Block Blast! tops world downloads 2024-25 on Hungry Studio's no-IAP bet
Beijing's Hungry Studio rebuilt block puzzle as a drag-and-place, ads-only game; Block Blast! ranked #2 global downloads in 2024 and 2025, then drew Tencent.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDDoomersion bets doomscrolling can teach languages; 15K downloads in 2 weeks
YC W26 app turns the TikTok habit into language learning: level-matched videos that get harder as you scroll; 15K downloads in two weeks.
Read the casePlata bets Mexico wants credit-first banking: card to unicorn to $5B bank in 3 years
Ex-Tinkoff bankers started with one Mexican credit card, reached 3.5M customers, and became a licensed bank — $405M Series C at $5B.
Read the caseWeRide's licensing bet: UAE driverless permits make it the first public robotaxi firm
WeRide bet regulators — the UAE's first national AV license, Abu Dhabi's city driverless permit — would open robotaxis; Nasdaq IPO 2024, revenue +90% in 2025
Read the caseiFixit bets right-to-repair laws make its guides and parts the default layer
Two decades of free repair guides turned into a legal market: California's SB 244 and the EU directive now feed iFixit's 100,000+ guide and parts business.
Read the caseBiVACOR's maglev titanium heart: first human implant, 105 days, then a donor heart
A pulseless artificial heart with a single magnetically levitated rotor kept end-stage heart-failure patients alive long enough to reach transplant.
Read the casePandion's Parcel Network Bet: Raised $41.5M, Liquidated in 10 Months
Founded by Scott Ruffin, delivered 100k parcels daily, raised $41.5M in 2024-03, closed in 2025-01 with no severance.
Read the caseClawSecure bets OpenClaw agents need their own CrowdStrike: PH #2 launch
Ex-Web3 founder J.D. Salbego builds the security layer for OpenClaw's skill ecosystem — PH #2, 338 upvotes, 1,498 scans in 24h
Read the caseOpenHands bets the open-source coding agent beats Devin's walled garden
One engineer's reaction to Devin's closed demo became a 60k-star open-source agent with $23.8M raised and enterprise traction.
Read the caseParadromics' Connexus bet: first speech-restoring BCI implant lands in an FDA study
Paradromics bet a high-density wireless brain implant could win FDA study approval; it did in Nov 2025, and its first participant was implanted in June 2026.
Read the caseTS Conductor's reconductoring bet: carbon-core cables carry 3x power, $134M plant
TS Conductor bets carbon-core cables will replace steel wires on existing towers; $60M Series B in 2024, $134M plant opened May 2026.
Read the caseZetwerk's manufacturing-marketplace bet: ₹15,913 Cr revenue, IPO in 2026
Zetwerk bets digitizing India's fragmented contract manufacturing can build a $3B+ platform; IPO filed 2026
Read the caseWeWork's IPO bet unravels: its $47B private valuation slides toward a $10B float
SoftBank priced WeWork near $47B; weeks after the S-1, Reuters said the IPO could value the company as low as $10B.
Read the caseGizmo bets gamified AI flashcards can beat TikTok for teens; 13M users, $22M Series A
Gizmo turns students' notes into gamified AI quizzes; it grew from 300K users in 2023 to 13M across 120+ countries, then raised a $22M Series A.
Read the caseMercury became startup banking's default when SVB's collapse sent founders searching
When SVB failed in March 2023, startups scrambled for somewhere to put their money; Mercury took $2B of deposits in days — and kept the customers.
Read the casePasqal's neutral-atom bet: sell QPUs to HPC centers, then list on Nasdaq at $2B
Pasqal bet analog neutral-atom QPUs could be deployed before fault tolerance: 100+ qubit deliveries to Jülich and CEA, then a $2B SPAC listing with ~$360M cash
Read the caseZeekr's standalone premium-EV bet: 2024 NYSE IPO, privatized into Geely by Dec 2025
Geely launched Zeekr in 2021 as a standalone premium EV brand, listed it in New York in 2024, then merged Lynk & Co in and took it private by December 2025.
Read the caseAbridge bets ambient AI on doctor-patient talks; $300M Series E at $5.3B
A cardiologist's scribe app becomes care intelligence: 150+ health systems, $5.3B valuation.
Read the caseZipline bets FAA BVLOS approvals unlock US drone delivery at scale; $600M at $7.6B
Medical-drone pioneer rode 2024 FAA BVLOS authorizations into US quick-commerce; 1M deliveries by Apr 2024, $600M round at $7.6B (Jan 2026).
Read the caseTwenty bets open source can beat Salesforce; 56k GitHub stars, $5M seed
Paris YC S23 startup Twenty bets community-led open source wins CRM — the biggest software market; 56k GitHub stars by 2026, $5M seed from Runa Capital.
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