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Founders · Saturday, 27 June 2026 · Issue 26 · 13 stories

Founders: Cut red tape, $50M for AI vetting, Corgi denies theft

Funding & VC

Patronus AI raises $50M to build simulated worlds that vet AI agents

Former Meta AI researchers’ startup Patronus AI secured a $50 million Series B to scale its digital‑world platforms that stress‑test autonomous agents across complex, real‑world tasks. With revenue up 15‑fold in a year, its simulations promise to catch shortcuts before agents are deployed in finance, software engineering, and beyond.

techcrunch.com ↗2 min read at source

Growth & GTM

HappyFox turned a $20 AI agent into $1 M expansion revenue

HappyFox’s four-person sales team used a lightweight AI agent (costing under $20 in token fees) to scan every support ticket and flag high-value upsell signals. The system generated $1 M of expansion revenue without any extra salesheadcount, proving that the cheapest growth often lives inside existing customers. Other B2B firms can replicate the approach by embedding AI directly in their support workflow.

saastr.com ↗6 min read at source

Leadership & Lessons

A Playbook for Ambitious Makers: Choose, Curiosity‑Drive, and Own Your Projects

Paul Graham distills a reproducible recipe for doing great work: pick a project that matches your natural aptitude, deep interest, and potential impact, then pursue it relentlessly through personal experiments. He stresses that curiosity‑driven, self‑directed projects are the engine that reveals the frontiers where breakthroughs happen, turning ambition into outsized results.

paulgraham.com ↗59 min read at source

Why Your 2022 Experiment Playbook Fails in the AI Age

Founders can’t rely on minor tweaks and short‑term revenue pulls any longer. Elena Verna outlines four AI‑driven shifts, big bets over fast wins, deeper data integration, real A/B testing, and focusing on step‑function impact, and gives three concrete actions to remodel experimentation for lasting growth.

elenaverna.com ↗12 min read at source

You’re caught up.

That was all 13 stories in the 27 June issue.