Listen to today’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silk-logic-small-business-daily/id1841930957
Small Business Daily Podcast
Today’s podcast episode was created from the following stories: a fast-moving mix of AI breakthroughs, developer tools, health tech, and startup ecosystem news shaping how teams build, secure, and scale in 2026.
Okta to expand India team by 50% as it ramps up AI security push
Okta plans to grow its India workforce by 50% in 2026 and make Bengaluru a core engineering hub for identity security and AI agent protection. The company is aligning global expansion with a revenue target of $10 billion while warning that most organizations run AI agents without adequate security plans.
Why it matters: Identity is emerging as the new security perimeter for AI-era apps—an area where small and mid-sized teams often lack mature controls.
Harness hits $5.5B valuation with $240M raise to automate AI’s ‘after-code’ gap
Harness raised $240 million at a $5.5 billion valuation to speed up testing, security, and deployment using AI agents and a software delivery knowledge graph. With 1,000+ enterprise customers and strong ARR momentum, the company plans major R&D hiring—especially in Bengaluru—and hints at an eventual IPO.
Why it matters: As AI accelerates coding, the bigger bottleneck is everything after code—automating this layer helps teams ship faster, safer, and with better governance.
Included Health is launching an AI personal health assistant that’ll face off with Big Tech from Verily to OpenAI
Included Health unveiled Dot, an AI health assistant that uses members’ claims and benefits data to deliver precise guidance, backed by human clinicians and rapid escalation for urgent risks. Positioned against Big Tech efforts, Dot has been piloted for 18 months and now sits at the front door of Included’s member experience.
Why it matters: Employers and health plans want AI that’s safe, compliant, and actionable—blending automation with licensed clinical support.
Interest in Spoor’s bird-monitoring AI software is soaring
Oslo-based Spoor uses computer vision to detect and classify birds up to 2.5 km away with roughly 96% accuracy, helping wind farms plan sites and adjust turbine operations during migrations. The startup raised an €8 million Series A and now works with 20+ major energy companies, with interest from airports and aquaculture.
Why it matters: AI is becoming a compliance and risk-reduction tool—supporting permitting, protecting wildlife, and avoiding costly shutdowns and fines.
Runware raises $50M Series A to help make image, video generation easier for developers
Runware secured $50 million to scale its unified API and custom inference stack for real-time image, video, and audio generation, already powering 10+ billion creations for 200,000 developers. With support for hundreds of thousands of models and cost-per-output pricing, the company aims to be the “API for all AI.”
Why it matters: Developers get faster time-to-market and predictable costs—critical for apps that need to scale media generation without ballooning infrastructure spend.
Google for Startups Hub launches in Hyderabad’s T-Hub: Free spaces for a year, training for founders — What’s inside?
Google and Telangana launched a new Google for Startups Hub inside Hyderabad’s T-Hub, offering selected AI-first startups free coworking for a year, expert mentoring, investor access, and global visibility. The state also announced a ₹1,000 crore Startup Fund and dedicated programs for women founders, tier-2 innovators, and university talent.
Why it matters: It’s a significant boost to India’s AI startup pipeline—lowering early costs, expanding networks, and accelerating routes to market.
Tiiny AI Pocket Lab: Mini PC with 12-core ARM CPU and 80 GB LPDDR5X memory unveiled ahead of CES
Tiiny AI unveiled Pocket Lab, a handheld mini PC claiming up to 160 TOPS via its NPU, 12-core ARM CPU, and 80 GB LPDDR5X—designed for fully offline, local LLM workloads. The company touts one-click installs for popular open models and support for very large parameter sizes, though real-world performance and pricing remain to be seen.
Why it matters: If the claims hold, privacy-first teams and developers could prototype powerful AI locally, reducing cloud dependency and latency.
