Four Tech Startups You Need To Know: Runway, Fauna Robotics, Daydream, and Neko Health

This week, we're covering four companies sitting at the bleeding edge of AI and robotics. We start with Runway, the $5.3B NYC startup quietly reshaping Hollywood from the inside out. Founded by three NYU art students, Runway's text-to-video tools are already in Oscar-winning films and our very own episode promos ;) Their bet on world models could put them at the center of enterprise AI in ways nobody expected. From there, we get into Fauna Robotics and their robot Sprout, a 3.5-foot foam-covered humanoid that is Ellen's new obsession and might be the most interesting developer platform in robotics. Sprout is a safe, expressive platform designed to live next to people. Then we look at Daydream, the fashion AI agent built by the woman who launched Nordstrom.com and scaled Stitch Fix to a billion in revenue. It's ad-free, hyper-personalized, and asking a hard question: can a vertical AI shopping layer become a durable business before Amazon or Google absorbs the idea? We close with Neko Health, Spotify Founder Daniel Ek's proactive health company that puts you in a chamber of 70 sensors and hands you a clinical picture of your body. Same day, no MRI, no radiation… for $370. In their first year alone, 1% of people scanned received potentially life-saving interventions for conditions they had no idea they had. Sit with us as we chat through four companies with four very different bets on what comes next.