Posts by Liam Redmond
Seed Funding Signal: Monogram Raises $40M for AI
Consumer AI startup Monogram just emerged from stealth with a $40 million seed funding round, and the raise is turning heads for a simple reason. As PitchBook reported, the company is led by Eren Bali, Cofounder of Udemy and Carbon Health before this. I used to tell founders that a huge seed round is validation.…
Read MoreSunshine Protection Act: What Permanent DST Means
The U.S. House passed the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday, a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent and end the twice-a-year clock change. The vote was 308 to 117, and the measure now heads to the Senate. This is not just a lifestyle story. If the change becomes law, it touches your schedules,…
Read MoreAI Website Builder Race: Duda Ships Agency Tools
Duda has launched a new suite of AI website builder features aimed squarely at agencies, letting teams generate full sites, custom widgets, and even web apps from simple prompts. The rollout, announced on July 15, pushes generative tools past rough first drafts and into finished, client-ready work. For growth-minded founders, this is a signal, not…
Read MoreHow Founders Can Scale Sales Without Building a Full In-House Team
Founders are often the strongest salespeople in an early-stage company. Their product knowledge is immediate, and buyers can speak directly with the person who shaped the offer. Trouble begins when sales calls consume the time needed to lead the business. Building a traditional sales department can take months. Hiring mistakes are expensive, while new representatives…
Read MoreParamount Warner Bros Merger Hit by 12-State Lawsuit
A coalition of a dozen states sued on Monday to block the Paramount Warner Bros merger, a $110 billion deal that would join two of the largest media companies in the United States. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is leading the challenge, which lands just weeks after federal regulators stepped aside. Founders rarely track media…
Read MoreSmall Business AI: New Study Exposes a Confidence Gap
A new Bluehost market study put hard numbers on the state of small business AI, and the headline figure is striking. A full 87% of owners already use at least one AI tool, and more than half reach for one every single day. That sounds like good news, and in many ways it is. Yet…
Read MoreMeta accused of using AI to pick employees with medical conditions for layoffs
Twenty-six Meta employees sued the social media giant over allegations that the California company used artificial intelligence systems that targeted workers on medical or family leave for layoffs. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California this week, accuses Meta of using AI that includes performance rankings and other metrics that didn’t exclude workers…
Read MoreLabor Dept. — and even Silicon Valley — sources agree H-1B visa crackdown is about much more than just fraud
The H-1B investigation into foreigners exploiting worker visas in the US has moved at a rapid pace since Vice President JD Vance announced it last week — with the Department of Labor already preparing affidavits, sources tell me, as they examine alleged abuse of a program they say is rife with fraud. “We have areas…
Read MoreAI Tools for Small Business: Pie Raises $23.7M for Main Street
A startup called Pie just raised $23.7 million to bring AI-powered growth to Main Street businesses. The round targets a clear gap. Big companies already use AI to win customers, while local shops and service firms often get left behind. That gap is closing fast, and AI tools for small business are now within reach…
Read MoreOllama Raises $65M as Its Open AI Runner Hits 8.9M Users
Ollama, the tool that enables developers to use their own hardware to work with open AI models, raised tens of millions in Series B funding. It raised $65 million to be exact, which Theory Ventures helped to lead. After this funding round, this brought the total funding up significantly, resulting in at least $88 million.…
Read MoreDirect to Consumer Wins: How Moonkie Built a $38.5M Brand
A premium baby brand called Moonkie just closed a $38.5 million Series B after posting 9,300 percent five-year search growth. The company, founded in 2020, now draws roughly 161,800 monthly website visits and reports products in the hands of 2.64 million customers. In a market crowded with lookalike sellers, that is a striking result. If…
Read MoreVC Funding Hits a Record $510B as AI Swallows the Market
So far in 2026, global startups have raised $510 billion. This was even more than the amount invested in 2025, which was $440 billion. The surge was powered almost entirely by artificial intelligence, and OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounted for $217 billion, or 43 percent of every dollar raised. Those numbers sound like a gold…
Read More