Richard Nieva
@richardjnieva
Senior writer, @Forbes, covering AI. Previously: @BuzzFeedNews. East Bay native. DMs open. Tips: rnieva@forbes.com or Signal at username RNieva.26
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Today we published the 12th edition of the Next Billion Dollar Startups list, a fun one because it spotlights up-and-comers working on everything from bone marrow transplants to thwarting biological threats.
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New: I chatted with Alexandr Wang and new Scale CEO Jason Droege about the company post-Meta deal. Scale says revenue last year was just shy of $1B, and expects it to top $1B this year. (But Meta will account for nearly half of annual revenue)
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After Cerebras’ long-awaited IPO, CEO Andrew Feldman is now a billionaire worth an estimated $3.4 billion. Check out my story, which involves a secret dance floor and Halloween candy from a Nobel Prize winner.
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Corgi, an AI insurance startup, just raised $160 million at a $1.3 billion valuation. Its employees work 7 days a week, it owns and operates a 24/7 cafe and has a company-owned Corgi named Trudy, which employees walk and feed with the help of an AI bot.
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AI music startup Suno is battling record labels and angry artists as it upends how millions of people create songs. It's become smash-hit success with some $150 million in estimated 2025 revenue, as the scale starts to tip in its favor.
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SCOOP: On Monday, Figma CEO Dylan Field talked about Anthropic's new design product to a room full of AI founders and VCs.
“They were not consistently candid in their communications."
Sound familiar? My story on the simmering Anthropic and Figma feud:
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Here’s a fun one: The next big AI dataset is…Google’s garbage. The company is partnering with Mill, which makes a smart trash bin, to train the startup’s AI on food waste from Google’s campus.
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Excited to reveal the 2026 Forbes AI 50 List, which spotlights the most promising privately-held AI companies in the world.
Mercor exploded to $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate earlier this year. The startup is facing a wave of challenges including an employee stealing company funds, North Koreans infiltrating its platform and cultural growing pains.
With @annatonger
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I chatted with AWS CEO Matt Garman, who says the company is “bullish” on the Middle East, despite recent drone strikes that have damaged data centers. He also touched on the OpenAI deal, hoping it will improve Amazon’s Trainium chips
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OpenAI's abrupt cancellation of its $1 billion Sora-Disney deal is just one example. The $852 billion behemoth has trumpeted hundreds of billions in other deals and products that haven’t yet become reality. With @_pheebini.
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This year I’m taking over our Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. We want to highlight the best up-and-comers. If your company’s valuation is under $1B, apply here!
Vercel, the web hosting and deployment company, hit run rate revenue of $340 million at the end of February. And its $300 million funding round in September has made founder Guillermo Rauch a billionaire, worth an estimated $2.1 billion.
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New: Replit has raised $400 million at a $9 billion valuation, and is releasing its new coding agent. The goal is to make vibe coding more like you’re doodling on a white board. Paul Graham, an early investor, thinks it will “redefine” the term.
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Influencer marketing has helped AI video company Higgsfield hit $300 million in annual revenue run rate in just eleven months. But misleading marketing tactics, payment problems and a social media strategy based on shock has led to backlash among creators.
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