Theory Ventures’ Tomasz Tunguz gave founders some tips on how to achieve true sales success in the first 90 days. Also, EV maker Rivian has acquired Third Dimension, a U.K. startup founded by veterans of the gaming and autonomous vehicle industries that uses AI to turn images and videos into lifelike 3D worlds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just 9 months after raising an $180 million seed round, Flapping Airplanes has landed $1 billion Series A for its mission to build AI models "without ingesting half the internet." Also, startup Recursive has released Flint, a free, laptop-sized coding model built largely by its own AI research system, as an early test of AI that improves itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Electric Plant has built an AI-powered translator to help humans listen to what plants are saying with the subtle electricity coursing through their stems. Also, OpenAI says it's adding Orchestra's team and technology to work on Rosalind, its AI model for life sciences research, and to its related Rosalind Workbench tool, a harness that aims to help researchers plan experiments and analyze results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon wants to break Nvidia’s hold on PyTorch, the free toolkit used to build most AI apps, so that more developers run their apps on alternative chips like its own. Also, AI assistant startup Town nabbed a unicorn valuation on Monday, announcing a $108 million Series B round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures. And AI companion app Tolan has raised another $30 million after attracting more than 250,000 active users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Counterfeiters are getting better at replicating brands' marks and passing off dupes, known as "superfakes," as genuine items. A startup called Veritas wants to tackle the problem with its own chip that verifies goods. Also, according to Elorian's evaluations, Glimpse outperforms even GPT-6 Astra on scientific chart reasoning and short-form video captioning, with competitive results on other visual reasoning tasks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ricursive founders detailed how their startup is developing AI that can design chips, learn from each iteration, and improve subsequent designs, all with the goal of automating and accelerating the chip design process. Also, Gudea, a company that tracks how stories and rumors spread online that describes itself as the “storm tracker for the internet,” is using AI to help organizations spot trouble brewing online before it turns into a crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most companies use AI agents to ship products faster or speed up workflows. Apate.ai sends them undercover to get scammed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The San Francisco startup aims to help battery and chip manufacturers identify defects on production lines, reducing downtime and costly mistakes. Also, as AI data centers and EVs drive up demand for copper, Giraffe Bio has unearthed a $6.4 million seed round to help miners extract more of the mineral. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Honeyjar believes AI can actually make PR better. Also, WindBorne is a startup that uses weather balloons and AI to predict the weather won a US military contract worth almost $50 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices