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The 9 buzziest startups from Y Combinator’s latest Demo Day, according to VCs

1 d ago

Y Combinator's latest Demo Day showcased a pronounced shift toward deep tech, with startups tackling nuclear-powered data centers, custom AI chips, and advanced robotics, according to early-stage VCs polled by TechCrunch. The batch featured more grounded valuations than recent cohorts, but the technology felt "like science fiction" to investors. Key startups flagged by multiple investors include **Atomarine**, which plans floating nuclear-powered data centers on barges to solve compute shortages, claiming over $4 billion in customer interest via letters of intent. **Dipole Labs** built an energy-efficient optical switch for AI data centers that eliminates power-hungry light-to-electricity conversions, addressing GPU cluster idle time. **Isengard Industries** mass-produces jet-powered attack and counter-drones within allied countries, already generating $10 million in revenue and commanding one of the batch's highest valuations. **Lamb Labs** hardcodes AI model weights into silicon with its "Model Processing Units" (MPUs) to eliminate memory-bandwidth bottlenecks during inference. **Praxis AI** collects real-world human work videos to train robots, already operating in 150+ environments. **Nori** sells a $1,600 humanoid robot for household tasks, racking up nearly $500,000 in sales six weeks after launch. **Cosmic Robotics** deploys autonomous heavy-lifting robots for solar panel installation, with $25 million in contracts through 2027, aiming to automate Mars construction. **Parasma** trains human brain cells as energy-efficient AI compute hardware. **Waddle Labs** offers an API layer using LLM agents to write robot control code, positioning itself as "Claude Code for robotics" with a 20-minute setup time.