April 07, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

$AI startup Rocket offers vibe McKinsey-style reports at a fraction of the cost$

AI startup Rocket offers vibe McKinsey-style reports at a fraction of the cost: Rocket's new AI platform combines strategy, product building, and competitive intelligence, aiming to move beyond code generation. Read More

Google quietly launched an AI dictation app that works offline: Google's new offline-first dictation app uses Gemma AI models to take on the apps like Wispr Flow. Read More

A teenage Minecraft YouTuber raised $1,234,567 for a meme prediction market called Giggles. It broke me.: Justin Jin’s company Giggles – which he describes as “putting a trading app and TikTok together” – started as a joke. Read More

Disrupt 2026: Where deals and ideas ignite

Oct 13–15 at San Francisco's Moscone West, 10,000 founders, investors, and operators gather for high-signal insights, curated connections, and real momentum.

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Morning Must-Reads

OpenAI alums have been quietly investing from a new, potentially $100M fund : Zero Shot, a new venture capital fund with deep ties to OpenAI, is aiming to raise $100 million for its first fund. It has already written some checks. Read More

Why a former AirPods engineer is now building heat pumps: Merino Energy has simplified the heat pump dramatically in a quest to make them cheaper and easier to install. Read More

Hermeus raises $350M to build autonomous hypersonic fighters: The defense aviation startup is coming off two successful flight demonstrations, and with the next one, it's aiming to go supersonic. Read More

Trump administration plans to cut cybersecurity agency's budget by $700 million: The budget proposal would force CISA to operate with a significantly lower budget than previous years, citing the government's claims that the election misinformation programs were used to "target the President." Read More

Adobe launches Acrobat-based Student Spaces, a free AI-powered study tool for students: Adobe Acrobat Spaces is a free tool for students to use AI and create different kind of study material from documents Read More

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Last but Not Least

The AI gold rush is pulling private wealth into riskier, earlier bets : On a recent episode of Equity, we talked to Arena Private Wealth to explore a growing trend: family offices bypassing VCs to gain direct exposure to AI startups, turning them from passive investors into active participants. Read More

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