Founder Diaries Newsletter - Issue 13
Welcome to our weekly digest of the latest news — from industry trends, AI, and founder stories to best practices.
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This Week in Tech: SaaS Headlines, Strategic Partnerships & Startup Spotlights ⚡
📰 The Biggest Headlines in SaaS
Stay updated with the most significant developments in the SaaS industry, from groundbreaking product launches to major market shifts.
💰Funding Spotlight
Discover the latest news from top companies raising capital and shaping the future of technology and business.
🚀 Great achievements from TOP startups
Get insights into emerging startups poised to disrupt industries and lead innovation in the coming months.
Your curated roundup to stay sharp, informed, and ahead of the curve.
Carpathian Startup Fest 2025 – the most startup-driven agenda in Poland!
And Spendbase is heading in that direction to join the fun!
On May 21–22, Rzeszów, once again, becomes the center of innovation thanks to the event titled Carpathian Startup Fest 2025! This event connects startups, investors, and experts, giving you space for growth, networking, and inspiration. If you want to see what’s next for the industry and how to shape the future of your business—you have to be there!
Come to Rzeszów if:
✔️ You want to meet 300 startups in one place,
✔️ You’re interested in networking with 50+ investment funds,
✔️ You want to hear from 120 speakers on 4 thematic stages,
✔️ You’re looking for hands-on workshops with industry practitioners,
✔️ You want 1:1 talks in the Business Dating Zone,
✔️ You want to explore the market, trends, and new partnerships,
✔️ You want to see VCs pitch back in Reverse Pitch,
✔️ You want to join the legendary MeetUp Party for 500 guests.
But that’s not all! What else is waiting you at the festival? Buy your ticket and discover why it’s worth joining the #CSF25 community!
📰 The Biggest Headlines in SaaS
📰BREAKING: Deliveroo to be acquired by DoorDash for £2.9bn!
“Deliveroo, the UK-based food delivery giant, is going to be acquired by its US rival, DoorDash, in a deal valued that values Deliveroo at £2.9 billion.”
“This is a big drop from the £8.8bn Deliveroo was targeting when it went public in 2021, but higher than the recently reported £2.7bn that DoorDash was supposedly going to offer.”
Thanks for sharing, Seb Johnson!
📰Spotify's new effort vs. YouTube
“Spotify has released several tools to give users more control over their listening sessions, in a bid to narrow the gap with rival YouTube, says TechCrunch. The latest updates include features for easier music discovery and playlist customization."
"While YouTube "continues to dominate the podcasting space," Spotify has also introduced a new metric, dubbed "Plays," that displays the number of times an audio-only or video podcast has been actively listened to or streamed.”
📰OpenAI hires Instacart chief. Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is joining ChatGPT maker OpenAI as CEO of Applications.
“Hi team - I want to share an important update with you that I will be leaving Instacart in the coming months to take on a new role as CEO of OpenAI Applications, leading the product, business, and other company functions.”
“Let me start by saying this was an incredibly hard decision because I love this company. We are operating incredibly well as our last earnings results have shown. Our strategy is working and this team is top notch, which makes it very hard to leave.”
📰Coinbase has introduced a new payments protocol for online payments that enables stablecoin transfers over standard internet protocols and AI agents to transact autonomously.
“Coinbase is launching the new protocol in partnership with AWS (Amazon Web Services), stablecoin issuer Circle, AI company Anthropic and AI-focused proof-of-stake layer-1 blockchain Near Protocol.”
📰Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO at HubSpot is sharing the WOO HOO moment!
“HubSpot has launched MCP (Model Context Protocol) support into public beta -- and it's super cool.”
“This new feature allows HubSpot to be accessed easily by the growing list of AI applications and agent platforms that support MCP.”
💰Funding Spotlight
💰Dori Yona, Co-Founder, CEO at SimpleClosure is happy to share that SimpleClosure raised $15M in Series A funding.
“We are excited to use this funding to bring peace of mind and practical support to many more founders facing shutdowns. This funding isn't just money—it's validation that our vision resonates.”
💰Guillaume Lebedel Co-Founder & CTO at StackOne has raised a $20M Series A! 🚀
“To every one of our customers, especially those who bet on us early, our investors who’ve backed the vision from day one, our advisors who challenged and guided us, and, most importantly, the relentlessly hard-working StackOne team: thank you 🙇♂️”
💰StackAI has raised $16 million in Series A funding to empower non-technical teams in enterprises to build AI agents for any use case.
“In 2022, MIT PhDs Antoni Rosinol and Bernard Aceituno started Stack AI to solve a problem: enterprises could not integrate their data with emerging LLMs. The company soon evolved into a no-code platform that allows non-technical teams to build AI agents to perform jobs in modern enterprises.”
💰Rewbi has just raised a $4M Seed round to build the next generation power company, starting with AI to optimize grid-connected battery storage.
“Founded by Thomas Marge and Derek Modzelewski, Rewbi rents battery storage for a fixed fee per month, and earns more than double that fee in monthly revenue by dispatching the battery optimally. They’re an active power company in Texas, and are already making a profit from balancing the grid.”
💰Neatsun Ziv, Co-Founder & CEO of OX.Security just raised $60 million in our Series B!
“To our team, our investors, and especially our customers - thank you. This round gives us the momentum to keep pushing, keep building, and keep challenging the way the world thinks about software security.”
🚀 Great achievements from TOP startups
🚀Yurii Rebryk, Founder & CEO at GetFluently.app is THRILLED to announce that Fluently just hit 1M ARR
“We've grown 20+ times since January 2025. I can’t even IMAGINE where we’ll be by the end of this year!”
🚀Svitlanka Sergiichuk, shared another major compliance milestone for them at Neofin Solutions.
“Three years ago, when the Neofin’s international journey was a little more than an ambitious idea, someone asked me: "Wait… you're THAT early stage and already SOC 2 certified? How?" The answer was simple for me then, and remains the same now: We’ve taken compliance seriously from Day 1. And applied for SOC 2 Type I as early as the first interested international prospects.”
🚀Richard Lee, CEO @ Ciro is excited to announce the biggest product launch in Ciro history.
“Ross Geiger, David Winer, and I have spent years watching sales reps spend 40% of their week hunting for leads. If you’re in sales — you know the pain — searching for the right person to talk to takes a ton of time + manual effort. In the era of AI, we don’t think that's the case anymore. That’s why we built Ciro Autopilot.”
Let’s make prospecting the easiest part of your day 🚀
🚀Maximus Greenwald is moving to San Francisco to start Warmly,'s first in person office.
“We're a global remote company. We'll continue hiring in our favorite geos & let great talent shine wherever they are (but hope they'll come visit us!)”
🚀Peter Caputa, CEO at Databox shared his biggest fear about Databox's huge product launch.
“20k companies use Databox to monitor, analyze and report their results and I'm not sure how many of them will realize how big of a deal this launch is for them.”
“Most were happy enough with our existing functionality. So, it's a big unknown whether they'll value these new, more sophisticated capabilities.”
🚀Arnaud Belinga, Co-Founder @Breakcold is happy to share that Instantly.ai native CRM integration is out! “
Use case 1 ⚔️Push automatically CRM contacts from Breakcold to Instantly when a lead goes in a specific sales CRM list and (optional) sales pipeline stage.”
“Use case 2 ⚔️ Push CRM contacts in bulk or individually to an Instantly campaign. To push leads from Instantly to Breakcold, you still need to rely on Zapier/Make/API using their webhook feature.”
Co-Founder @Breakcold | The sales CRM for 2025, not 2010.
3moThx for the mention 🙂
CEO at Databox
3moAppreciate the extra cheers for the Databox product launch! :-) Nice job on this roundup.
💜🤘
Co-Founder at Neofin | Fintech | Lending automation | Mastercard Start Path and BMO WMNFintech Alumna
3moThank you for the shout out! Pleased to be in such a great crowd of startups in your Founder Diaries!