Startups/page/36 news and trends

Pigment Raises $250 Million for Agentic AI Platform

October 21, 2026
Pigment
Mercury Integrates AI-Powered Payroll Capabilities Into Entrepreneur Accounts
Payroll // October 20, 2026

FinTech company Mercury added an artificial intelligence-native payroll solution to its offerings so that founders can pay employees and contractors from the account they already use to manage their money, the company said in a Tuesday (Oct. 20) press release. With AI-powered capabilities through Mercury’s...

Nvidia-Backed doubleAI Debuts AI ‘Code Execution’ Models
Artificial Intelligence // October 19, 2026

Israeli startup doubleAI is reportedly set to introduce what it describes as a new category of artificial intelligence (AI). The company, whose backers include Nvidia and Dell, calls this new category “code execution” models (CEMs) which place the AI “between code and silicon,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Monday (Oct....

OpenAI Weighs Deal for One-Time Security Partner Trail of Bits
Cybersecurity // October 14, 2026

OpenAI is in preliminary discussions to acquire cybersecurity company Trail of Bits, The Information reported Tuesday (Oct. 13), citing unnamed sources. The size of the potential deal was unclear, although OpenAI has in some cases paid hundreds of millions of dollars in stock to pick...

Peppermint Secures $4.7 Million to Fix Clinical Trial Billing
Artificial Intelligence // October 08, 2026

Peppermint raised $4.7 million in seed funding for its artificial intelligence-powered financial operations platform designed for teams that run clinical research, the company said in a Thursday (Oct. 8) press release Peppermint’s platform is designed to provide a continuous, audited record of every visit, invoice...

Interviews & Exclusives
Kaon Uses AI to Build a Different Video Story for Every Viewer

July 30, 2026
Most consumer apps run on the same logic. An algorithm scans what already exists and serves the user the closest match. Kaon AI CEO and Co-Founder Jay Dang said the model has a ceiling built into it. In a conversation with PYMNTS, Dang said Kaon skips algorithmic recommendation altogether. Rather than surface the best existing […]

Y Combinator Offers Startups $500K in Stablecoins Instead of Cash

February 04, 2026
Adding crypto into the finance stack has traditionally had the flair of a younger business. On Tuesday (Feb. 3), the startup incubator Y Combinator (YC) codified that impression, announcing that...

Kamran Ansari on the FinTech Reset: Execution, Endurance, and the End of Easy Money

November 10, 2025
Kamran Ansari has lived through nearly every major turn in FinTech, from the first digital wallets and mobile payments to the rise (and recalibration) of billion-dollar disruptors. With nearly 100...

Fundamentals Beat Frenzy for FinTech IPOs in 2025

October 08, 2025
The FinTech initial public offering (IPO) market has roared back to life in 2025 after several quiet years. However, it’s not the same speculative surge that defined the last cycle....

Quick Reads
Pigment Raises $250 Million for Agentic AI Platform

October 21, 2026
Business planning and performance management platform Pigment is worth $2.3 billion after raising $250 million in a Series E funding round, according to a Wednesday (Oct. 21) press release. The financing will help Pigment further develop its compute engine Graphite and the artificial intelligence agents running it, the release said. “Enterprise planning will change more […]

Mercury Integrates AI-Powered Payroll Capabilities Into Entrepreneur Accounts

October 20, 2026
FinTech company Mercury added an artificial intelligence-native payroll solution to its offerings so that founders can pay employees and contractors from the account they already use to manage their money,...

Nvidia-Backed doubleAI Debuts AI ‘Code Execution’ Models

October 19, 2026
Israeli startup doubleAI is reportedly set to introduce what it describes as a new category of artificial intelligence (AI). The company, whose backers include Nvidia and Dell, calls this new category “code execution” models (CEMs)...

OpenAI Weighs Deal for One-Time Security Partner Trail of Bits

October 14, 2026
OpenAI is in preliminary discussions to acquire cybersecurity company Trail of Bits, The Information reported Tuesday (Oct. 13), citing unnamed sources. The size of the potential deal was unclear, although...