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:
Kargo closes on $42M funding round to automate loading dock and warehouse operations
Kargo raised $42 million in Series B funding led by Avenir to scale its AI-enabled loading dock towers and software that automate receiving, inspection, and data capture. With more than 1,000 towers deployed and a customer base growing from 3 to 45 since 2022, the company says ROI often arrives within weeks as dock workflows, compliance, and visibility improve. New funds will support products like Kargo Intelligence, which automates back-office tasks such as invoicing and claims using visual evidence from dock operations.
MuleRun launches Creator Studio, the world’s first platform built for AI agent monetization
MuleRun’s Creator Studio promises a three-step path to turn AI concepts into monetized agents, bundling development, deployment, billing, and multi-platform distribution (including Siri, Discord, and Telegram). The company reports 600,000 users since September and 160+ live agents, with an on-deck Mule Agent Builder to let non-coders publish agents from plain-language prompts. For creators and teams, the draw is integrated metering, evaluations, and commercialization guidance that help move projects from demos to production.
Here’s where you can get a robotaxi in the US, and the cities they are coming to next
Waymo, Tesla, and Uber accelerated robotaxi rollouts in 2025, with service now live in multiple cities and more coming in 2026 as agentic commerce in mobility matures. Waymo crossed 14 million trips this year and is expanding to new markets, while Tesla pilots driverless operations in Austin ahead of its steering wheel-less Cybercab. Despite momentum and big projections for autonomous commerce, early tools still face reliability, access, and regulatory constraints.
Leash: security guardrails for AI coding agents
Leash adds safety rails for AI coding agents by sandboxing file operations, blocking destructive git commands, and preventing path escapes and risky redirects with minimal latency overhead. It supports popular agent platforms through simple hooks and offers clear allow/deny policies, while noting that it’s a defense-in-depth layer best paired with containers or restricted permissions. For teams adopting AI agents in development, Leash reduces the blast radius of hallucinated commands and operational mistakes.
ServiceNow to pay $7.8bn for OT security specialist Armis
ServiceNow’s $7.8 billion acquisition of Armis aims to fuse OT/IoT asset intelligence with the ServiceNow AI Platform and SecOps workflows, expanding its security and risk market opportunity. The companies say the combined data and automation will help enterprises proactively close gaps and defend against AI-powered attacks, especially in manufacturing and healthcare. The all-cash deal, expected to close in the second half of 2026, caps a strong year for cybersecurity M&A.
