Stablecoins, Browser AI, and Autonomous Robots
From seamless stablecoin payments to AI transforming web navigation—here’s what’s reshaping the tech world. Plus, the hottest startup roles you need to know about.
Hello!
Welcome back to Why Join.
Still helping a few great companies hire:
Enterprise AEs (3-5 years at a top B2B software company) – SF/NYC/London.
BDR/SDRs (1-3 years in SaaS or sharp new grads from top schools with competitive backgrounds). Scrappy, startup-minded, cold-calling experience preferred – SF/NYC/London.
Know someone? Or is that you? Hit reply—I read every email.
Also, I’m catching up on replies to the last newsletter. I’ll get back to you soon if you’re waiting.
Now, onto this week’s edition.
Sponsored by Vanta
Automate Compliance and Accelerate Growth with Vanta
If you're building a business, you know that proving compliance is essential to winning bigger deals, entering new markets, and building customer trust—but it can cost you serious time and money.
By automating up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA, and more, Vanta gets you compliant fast—unlocking next-level growth opportunities.
Over 10,000 companies, including Atlassian, Factory, and Chili Piper, use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Start with Vanta’s SOC 2 checklist, a step-by-step breakdown of the compliance process.
Want to sponsor a future edition? Let’s talk.
This Week in Startups
🇺🇸 Rain
Funding — Series A, $24.5M; Investors — Norwest Venture Partners (lead), Galaxy Ventures, Goldcrest, Thayer, Hard Yaka, Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, Vinyl Capital, Canonical Crypto, Latitude Capital.
TL;DR: Stablecoin payments that just work
Stablecoins move $6T+ a year, but actually spending them is a mess. Merchants don’t accept them, off-ramps are slow and costly, and converting to local currency is a headache.
Rain fixes that. A Visa principal member, Rain lets businesses issue cards that settle in stablecoins—allowing users to spend digital assets anywhere Visa is accepted, without off-ramp delays or fees.
For businesses, it means paying global suppliers without FX headaches. For freelancers, it means getting paid in stablecoins and using them instantly.
Co-founders Farooq Malik (ex-North American Development Bank) and Charles Naut (ex-Intuit) built Rain to bridge crypto and commerce, combining real regulatory expertise with tech that just works. The market is responding—15x growth in the past year, processing transactions in 100+ countries.
Hiring: Software Engineer Intern, Product Analyst, DevOps Engineer, Business Development Associate - New York; Compliance Analyst (AML, KYB, KYC) - San Juan; Legal Operations Specialist - Remote; Full-Stack Engineer, Accounting Analyst - LATAM
🇺🇸 Browser Use
Funding — Seed, $17M; Investors — Felicis Ventures (lead), A Capital, Nexus Ventures, Y Combinator, Paul Graham, Liquid2, SV Angel, Pioneer Fund.
TL;DR: Makes websites easier for AI agents to navigate
AI agents are great—until they hit a website. No API? They’re stuck parsing HTML, guessing where buttons are, or worse—trying to “see” like a human via screenshots. Even when APIs exist, they rarely capture the full functionality of the UI. It’s slow, expensive, and fragile.
Browser Use changes the game. Instead of treating websites like a black box, it extracts the underlying structure—turning web pages into clean, predictable data AI agents can actually use. No more brittle vision-based hacks. Just reliable, repeatable automation.
The backstory: Magnus Müller and Gregor Žunič built Browser Use while at ETH Zurich, frustrated with the limits of existing browser automation tools. They open-sourced it in November 2024—and it blew up, hitting 46K GitHub stars in months. Today, 20+ YC startups use it to power their AI workflows.
🇺🇸 Tera AI
Funding — Seed, $7.8M; Investors — Felicis, Inovia, Caltech + Wilson Hill, Naval Ravikant.
TL;DR: Software-only navigation for robots—no expensive sensors required
Most autonomous robots rely on expensive, hardware-heavy localization—lidar, IMUs, GPS. That works for a $250K Waymo. But what about a $10K warehouse bot?
Tera AI is building AI-powered spatial reasoning software that allows robots to navigate using only visual inputs. No expensive sensors required—just a camera and a GPU. Their "zero-shot navigation" means robots learn on the fly, without pre-mapped spaces or endless fine-tuning.
Hiring: AI Researcher (PhD, Visual Foundation Models for Autonomy), Deep Learning Optimization Engineer (Robotics)
🇺🇸 BuildOps
Funding — Series C, $127M ($1B Valuation); Investors — Meritech Capital Partners (lead), BOND, SE Ventures, Fika Ventures, Next47, StepStone Group, Titanium Ventures, 01A, Founders Fund, B Capital, MetaProp, 137 Ventures, Liquid2.
TL;DR: Operating system for commercial contractors
Commercial contractors don’t get the spotlight. But without them, everything stops. Hospitals shut down. Data centers overheat. Supply chains stall. The world runs on these teams—yet they’re stuck with outdated tools. Software built for residential jobs. Paper trails that slow them down. Systems that don’t talk to each other. A $300B industry running on duct tape.
BuildOps fixes that. Built for commercial contractors, it connects technicians, dispatchers, and managers in one AI-powered platform—streamlining scheduling, invoicing, and operations. More jobs done. Fewer mistakes. A business that runs like it should.
Hiring: Sales Development Representative, Full-Stack Engineer, Customer Success Manager - Los Angeles
Top News
FuriosaAI Rejects Meta’s $800M Offer: Korean AI chip startup FuriosaAI just turned down Meta’s $800M buyout, choosing independence over a quick exit. Founded by ex-Samsung and AMD exec June Paik, Furiosa is gunning for Nvidia, Groq, and Cerebras with its latest chip, RNGD ("Renegade"). LG AI Research, Saudi Aramco, and others are testing it now. The plan? Raise more, build more, and go public. Meanwhile, Meta is pouring $65B into AI this year—rushing to build its own chips, data centers, and an empire that doesn’t need Nvidia.
Munich Re Buys Next Insurance for $2.6B: Munich Re is acquiring Next Insurance in a $2.6B all-cash deal via ERGO, taking full control after first investing in 2017. Next, launched in 2016, serves 600K small biz customers and raised over $1B from Allianz, Alphabet, and Amex. But despite pulling in $550M revenue last year, it still ran a $90M loss. This is Germany’s third big insurance deal in recent days: Allianz, BlackRock, and T&D Holding grabbed Viridium for €3.5B, while Allianz dumped its Indian JV stake for €2.6B.
Perplexity Eyes $18B Valuation in New Raise: AI search startup Perplexity is in talks to raise $500M–$1B, doubling its valuation to $18B. Founded in 2022, it’s on a rocket ride—$1B → $3B → $9B in under a year. Backers include SoftBank, Nvidia, and Jeff Bezos. Revenue? Close to $100M ARR. Users? 15M+. But AI search is getting crowded. Google and OpenAI are scaling up their own plays. Perplexity’s bet? Comet (an AI-powered browser) and Deep Research (a tool for in-depth analysis).
StubHub Files for IPO: StubHub is going public. The ticket resale giant just filed for a U.S. IPO, reporting $1.77B revenue for 2024—but also a $2.8M net loss. A nosedive from its $405M profit in 2023, when Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour sent sales soaring. The real problem? Spending. StubHub burned $828M on marketing last year while operations and support got just $59M. Founded in 2000, sold to eBay in 2007, then bought back by Viagogo in 2019 for $4.05B, StubHub now operates in 200+ countries. The IPO, led by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, will trade under STUB on the NYSE.
TechCrunch Gets a New Owner: Yahoo is offloading TechCrunch to Regent, a media investment firm stacking up tech news sites. No price tag, no regulatory review—so likely under $100M. Yahoo’s play? Focus on aggregation and ad tech, not journalism. Regent’s? Go big on tech media. Just last week, it also bought Foundry (parent of PCWorld, Macworld, and TechAdvisor). TechCrunch has bounced around: AOL → Verizon → Apollo → Yahoo → now Regent. It built Crunchbase (spun off in 2015), cut staff last year, and scrapped its premium subscription.
Apple Sued Over AI That Doesn’t Exist: Apple’s AI push just hit a lawsuit. A new class-action suit says Apple misled customers by marketing “Apple Intelligence” features—like a smarter Siri—that never shipped. Filed in federal court in San Jose, the complaint calls out an ad featuring Bella Ramsey that Apple quietly pulled after delays went public. The law firm? Clarkson, the same team suing Google and OpenAI. But this time, the issue isn’t AI going rogue—it’s AI not showing up at all.
💳 Still Paying High Interest? Here’s How to Escape It
Most people don’t realize some credit cards can help you ditch debt faster. Sounds crazy, but here’s the trick:
✅ 0% intro APR on balance transfers
✅ Move your debt, skip the interest, and pay it down faster
✅ Free yourself from sky-high rates
Check out these cards now and start saving today!
Who's Hiring
Singular: Investment Associate - London
Bessemer Venture Partners: Summer Analyst 2026 - New York
Equal Ventures: Platform Manager - New York
Vanta: Founder in Residence (GTM Innovation) - Remote, US
Addepar: Investment Associate - New York; Portfolio Data Engineering Intern - Remote, UK; Portfolio Data Operations Analyst, Associate Portfolio Data Analyst - Pune
Stacks: Product Engineer, Account Executive - Amsterdam
Icon: Software Engineer Intern (Product), Research Engineer Intern (Generative Video/Audio), Founding Operations, Founding Brand Growth (Account Executive) - New York
Console: Founding Account Executive, Product Designer, Software Engineer, Growth - San Francisco
Unify: Product Engineer, New Business Representative, Product Growth Strategist - New York/San Francisco
Mintlify: Sales Development Representative, Account Executive, Technical Writer - San Francisco
1Password: Finance Operations Analyst - Remote, Canada
Superpower: Founding Engineer, Head of Creator Partnerships & Influencer Marketing, Head of Editorial - San Francisco
Verkada: Marketing (Sales) Development Representative, Software Engineer - Data Platform, Strategic Finance - MBA Intern, MBA Intern - Sales Strategy & Ops, MBA Intern - Product Marketing - San Mateo; Account Executive - London
🚀 Startups, stop overpaying! Get six HubSpot tools for the price of one—just $20/month. AI-powered marketing, smarter customer engagement, and analytics that actually make sense. Get started today for $20/month.
That’s it for today.
See you Wednesday—Chief