DecodeFM

Today, we’re looking at Retell AI, a company building ultra-realistic voice agents that are already replacing real call-center workflows. Retell has grown from $8 million to $36 million in ARR in just eight months, all with a team of only 21 full-time employees. We’ll unpack what makes their tech so compelling, how businesses are using it today, and why voice automation is becoming one of the most competitive corners of AI.

What if one of the most interesting challenges to today’s AI giants isn’t coming from Silicon Valley, but from a young team in Paris? Today, we’re looking at Mistral, the fast-rising European startup taking an open-weight approach to the generative-AI race. With the recent release of their Mistral 3 model family, they’re positioning themselves as a cost-efficient, highly customizable alternative through Mixture-of-Experts models that deliver strong performance at lower operational cost. Backed by major partnerships and a multibillion-dollar valuation, Mistral is betting that efficiency and openness can carve out meaningful foothold in the enterprise AI market.

What if the best way to power AI isn’t expanding the grid, but moving compute to where energy is cheapest? Today, we’re looking at Crusoe - the company turning wasted and stranded energy into an edge for high-performance computing. With a fresh $1.375 billion Series-E round and a valuation topping $10 billion, they’re quickly becoming a key player in the infrastructure behind the AI boom. 

Today, we’re looking at Nuro and its major strategic shift in the autonomous vehicle space. Once known for its cute delivery robots, the company has now pivoted toward licensing its full AV stack to automakers and mobility partners. It has recently raised Series-E at $6 billion valuation.

What if the real bottleneck in AI isn’t the model, but the data itself? In this episode, we’re talking about Snorkel AI, a Stanford spinout helping enterprises turn expert knowledge into high-quality training and evaluation data, far faster than manual methods. The company recently raised $100 million in Series D funding at a $1.3 billion valuation. We’ll explore how Snorkel’s approach works, its shift toward AI evaluation, and what that means for the next wave of enterprise AI.

Today, we’re turning to the networking side of AI - the part that keeps all those GPUs talking to each other. Nexthop AI recently came out of stealth with $110 million in funding at a $500 million valuation. The company rethinking how massive AI clusters are connected - not just building faster switches, but co-developing custom network hardware and software with hyperscalers. We’ll look at how Nexthop’s approach could reshape the AI infrastructure stack and why investors are betting big on it.

Today, we’re talking about Reflection AI — the new startup everyone’s watching. Fresh with a $2 billion raise at an $8 billion valuation, it’s founded by ex-DeepMind researchers behind AlphaGo and Gemini. Their goal? To build open, frontier-scale intelligence that rivals the closed labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. We’ll dig into their technology and discuss the future of open-weight models.

Today, we’re looking at Hippocratic AI, a startup building generative AI agents for patient-facing, non-diagnostic healthcare tasks. From post-discharge check-ins to chronic care management, Hippocratic’s goal is to ease staff shortages and create what it calls “healthcare abundance.” The company recently raised a $141 million Series B at a $1.6 billion valuation, and we’ll explore how its safety-focused approach and deep clinician involvement could reshape the way patients and providers experience care.

Today, we’re looking at Fyxer AI, a startup building AI executive assistants for email and meetings. Fyxer plugs directly into Gmail and Outlook to sort messages, draft replies, and even handle scheduling and notes — all to save users an hour a day. The company has grown ARR from $1 million to $17 million in just eight months, and we’ll explore how its rapid rise is reshaping the future of workplace productivity.

Today’s episode is a little different — we’re talking about defense AI. Shield AI builds autonomous systems designed to protect soldiers and civilians by enabling aircraft and drones to operate without GPS or communication links. We’ll explore the company’s origin story, its core software platform HiveMind, and how its AI-powered drones are changing modern warfare. We’ll also look at its $5.3 billion valuation, key defense partnerships, and the ethical questions around AI on the battlefield.

Today, we’re looking at Groq, a startup aiming to redefine AI inference speed. Groq recently raised $750 million, bringing its valuation to $6.9 billion. We’ll explore Groq’s founding story, its specialized LPU chip, and how its focus on real-time AI performance positions it against Nvidia and other giants in the GPU cloud market.

Today, we’re discussing Decagon and how they’re rethinking customer support with human-like AI agents. We’ll look at how their generative AI engine differs from traditional chatbots, the impact of integrations like Stripe, and what it means for enterprises facing rising support costs. Plus, we’ll explore where this technology might go next, from personalization to new applications beyond customer service.

In this episode we explore the differences between U.S. and Chinese venture capital, from software-driven models to hardware and supply chain innovation. It highlights how biases shape investment, the role of trust networks, and why overcapacity can fuel new opportunities.

In this episode, we talk about CalAI, a fast-growing nutrition app that tracks daily calories through photos. Its founders are teenagers. While some online reports speculate its ARR could be over $30 million, we’ll focus on how the app works and its challenges.

Today, we’re discussing Sana Labs and their approach to workflow automation. We’ll explore how their AI-driven solutions set them apart in the market, particularly when compared to companies like Asana. Plus, we'll take a look at some of the everyday tasks that AI can automate to boost productivity.

Doctors today spend nearly two hours on administrative work for every hour with patients, a major driver of burnout and inefficiency in healthcare. Nabla is tackling this problem with its AI assistant, already used by over 85,000 clinicians across 130 organizations. The company recently raised $70 million in Series C funding, bringing its total to $120 million, to expand from reducing documentation time into building agentic AI that can also support coding, launch orders, and integrate more deeply into clinical workflows.

Today we’re looking at Crescendo AI, a company that hit nearly $100 million in ARR in just 15 months. Crescendo’s approach blends automation with human expertise to create a more responsive, scalable, and cost-effective support platform. We’ll talk about their rapid growth, the shortcomings of current business models in the space, and how they aim to fix them.

In this episode we’re talking about Gamma, the online tool for creating beautiful, interactive presentations and documents in minutes. We’ll explore how it started, how it works, how people are using it, and the challenges it’s overcome to get where it is today.

Midjourney just launched its first video model—and at nearly the same moment, found itself facing a major lawsuit from Disney and NBCUniversal. In this episode, we'll unpack how Midjourney reached this pivotal point and where it might be headed next. From its rapid rise as a leading AI image generator to the creative and legal challenges it now confronts, Midjourney’s story offers a glimpse into the broader future of generative AI.

Today, we’re looking at OpenArt.ai - a fast-growing platform making AI-generated art more accessible. We'll discuss the range of tools available and their use cases, explore how artists can train models to reflect their own unique styles, and see how OpenArt compares with other AI image and video generators.