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MoonPay buys Glide; YC doubles down on AI-native startups
Friday, Jul 17, 2026
MoonPay’s sixth acquisition of 2026 signals a cash-conserving, equity-driven consolidation push in crypto payments infrastructure, directly challenging Circle and Visa.
Meanwhile, Y Combinator’s Garry Tan and Eve Bouffard both argue that the next leap for startups is not incremental optimization but building AI-native companies and products that anticipate unarticulated future needs—a posture that contrasts with MoonPay’s acquisition-driven growth but shares a bet on foundational infrastructure shifts.
The tension: MoonPay scales through dealmaking, while YC urges founders to rewire company DNA around AI agents and imagination engineering.
Tracking: Y Combinator
Geography: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Mountain View, United States
1. MoonPay acquires Y Combinator-backed Glide in all-equity deal
MoonPay, the $3. 4 billion crypto payments company, has acquired Glide, a Y Combinator-backed startup that provides routing technology for crypto deposits.
The all-equity transaction brings Glide's four employees into MoonPay, where its product will be integrated into MoonPay Deposits.
Glide was founded in 2023 by former Robinhood crypto wallet engineers Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong, and had processed over $100 million in annualized transaction volume across 100+ tokens and 30 blockchains.
This is MoonPay's sixth acquisition announcement of 2026, following earlier purchases of Sodot, Helio, and others.
The company has used all-equity deals to preserve cash and align incentives, previously acquiring Sodot for $100 million in equity and Helio for $175 million.
MoonPay now competes more directly with Circle and Visa in the stablecoin and crypto payments infrastructure space.
Key facts:
- MoonPay acquired Glide in an all-equity deal; terms not disclosed.
- Glide is a Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2023 by Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong.
- Glide's technology supports 100+ tokens and 30 networks, processing over $100 million annualized volume.
- Glide had 4 employees, all joining MoonPay; it served more than 50 business customers.
- MoonPay's 2026 acquisition spree includes Sodot ($100M equity), Helio ($175M equity), and now Glide.
Why it matters: MoonPay is assembling a comprehensive infrastructure stack for moving money into and out of crypto, directly challenging established players like Circle and Visa.
By adding Glide’s deposits routing, MoonPay can offer apps a one-stop service for fiat on-ramps, swaps, and now multi-chain deposits without manual bridging.
The all-equity deal structure also signals confidence in MoonPay’s valuation and lets it conserve cash while expanding its product suite. Watch for further acquisitions in stablecoin and security verticals as MoonPay deepens its enterprise offering.
2. YC CEO Garry Tan urges founders to build AI-native companies
Y Combinator President and CEO Garry Tan delivered a keynote at the AI Engineer World's Fair, arguing that startups should build "AI-native" companies rather than just using AI tools.
He disclosed that in YC's Winter 2025 batch, a quarter of companies had codebases that were 95% AI-generated, and that this batch has become the fastest-growing and most profitable in YC's history.
Tan attributed his own 400x productivity increase as YC CEO to strategic use of AI agents, not better models, saying "the leverage is not in the weights, it's in how you wire the work."
He outlined a blueprint where core company functions become "skill files"—AI agents with defined jobs—and introduced the concept of a "company brain" personalized knowledge base.
Key facts:
- Winter 2025 YC batch had 25% of companies with 95% AI-generated codebases.
- Winter 2025 batch is the fastest-growing and most profitable in YC history.
- Tan estimates his own productivity as YC CEO is 400 times greater than 2013.
- Tan introduced AI 'skill files' that replace traditional organizational structures.
- Tan described a 'company brain' knowledge base to synthesize information instantly.
Why it matters: Tan's keynote signals a concrete shift in YC's strategy: the accelerator is now betting that AI-native companies—those that embed AI agents into their core operations—will outperform traditional startups.
Founders who treat AI as just a tool risk falling behind peers who restructure their entire company around AI agents and curated knowledge bases.
The 95% AI-generated codebase stat from the winning batch suggests that technical co-founders may need to rethink how they build and staff their teams, potentially reducing the need for large engineering teams while increasing emphasis on data hygiene and knowledge management.
3. Y Combinator’s Eve Bouffard Introduces ‘Imagination Engineering’ Framework
Eve Bouffard, an associate of Y Combinator, recently presented a product development concept called 'Imagination Engineering.'
This framework urges founders to move beyond solving existing user problems and instead envision products that anticipate future needs users haven't yet articulated.
The approach challenges conventional market research, suggesting that groundbreaking innovations often create entirely new categories.
Bouffard argues that true leaps require understanding latent human desires and societal trends, not just direct customer feedback.
Key facts:
- Eve Bouffard of Y Combinator introduced 'Imagination Engineering.'
- Framework aims to create products users may not yet know they need.
- It contrasts with solving existing problems by shaping future needs.
- Approach requires deep understanding of human psychology and trends.
Why it matters: For Y Combinator founders and the broader startup ecosystem, 'Imagination Engineering' offers a new lens for innovation, potentially shifting how early-stage companies approach product development.
It challenges the reliance on user feedback for idea generation, advocating for visionary creation.
This could influence YC's advice to batches and reshape founder strategies in Silicon Valley, favoring bold, category-defining ventures over incremental improvements. Investors may see a new metric for evaluating startups: the ability to engineer imagination.