HeyGen's HyperFrames bet: HTML as the video format for AI agents
AI-avatar video maker HeyGen open-sourced HyperFrames — HTML to deterministic MP4 for agents; the repo hit 32.2K stars in Q2 2026.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDUCB pays up to $2.2B for two-year-old Candid to bring T-cell engagers to autoimmunity
UCB agreed to buy Candid Therapeutics for $2B upfront, a bet that cancer-born T-cell engagers can reset autoimmune disease.
Read the caseYnsect's insect-protein bet: $425M raised, world's largest bug farm, 2025 liquidation
Ynsect bet mealworm protein could replace fishmeal at industrial scale; after ~$580M raised and a giant Amiens farm, a French court liquidated it in Dec 2025.
Read the caseNifty Gateway, the NFT boom's flagship marketplace, shut down Feb 23 2026
Nifty Gateway rode the 2021 NFT boom with Beeple's record sales, then Gemini shut its credit-card-friendly marketplace down on Feb 23, 2026
Read the caseKeeta's Saudi bet: Meituan playbook tops app charts, #1 delivery app for a year
Meituan's Keeta entered Saudi Arabia in Oct 2024, hit #1 App Store downloads by Jan 2025, and stayed the kingdom's top delivery app.
Read the caseSplashLearn bet young kids learn math better through games than books or videos
After a first edtech venture aimed at high schoolers, SplashLearn's founders rebuilt around games for pre-K to fifth grade, raising $18M on 40M users.
Read the caseRezolv bets debt collection becomes an AI-native product, not a services business
Kissht's founders returned with an AI collections platform for Indian lenders — $12.5M Series A led by Norwest after 22+ banks and 12M loan accounts.
Read the caseGalaxEye's OptoSAR bet launches: world-first satellite in orbit, $20M raised
India's GalaxEye fuses optical and radar sensors in one 190 kg satellite; its May 2026 launch put the all-weather imaging bet into orbit.
Read the caseRad Power Bikes' $1.65B e-bike bet ended in a $13.2M bankruptcy sale
The pandemic-era leader in US direct-to-consumer e-bikes raised $329M at a $1.65B valuation, then filed Chapter 11 in December 2025 and sold for $13.2M.
Read the casePerceptic bets pharma needs one AI OS, not point tools; exits stealth with $12M
Three Palantir AIP engineers built a shared intelligence layer across the whole drug lifecycle and were already live at top-10 pharmas before leaving stealth.
Read the caseJumia Food shut seven African markets, leaving riders chasing final pay
Jumia Food exited seven African markets in December 2023 after aggressive rivals, but workers and partners disputed whether final payments had cleared.
Read the casen8n's fair-code AI bet: +112k GitHub stars in 2025, $2.5B valuation
n8n bet fair-code workflow automation would win AI orchestration; 112.4k GitHub stars added in 2025, #1 in JS Rising Stars, then a $180M round at $2.5B.
Read the caseSeekee's LatAm bet: all-in-one AI browser tops Google Play with a free movie-search hook
Zhou Weimin's all-in-one AI browser Seekee launched in December 2024 and topped Google Play download charts across Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Peru.
Read the caseNested Therapeutics launches with $125M, bets on hunting new drug targets by design
Nested emerges from stealth to computationally search for 'undruggable' cancer targets instead of waiting to stumble on them.
Read the caseSweep bets CSRD makes carbon data a must-buy; $100M raised, then rules slimmed
Parisian carbon platform Sweep raised ~$100M betting CSRD forced audit-ready reporting; the 2025 Omnibus trimmed scope, so it pivoted to data platform.
Read the caseAppSumo: from a $60 weekend to an $80M bootstrapped deals marketplace
Fired Facebook employee #30 spent $60 in 2010 to validate one software deal on Reddit; AppSumo reached ~$80M revenue in 2023 with zero VC.
Read the caseCareem's bet on local ride-hailing paid off when Uber bought the Dubai startup for $3.1B
Dubai's Careem bet a locally built ride-hailing app could beat Uber at home; Saudi capital funded it to a $3.1B Uber exit.
Read the caseRising Academy Network bets radio can deliver education to West Africa's offline students
When COVID-19 closed West African schools, Rising Academy Network pivoted to radio lessons in five days, reaching students with no internet access.
Read the caseNaked's AI-insurance bet: the first binding car quote inside ChatGPT
South African insurtech Naked, fresh off a $38M round, ships the first final binding car-insurance quote inside ChatGPT.
Read the caseGensyn bets crypto-verified compute beats GPU clouds: $43M a16z Series A, $1B token sale
UK protocol renting idle GPUs for AI training with cryptographic proof-of-learning; a16z-backed, 165k+ testnet users.
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