# Startup Related Articles

HTX News Center provides the latest articles and in-depth analysis on "Startup", covering market trends, project updates, tech developments, and regulatory policies in the crypto industry.

The Life-and-Death Game of Large Models: From the 'Six Dragons' to the Dual Giants Going Public — The Bubble, Breakthrough, and Endgame of AI Entrepreneurship

The Chinese AI large model startup landscape has undergone a drastic reshuffle in just two years. The initial "AI Six Dragons" quickly narrowed to the "Four Strong," and by early 2026, only Zhipu AI and MiniMax had successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first independent large model companies to go public. The industry has shifted from a technology and capital-driven frenzy to a focus on commercial viability and sustainable business models. Zhipu AI and MiniMax, though now publicly traded, face immense pressure with significant losses, high valuations, and challenges in achieving profitability. Zhipu relies heavily on enterprise customization projects, while MiniMax depends on overseas consumer products with limited monetization. In contrast, non-listed companies like DeepSeek and Kimi have thrived by focusing on technical excellence and niche markets. DeepSeek targets global users with cost-efficient operations, and Kimi dominates long-text processing for professional use cases. Meanwhile, former contenders like Baichuan AI and 01.AI have shifted to vertical sectors, struggling against tech giants and thinner margins. The industry is governed by three key realities: only a few players can compete in the general-purpose large model space; public listings bring heightened scrutiny and inevitable valuation corrections; and vertical markets are highly competitive, not a safe retreat. The sector is expected to consolidate within one to two years, with a stable structure emerging—led by major tech firms, a few top independent companies, and specialized vertical players. Listing is not an exit but a rite of passage, separating those that can achieve profitability from those that cannot. The era of speculation is over; survival depends on technology, product strength, and sustainable business models.

marsbit04/03 04:31

The Life-and-Death Game of Large Models: From the 'Six Dragons' to the Dual Giants Going Public — The Bubble, Breakthrough, and Endgame of AI Entrepreneurship

marsbit04/03 04:31

From Housemate Arguments to a $300 Billion Showdown: WSJ Long-Form Article First Reveals the Decade-Long Personal Feud Between Anthropic and OpenAI Founders

The Wall Street Journal reveals the decade-long personal rift between Anthropic and OpenAI founders, Dario and Daniela Amodei, and OpenAI's Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The conflict, rooted in philosophical differences over AI development and governance, began in 2016. Tensions escalated over leadership disputes, credit attribution, and management styles, culminating in the Amodeis and nearly a dozen employees leaving OpenAI in late 2020 to form Anthropic. Today, both companies are valued over $300 billion, competing fiercely while their founders' unresolved personal animosity continues to shape the global AI landscape.

marsbit03/28 07:27

From Housemate Arguments to a $300 Billion Showdown: WSJ Long-Form Article First Reveals the Decade-Long Personal Feud Between Anthropic and OpenAI Founders

marsbit03/28 07:27

OpenAI Bets on 'Robot Army': 23-Year-Old Prodigy Wins Favor from Sam Altman

While OpenAI adjusts its video strategy, Sam Altman is setting his sights on the more ambitious field of "multi-agent systems." According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI has secretly invested in Isara, an AI startup founded by 23-year-old researchers Eddie Zhang and Henry Gasztowtt. Despite being established only in June last year in San Francisco, Isara has already recruited over a dozen top researchers from Google, Meta, and OpenAI itself, forming a highly skilled technical team. Isara’s core vision is to develop a system that enables thousands of AI agents to collaborate efficiently. While individual AI assistants are powerful, they often struggle with large-scale industrial challenges such as biotech R&D or complex financial modeling. Isara aims to solve this by creating a framework where diverse AI agents can communicate, align goals, share data, and tackle interconnected problems—functioning like a coordinated "robot army." This multi-agent approach is seen as a critical step toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). OpenAI’s endorsement signals industry recognition of distributed intelligence. In biopharma, the system could simulate thousands of protein-folding pathways, with specialized agents identifying patterns. In finance, it could perform real-time stress tests using global market data. Led by young innovators, this shift suggests the next breakthrough in AI lies not in building larger models, but in enabling smarter collective intelligence.

marsbit03/26 02:32

OpenAI Bets on 'Robot Army': 23-Year-Old Prodigy Wins Favor from Sam Altman

marsbit03/26 02:32

Verse8 Completes $5 Million Seed Funding Round to Accelerate AI-Driven Game Creation

Verse8, an AI-native platform that enables creators to instantly turn ideas into playable games, has raised $5 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by Story Foundation, NEXPACE (Nexon’s Web3 arm), Neowiz, MARBLEX (Netmarble’s Web3 arm), Solarium Labs, and NEXUS, with participation from other investors in gaming, media, and tech. The funds will accelerate development of Verse8’s core AI systems, expand creator onboarding and incentive programs, and enhance its publishing and distribution infrastructure. Since its launch in July 2024, the platform has attracted over 3.5 million monthly active users and more than 5,000 active creators who have generated 25,000 games. Using natural language prompts, users can create fully playable multiplayer games within minutes, eliminating the need for coding, game engines, or large teams. Co-founded by JC Kim and Kevin Lee, Verse8 aims to democratize interactive content creation. The platform automates art, code, design, and QA, while integrating with Story for on-chain ownership, licensing, and distribution, allowing creators to retain attribution and monetize their work. Advised by Jake Song, co-founder of Nexon, Verse8 is positioned at the forefront of a new AI-native, creator-led era in interactive media.

marsbit03/26 00:05

Verse8 Completes $5 Million Seed Funding Round to Accelerate AI-Driven Game Creation

marsbit03/26 00:05

The Self-Destruction of the Startup Bible: The More You Know, the Sooner You Fail

The article "The Self-Defeating Nature of Startup Dogma: The More You Know, The Sooner You Fail" argues that popular startup methodologies—such as Lean Startup, Customer Development, and the Business Model Canvas—have not improved startup survival rates over the past 30 years, based on U.S. government data. The core paradox is that once a methodology becomes widely adopted, it loses its competitive advantage as all founders converge on the same strategies, leading to homogeneity and increased failure rates in competitive markets. The author compares this to the Red Queen effect in evolutionary biology, where continuous adaptation is necessary just to maintain position. Despite the intuitive appeal and scientific claims of these frameworks, empirical data shows no improvement in the survival rates of either general U.S. businesses or venture-backed startups. In fact, the success rate for seed-funded startups securing subsequent funding has declined. The article explores three possible explanations: the theories might be fundamentally flawed; they might be too obvious to require formalization; or they might be self-defeating when universally applied. The author calls for a truly scientific approach to entrepreneurship, one that embraces experimentation, paradigm development, and differentiation rather than dogma. The conclusion is that to succeed, founders must often do the opposite of what popular playbooks advise.

marsbit03/23 08:13

The Self-Destruction of the Startup Bible: The More You Know, the Sooner You Fail

marsbit03/23 08:13

Polymarket Acquires Brahma to Strengthen DeFi Infrastructure

Polymarket, the largest prediction market, has acquired DeFi infrastructure provider Brahma. The Brahma team will focus on enhancing Polymarket's product suite, aiming to reduce friction in wallet creation, deposits, and token redemptions. The acquisition is expected to bring more liquidity to niche prediction markets on Polymarket. Brahma’s three main products—Strategy Vaults, Brahma Accounts, and Swype.fun—will be discontinued over the next 30 days. This move is part of Polymarket’s continued expansion despite broader crypto market challenges. The company recently announced partnerships with Palantir and TWG AI for an AI-powered sports integrity platform and acquired Dome and Lunch in February. Financial terms of the Brahma acquisition were not disclosed.

TheNewsCrypto03/19 08:30

Polymarket Acquires Brahma to Strengthen DeFi Infrastructure

TheNewsCrypto03/19 08:30

From Campus to Capital: BUPT Senior Secures 30 Million Investment in 10 Days

Based on the provided text, here is the English summary: Guo Hangjiang, a 20-year-old senior student at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, developed an AI engine called MiroFish in just 10 days. The project, which generates thousands of unique digital agents with distinct personalities, memories, and behaviors to simulate and predict outcomes in virtual worlds, quickly gained massive attention. It topped GitHub's global trending chart, amassing over 22,000 stars. His work caught the eye of Chinese billionaire Chen Tianqiao, former founder of Shanda Group and an advocate of the "super individual" theory. Impressed by a simple demo video, Chen committed 30 million RMB (approximately $4.1 million USD) to incubate the project, transforming Guo from an intern into a CEO overnight. MiroFish's core functionality involves processing a document (e.g., news, policy draft, novel) to extract entities and relationships into a knowledge graph using GraphRAG. It then spawns autonomous AI agents that can form groups, develop opinions, and exhibit herd mentality. A key feature is the "God's Perspective," allowing users to inject new variables (e.g., "Fed cuts rates by 50 basis points") and observe the simulated world recalibrate in real-time, enabling controlled experiments impossible in reality. The open-source framework, released under AGPL-3.0, utilizes the OASIS simulation engine, Zep Cloud for long-term memory, and is deployable via Docker. Demonstrated use cases include predicting the lost ending of the classic novel "Dream of the Red Chamber" and simulating market reactions to a Federal Reserve interest rate hike. The article notes that while MiroFish is a sophisticated multi-agent framework capable of revealing unforeseen scenarios, it has not published benchmark tests against real-world outcomes, inherits potential biases, and its simulated humans are not real. Chen Tianqio's investment is ultimately a bet on the emerging era of the "super individual."

比推03/16 06:45

From Campus to Capital: BUPT Senior Secures 30 Million Investment in 10 Days

比推03/16 06:45

Google's Largest Acquisition Ever: What Makes Wiz Worth It?

Google has made its largest acquisition ever, acquiring cloud security company Wiz for $32 billion. This deal, which surpasses its 2012 purchase of Motorola Mobility, values Wiz at a price-to-sales ratio of over 45x—significantly higher than industry averages. Despite Wiz's rapid growth, with annual recurring revenue reaching ~$700 million in just a few years, the acquisition appears financially expensive at face value. Founded in 2020 by a team of Israeli cybersecurity veterans, Wiz became one of the fastest-growing software companies by focusing on agentless cloud security, enabling quick deployment and multi-cloud visibility. Its client base includes nearly half of the Fortune 100. For Google, the acquisition is strategic. It aims to integrate Wiz’s technology into Google Cloud to enhance its security offerings, attract enterprise clients, and compete more effectively against AWS and Azure. The deal, structured as all-cash, also prevents rivals from acquiring Wiz. However, challenges remain, such as integrating Wiz’s distinct corporate culture and maintaining its perceived neutrality as a now-Google-owned multi-cloud platform. Ultimately, Google is betting that the long-term strategic value outweighs the financial cost.

marsbit03/16 03:10

Google's Largest Acquisition Ever: What Makes Wiz Worth It?

marsbit03/16 03:10

Conversation with CoinGecko CEO: Building a Crypto Data Platform from Scratch with $200, Regularly Evaluating Acquisition Intentions

Bobby Ong, co-founder and CEO of CoinGecko, built the cryptocurrency data platform from scratch with just $200 over 12 years, without venture capital. In a recent interview, he shared his journey into crypto in 2013, driven by an economics background and interest in Bitcoin's fixed supply and self-custody model. He remains optimistic about NFTs, viewing them as essential for tokenizing real-world assets, though he believes future crypto winners have yet to emerge. Ong discussed CoinGecko’s origins, including its name choice for being adaptable and fun, and highlighted the 2021 DeFi boom as a key growth driver, as the platform was early to track DeFi tokens. He explained the company’s decision to avoid VC funding, which fostered creativity and disciplined, low-cost marketing like SEO optimization. When comparing CoinGecko to competitor CoinMarketCap, Ong acknowledged CoinMarketCap’s stronger SEO due to earlier market entry but emphasized CoinGecko’s broader token coverage and data accuracy. He also addressed rumors about a potential $500 million sale, stating that while CoinGecko regularly evaluates strategic options, including acquisitions, there is no perfect timing for such decisions—it depends on the team and circumstances.

marsbit03/15 07:15

Conversation with CoinGecko CEO: Building a Crypto Data Platform from Scratch with $200, Regularly Evaluating Acquisition Intentions

marsbit03/15 07:15

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