Free AI content scraping Is Over

Author

Alex Wilhelm
September 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Top News

  • Publishers unite: A fresh effort to solve market tensions between online content owners and AI companies took shape today. Dubbed Really Simple Licensing (RSL), companies like Medium, Yahoo, and Reddit have signed up to participate. The concept includes automated licensing, a method to charge fees for access to materials, and, critically, solidarity. RSL joins Cloudflare’s Pay Per Crawl system and the work of TWiST500 startups like TollBit, Human Native, and Created by Humans in the fight to carve off a piece of AI revenues for the websites that make those incomes possible.

  • Bending Spoons buys Vimeo: Bending Spoons, an Italian Internet holding company, will purchase online video service Vimeo for $1.38 billion in an all-cash deal. Shares of Vimeo shot 60% higher to $7.75 today, just under the $7.85 that the acquirer intends to pay. TechCrunch notes that other companies that Bending Spoons purchased have seen dramatic staff and capacity cuts after their absorption. Vimeo posted $105 million in total Q2 revenue per its most recent earnings report, flat year-over-year.

  • More capital for quantum: Flush with $1 billion worth of new funding, quantum computing startup PsiQuantum wants to build the first “commercially useful, fault-tolerant quantum computers,” it says. The Journal reports that PsiQuantum could have a commercial-grade quantum computer in market by 2027, far faster than some industry participants anticipated. PsiQuantum is not alone in raising new capital this year, with fellow quantum-focused startup Quantinuum raising hundreds of millions of dollars just weeks ago.

TWiST500

Bon voyage, Klarna. Today, shares of the Swedish buy now, pay later company began to trade. After pricing its IPO at $40 per share last night, the well-known unicorn appreciated by about 17% at the time of writing to $47.05 per share.

After targeting a lower range, Klarna was worth just over $15 billion at its IPO price and is now worth around $17 billion, per our back-of-the-envelope math. That’s a far cry from its highest private-market valuation set in 2021, but it's a near treble its later, lower price tag that it raised after the tech market settled down.

We don’t keep companies that have exited on the TWiST500, so off it will come. Well done, Klarna!

Elsewhere in TWiST500-land, Replit announced today that it raised a new $250 million round, bringing its total worth to $3 billion. The company helps turn user ideas “into apps,” it says, a project that pushed its revenue from the single-digit millions to $150 million in the last year, per Bloomberg reporting.

While Replit may be best known for its work in the ‘vibe coding’ space, it has far bigger aspirations. It launched a new AI agent today it calls ‘Agent 3,’ which it claims has a 10x increase in autonomy, thanks to an ability for Agent 3 to work longer by itself. And, it can both test and improve code that it writes. — Alex

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This Week in Startups

E2175 : Alex digs into the real-world rollout of AI agents: Paid.ai’s Manny Medina explains agent economics and value-based pricing. Then, iTruckr’s Camilo Ramirez shows agents booking loads and coordinating drivers. Lastly, Tenax’s Elise Myrans demos computer vision + drones that score a single home’s wildfire/flood risk for smarter underwriting. The show wraps with live office-hours on winning enterprise pilots without getting stuck in PoC purgatory.

E2174: It’s a special pre-recorded Friday TWiST. Jason, Alex, AND Lon open the show by following up the “KPop Demon Hunters” debacle. Sony Pictures’ CEO says the movie wouldn’t have been a theatrical hit and Netflix was the best home for it… But Jason isn’t buying it. PLUS Jason’s response to Lina Khan on The Bulwark podcast, his “two stock markets” theory, why Atlassian wanted to buy a browser company, Google’s anti-trust remedies, and MUCH MORE.

E2173: It’s a 70 minute plus autonomous driving deep dive on a brand new TWiST as Jason and Alex welcome Nuro co-founder and president Dave Ferguson. Together they unpack Nuro’s new mega-deal with Lucid and Uber, and look ahead to the arrival of fully driverless SUVs to Uber by next year. PLUS they’re evaluating claims that autonomous rides could one day be cheaper than driving a car, and look at ways to keep costs down, via high-tech chips, off-the-shelf sensors, and other hacks.

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Angel University is Back!

Jason and Mike Savino are hosting our next virtual Angel University workshop on Tuesday, October 7. Jason will share proven strategies he’s used to invest $200M+ in over 500 startups. Whether you’re new to angel investing or looking to sharpen your skills, this is your chance to learn directly from one of the most active angel investors in the world. Register now at angel.university!

Founder U is Coming to the MENA Region!

Our 12-week pre-accelerator—designed to help early-stage founders build and grow—kicks off this fall in Saudi Arabia. The first cohort launches in Riyadh on November 3rd, followed by in-person and virtual sessions throughout the program. Founders in MENA: this is your chance to turn your idea into a business and get world-class insights on building a successful startup. Apply today: https://mena.founder.university/

SF Live-Work Space Now Available

Need a flexible living and working environment in San Francisco? This thoughtfully designed loft-style residence at 787 Bryant St., the heart of the vibrant SOMA district and the city’s creative hub, is now available for rent or purchase. Check the listing for more details.

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