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stories 781–840 of 910
FUNDING$95M Series C
Higharc Raises $95M Series C to Bring AI Into Homebuilding
Higharc, which generates homes as 3D spatial databases so builders and suppliers can design, estimate, sell and build more efficiently, raised a $95 million Series C led by Insight Partners and announced a new partnership with US LBM, the country's largest.
Nvidia Competitor Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Sales
FUNDING$5B valuation
Nvidia Competitor Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Sales
Etched, the Harvard-dropout-founded chip startup building Sohu, a transformer-only inference chip, disclosed on June 30 that it has booked over $1 billion in orders and closed an unannounced $500 million round in December at a $5 billion post-money valuation. The company bundles Sohu chips with custom racks and software into 'frontier inference clusters' aimed at cheaper, faster, more power-efficient inference than Nvidia GPUs.
Wayve Launches $85M Employee Tender Offer at $8.5B Valuation
FUNDING$85M tender
Wayve Launches $85M Employee Tender Offer at $8.5B Valuation
Self-driving startup Wayve launched an $85 million tender offer letting employees sell vested shares at an $8.5 billion valuation, set against February's $1.2 billion Series D led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The buyback comes as Wayve has more than doubled headcount to 1,200 employees and targets robotaxi pilots with Uber later this year, using liquidity as a retention tool without pushing toward a public listing.
AI Homebuilding Platform Higharc Raises $95M Series C Led by Insight Partners
FUNDING$95M
AI Homebuilding Platform Higharc Raises $95M Series C Led by Insight Partners
Higharc closed a $95 million Series C on June 30 led by Insight Partners, bringing total funding to $170M+. The Durham, NC-based company sells an AI-powered design-to-construction platform used by production homebuilders to automate plans, permits and buyer configuration — a category worth ~$450B in annual US residential construction.
Higharc Raises $95M Series C to Bring AI-Native Design Software to Homebuilders
FUNDING$95M
Higharc Raises $95M Series C to Bring AI-Native Design Software to Homebuilders
Higharc, the Durham, North Carolina-based homebuilding design software company, closed a $95 million Series C on June 30, pushing total funding above $170 million. The platform lets production homebuilders generate architecturally sound, code-compliant house designs and instant construction documents in minutes instead of weeks, aiming to cut the design-to-permit timeline that has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in US housing supply.
LeapXpert Raises $180M to Govern AI-Era Enterprise Messaging
FUNDING$180M growth round
LeapXpert Raises $180M to Govern AI-Era Enterprise Messaging
LeapXpert, which lets regulated organizations capture, retain and govern communications across WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage and SMS, raised a $180 million growth round led by Riverwood Capital, with existing investor Portage Ventures also participating.
Flare Therapeutics Raises $85M, Names New CEO
FUNDING$85M Series C
Flare Therapeutics Raises $85M, Names New CEO
Flare Therapeutics closed an $85 million insider-led Series C and named Anna Protopapas CEO, funding its first-in-class ARON-targeting degrader for prostate cancer toward a Phase 1A trial expected in Q3 2026.
Ex-DeepMind Poker AI Trio's Trading Startup EquiLibre Hits $500M Valuation
FUNDING$500M valuation
Ex-DeepMind Poker AI Trio's Trading Startup EquiLibre Hits $500M Valuation
EquiLibre Technologies, founded by three former DeepMind researchers who built DeepStack -- the first AI to beat professional players at no-limit poker -- raised a Series A led by Creandum that Creandum called the largest single check the firm has ever written, valuing the Prague-based company at $500 million. EquiLibre applies the same reinforcement-learning techniques that mastered poker to trading stocks and crypto for quantitative hedge funds including Tower Research Capital.
LeapXpert Raises $180M Growth Round Led by Riverwood as Enterprise Chat Governance Scales
FUNDING$180M
LeapXpert Raises $180M Growth Round Led by Riverwood as Enterprise Chat Governance Scales
Enterprise communications and compliance startup LeapXpert closed a $180 million growth investment led by Riverwood Capital on June 30 with participation from existing backer Portage Ventures. The New York-based company enforces recordkeeping and policy controls across WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal and Teams for banks, hedge funds and regulated enterprises.
Realta Fusion Becomes First Commercial Fusion Company to Convert Plasma Directly Into Electricity
FUNDINGFirst direct conversion
Realta Fusion Becomes First Commercial Fusion Company to Convert Plasma Directly Into Electricity
Realta Fusion, a UW-Madison-born startup, announced the first demonstration by a commercial fusion company of direct energy conversion -- turning plasma kinetic energy straight into electricity, powering lightbulbs from its WHAM demonstration device on June 19. Direct conversion is roughly 90% efficient versus about 33% for the steam turbines fission reactors rely on, a technical milestone that could meaningfully cut fusion's projected cost per kilowatt-hour.
GV's Dave Munichiello on Qualcomm's Modular Deal, a Roughly 10x Return, and the AI Software Shift
FUNDING~10x return
GV's Dave Munichiello on Qualcomm's Modular Deal, a Roughly 10x Return, and the AI Software Shift
GV general partner Dave Munichiello discussed Qualcomm's June 24 acquisition of AI infrastructure software startup Modular in a Crunchbase Q&A published June 30, describing a return of roughly 10x on GV's total dollars invested after leading Modular's Series A at a $155 million valuation with a $23 million check. Munichiello framed the deal as validation of a shift toward 'disaggregated inference' — software that lets AI workloads run efficiently across a mix of chips rather than locking into a single hardware vendor.
Chamath's 8090 Labs Raises $135M Series A Led by Salesforce Ventures
FUNDING$135M Series A
Chamath's 8090 Labs Raises $135M Series A Led by Salesforce Ventures
8090, the AI-native 'software factory' co-founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, raised a $135 million Series A led by Salesforce Ventures, with Palihapitiya stepping down from the board to become full-time CEO the same week the round closed.
Arcturus Raises $8M Seed to Halve the Grid's Electrical Losses With Nano-Infused Copper
FUNDING$8M
Arcturus Raises $8M Seed to Halve the Grid's Electrical Losses With Nano-Infused Copper
Arcturus, a Malibu-based materials startup founded by Amir Mashal, closed an $8 million seed round led by Initialized Capital with Toyota Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Discovery and Wireframe Ventures participating, TechCrunch reported June 30. The company uses lasers to infuse carbon nanomaterials into copper and aluminum, boosting conductivity in a way it says could halve resistive electrical losses across the grid and unlock roughly 3% more average electricity supply nationally.
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M Series A for 8090 Labs, Takes CEO Role
FUNDING$135M
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M Series A for 8090 Labs, Takes CEO Role
8090 Labs, the enterprise AI-coding startup Chamath Palihapitiya founded in January 2024, raised a $135 million Series A led by Salesforce Ventures, with Palihapitiya stepping in as full-time CEO for the first time since leaving Facebook. The company's Software Factory product helps corporate engineering teams use AI to build production-grade software with the audit trails and controls large enterprises require, rather than the vibe-coded prototypes most AI coding tools produce.
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M Series A for AI Coding Startup 8090 Labs, Takes CEO Role
FUNDING$135M
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M Series A for AI Coding Startup 8090 Labs, Takes CEO Role
8090 Labs, the enterprise AI coding startup founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, closed a $135 million Series A led by Salesforce Ventures on June 29, with Chamath stepping into the CEO seat — his first full-time operating role since leaving Facebook. The company's Software Factory product helps corporate engineering teams ship production-quality software with AI agents rather than vibe-coded prototypes.
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M for AI Coding Startup 8090 Labs, Returns as CEO
FUNDING$135M Series A
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M for AI Coding Startup 8090 Labs, Returns as CEO
Chamath Palihapitiya's 8090 Labs raised a $135 million Series A led by Salesforce Ventures, with Palihapitiya taking the CEO role -- his first full-time operating job since leaving Facebook -- to scale Software Factory, an AI coding platform built for regulated industries including healthcare, insurance, aerospace and government, TechCrunch reported June 29.
Arena, the AI Leaderboard Everyone Uses, Becomes a $100M Business Eight Months After Launch
FUNDING$100M ARR
Arena, the AI Leaderboard Everyone Uses, Becomes a $100M Business Eight Months After Launch
Arena, the crowdsourced AI model leaderboard that began as a UC Berkeley research project, disclosed on June 29 that it has reached $100 million in annualized run-rate revenue — up from $30 million in January — just eight months after launching its paid AI Evaluations product. The company has raised $250 million total, including a $150 million Series A in January at a $1.7 billion valuation.
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M Series A for 8090 Labs, Takes the CEO Role
FUNDING$135M
Chamath Palihapitiya Raises $135M Series A for 8090 Labs, Takes the CEO Role
8090 Labs, the enterprise AI coding startup Chamath Palihapitiya founded in early 2024, raised a $135 million Series A led by Salesforce Ventures -- and Palihapitiya announced he will run it as CEO rather than just chairing the board. Its flagship product, Software Factory, aims to move corporate engineering teams from AI prototypes to production-grade applications with enterprise controls like audit trails.
Arena, the AI Leaderboard Everyone Uses, Hits $100M Revenue Run-Rate
FUNDING$100M run-rate
Arena, the AI Leaderboard Everyone Uses, Hits $100M Revenue Run-Rate
Arena -- the crowdsourced AI-model leaderboard born as a UC Berkeley research project and now relied on across the industry -- has reached a $100 million annualized revenue run-rate, up from $30 million in January, on the back of its commercial AI-evaluations business. The company raised a $150 million Series A in January at a $1.7 billion valuation and has turned 10 million-plus human model comparisons into a paid product for labs and enterprises.
Reed Semiconductor Raises Upsized $100M to Build Power Delivery for AI Data Centers
FUNDING$100M
Reed Semiconductor Raises Upsized $100M to Build Power Delivery for AI Data Centers
Reed Semiconductor closed an oversubscribed, upsized $100 million growth round with participation from leading global semiconductor companies, to scale its turnkey power-delivery solutions for AI data centers and high-performance computing. As AI clusters strain the grid and the silicon that feeds them, power delivery has become one of the buildout's most acute bottlenecks -- and one investors are racing to fund.
Straiker Raises $64M Series A to Secure the Enterprise AI Agent Workforce
FUNDING$64M
Straiker Raises $64M Series A to Secure the Enterprise AI Agent Workforce
Straiker, which calls itself 'the agentic security company,' raised a $64 million Series A -- bringing total funding to $85 million -- to protect the enterprise AI agents that legacy security tools were never built to govern. The round was led by Marathon Management Partners with Citi Ventures, Illuminate Financial and Workday Ventures, plus existing backers Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed.
Straiker Raises $64M Series A to Secure the Emerging AI-Agent Workforce
FUNDING$64M
Straiker Raises $64M Series A to Secure the Emerging AI-Agent Workforce
Straiker, the self-described 'agentic security company,' closed a $64 million Series A on June 29 bringing total funding to $85M. The pitch: enterprise AI agents are becoming a new workforce, and every agent needs identity, authorization, monitoring and audit that today's IAM stack can't provide.
Novak Djokovic Joins $126B PE Firm General Atlantic as Global Strategic Advisor
FUNDINGAdvisory role
Novak Djokovic Joins $126B PE Firm General Atlantic as Global Strategic Advisor
Tennis champion Novak Djokovic has signed on as a Global Strategic Advisor to General Atlantic, the roughly $126 billion private-equity firm, working with its leadership, portfolio companies and investors on leadership, resilience and innovation. The firm aims to tap his global network and his growing footprint in health, wellness and sports -- the latest marquee-athlete crossover into institutional finance.
Peregrine Raises $250M at $6.8B to Power Public-Safety AI -- and World Cup Security
FUNDING$250M
Peregrine Raises $250M at $6.8B to Power Public-Safety AI -- and World Cup Security
Peregrine Technologies, the Palantir-alumni-founded platform that unifies government data for police and public-safety agencies, raised a $250 million Series D at a $6.8 billion valuation -- nearly tripling its $2.5 billion mark from 15 months earlier. The San Francisco company serves 400-plus agencies covering 125 million people and will run security operations for eight of 11 U.S. host cities at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
AppsFlyer Raises $1B Series E With Unity, Meta and Google Backing
FUNDING$1B
AppsFlyer Raises $1B Series E With Unity, Meta and Google Backing
Mobile marketing-measurement leader AppsFlyer raised a $1 billion Series E, one of the week's largest rounds, with strategic backing from Unity, Meta, Moloco and Google. The round underscores how valuable privacy-era attribution and measurement infrastructure has become as advertisers grope for signal after the collapse of easy device tracking.
Stealthy AI-R&D Lab Mirendil Raises a $200M Seed From a16z and Kleiner Perkins
FUNDING$200M
Stealthy AI-R&D Lab Mirendil Raises a $200M Seed From a16z and Kleiner Perkins
Mirendil, a new and largely stealth frontier AI lab focused on building systems for AI research and development itself, raised a $200 million seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, with Nvidia among its backers. A nine-figure seed for a pre-product lab is one of the year's clearest signals that capital is racing to fund the next generation of foundation-model challengers.
Groq Raises $650M to Scale Its AI Inference Cloud and LPU Chips
FUNDING$650M
Groq Raises $650M to Scale Its AI Inference Cloud and LPU Chips
AI inference chipmaker Groq raised $650 million from investors including Infinitum and Disruptive to scale its LPU-based inference cloud, betting that purpose-built silicon can undercut GPUs on the cost and speed of serving large models. The round is part of a week dominated by bets on the inference layer, from Baseten's $1.5B to AI-networking deals.
Upscale AI Hits a $2B Valuation With a $190M Series A Extension for AI Networking
FUNDING$190M
Upscale AI Hits a $2B Valuation With a $190M Series A Extension for AI Networking
Upscale AI raised a $190 million Series A extension led by Premji Invest, taking its total Series A to roughly $500 million and its valuation to $2 billion. The company builds AI networking infrastructure -- the high-speed fabric that connects GPUs inside data centers -- positioning it in one of the hottest and most capital-intensive corners of the AI buildout.
Quantifind Raises $200M to Scale AI Risk Intelligence for Banks and National Security
FUNDING$200M
Quantifind Raises $200M to Scale AI Risk Intelligence for Banks and National Security
Quantifind raised $200 million in a growth round led by Summit Partners to expand its AI-driven risk-intelligence platform, which helps financial institutions and government agencies detect financial crime, fraud and national-security threats. The round places another applied-AI company with clear, regulated demand among the week's largest financings.
General Intuition Raises $320M Series A at $2.3B to Build Spatial-Reasoning AI From Game Video
FUNDING$320M
General Intuition Raises $320M Series A at $2.3B to Build Spatial-Reasoning AI From Game Video
General Intuition, an AI lab training agents on vast troves of video-game footage to crack spatial and physical reasoning, raised a $320 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures at a $2.3 billion valuation. The round is one of the year's largest Series A financings and a major bet that gameplay data is the key to agents that can navigate the physical world.
Osanni Bio Lands $190M Series B to Advance Its Therapeutics Platform
FUNDING$190M
Osanni Bio Lands $190M Series B to Advance Its Therapeutics Platform
Osanni Bio raised a $190 million Series B led by Patient Square Capital to push its therapeutics platform deeper into clinical development. The large biotech round underscores that 2026's reopening capital markets are not an AI-only story -- life sciences is once again drawing big checks and, increasingly, big exits.
Defense Startup Stark Raises $569M Led by Founders Fund and Sequoia
FUNDING$569M
Defense Startup Stark Raises $569M Led by Founders Fund and Sequoia
Berlin-based defense-technology startup Stark raised roughly $569 million in a round led by Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital, one of the largest European defense-tech financings on record. The deal underscores how aggressively top US venture firms are now backing European defense as the continent rearms and attritable autonomous systems reshape the battlefield.
French Health-Insurance Startup Alan Raises $546M Led by Prosus
FUNDING$546M
French Health-Insurance Startup Alan Raises $546M Led by Prosus
Alan, the Paris-based digital health-insurance company, raised roughly $546 million in equity led by Prosus, one of Europe's largest fintech-adjacent rounds of the year. The financing funds Alan's push to fuse insurance, primary care and AI-driven member health into a single platform across European markets.
Baseten Raises $1.5B Series F at a $13B Valuation as AI Inference Demand Explodes
FUNDING$1.5B
Baseten Raises $1.5B Series F at a $13B Valuation as AI Inference Demand Explodes
AI inference provider Baseten closed a $1.5 billion Series F at a $13 billion valuation, the largest funding round of the week, led by Altimeter Capital and Conviction Partners with Spark, Sands and Wellington participating. The raise underscores how serving AI models -- not just training them -- has become one of the most valuable and capital-intensive layers of the stack.
Ollin Biosciences Raises $330M Series B to Advance Its Therapeutics Pipeline
FUNDING$330M
Ollin Biosciences Raises $330M Series B to Advance Its Therapeutics Pipeline
Ollin Biosciences raised a $330 million Series B co-led by TCG Crossover and Arch Venture Partners, one of the largest life-sciences rounds of the week. The financing pushes its therapeutics pipeline deeper into clinical development and adds to mounting evidence that biotech's capital markets have reopened in force alongside the AI boom.
General Intuition Raises $320M Series A at $2.3B to Build AI Models From Gameplay
FUNDING$320M
General Intuition Raises $320M Series A at $2.3B to Build AI Models From Gameplay
General Intuition, a foundational AI model developer that trains systems on gameplay data, raised a $320 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures at a $2.3 billion valuation. The outsized first round bets that video games -- with their rich, interactive, physics-grounded environments -- are an underexploited training substrate for building AI with spatial reasoning and agency.
Public-Safety Software Maker Peregrine Raises $250M Series D at $6.8B
FUNDING$250M
Public-Safety Software Maker Peregrine Raises $250M Series D at $6.8B
Peregrine Technologies, which builds a data and software platform for government public-safety agencies, raised a $250 million Series D at a $6.8 billion valuation, with Sequoia Capital, XYZ Ventures and others joining lead investor Fifth Down Capital. The round marks one of govtech's largest financings and reflects surging demand for AI-enabled tools that unify fragmented police and emergency data.
Patronus AI Lands $50M to Build Digital Worlds That Stress-Test AI Agents
FUNDING$50M
Patronus AI Lands $50M to Build Digital Worlds That Stress-Test AI Agents
Patronus AI raised a $50 million Series B led by Greenfield Partners, with Lightspeed, Notable Capital, Datadog and Samsung participating, bringing total funding to $70 million. The startup builds simulated digital environments -- replicas of websites and internal systems -- where AI agents are stress-tested before deployment, and counts nearly all frontier labs among its customers after 15x revenue growth.
Baseten Raises $1.5B Series F at a $13B Valuation for AI Inference
FUNDING$1.5B
Baseten Raises $1.5B Series F at a $13B Valuation for AI Inference
AI inference software provider Baseten raised a $1.5 billion Series F at roughly a $13 billion valuation -- its fourth fundraise in 18 months and the largest US venture round of the week. The company sells the systems software that lets enterprises run AI workloads efficiently, riding the shift in AI spending from one-time training to perpetual, usage-based inference.
Mirendil Raises a $200M Seed for Foundational AI in R&D, Backed by a16z, Kleiner and Nvidia
FUNDING$200M
Mirendil Raises a $200M Seed for Foundational AI in R&D, Backed by a16z, Kleiner and Nvidia
Mirendil, a stealthy startup building foundational AI systems for scientific and industrial research and development, launched with a staggering $200 million seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, with Nvidia among its backers. The size of a seed once reserved for Series B underscores how aggressively top investors are pre-funding teams chasing AI that can accelerate discovery in chemistry, materials and the physical sciences.
Ollin Biosciences Raises $330M Series B for Next-Generation Eye Disease Therapies
FUNDING$330M
Ollin Biosciences Raises $330M Series B for Next-Generation Eye Disease Therapies
Ollin Biosciences raised a $330 million Series B led by TCG Crossover and ARCH Venture Partners to advance its pipeline of ophthalmic therapies, one of the largest biotech rounds of the period. The deal is a reminder that even amid AI's dominance of headlines and capital, large therapeutic biotech rounds remain a major and resilient corner of venture funding.
Assort Health Raises $120M Series C at a $1.2B Valuation for Healthcare AI Agents
FUNDING$120M
Assort Health Raises $120M Series C at a $1.2B Valuation for Healthcare AI Agents
Assort Health raised a $120 million Series C led by Menlo Ventures at a $1.2 billion post-money valuation, vaulting the patient-access automation startup into unicorn territory. Its AI agents handle scheduling, intake, referrals, document processing and front-desk support for healthcare providers -- one of the clearest examples of AI moving from chatbot demos to embedded, revenue-bearing clinical workflows.
Taktile Raises $110M Series C Led by Goldman Sachs for AI Decisioning in Finance
FUNDING$110M
Taktile Raises $110M Series C Led by Goldman Sachs for AI Decisioning in Finance
Taktile raised a $110 million Series C led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives to scale its AI decisioning platform, which lets banks and insurers automate underwriting, claims, fraud detection and anti-money-laundering workflows with human oversight. The round is a vote of confidence that regulated financial institutions will pay for AI that makes high-stakes decisions auditable rather than just faster.
Radical Numerics Raises $50M Seed to Build AI for Scientific Discovery
FUNDING$50M seed
Radical Numerics Raises $50M Seed to Build AI for Scientific Discovery
Menlo Park-based Radical Numerics raised a $50 million seed round led by Emergence Capital, with First Spark, Obvious Ventures, Factory and Triatomic participating. The startup is building AI systems aimed at scientific and numerical problems -- a fast-emerging category betting that AI's next frontier is accelerating research itself, from drug discovery to materials and simulation.
RunPod Raises $100M Led by Summit Partners at $1B Valuation, Rejects $500M Buyout Offers
FUNDING$100M
RunPod Raises $100M Led by Summit Partners at $1B Valuation, Rejects $500M Buyout Offers
RunPod, the AI developer cloud used by more than 1 million developers to build, train and deploy AI workloads, closed a $100 million growth investment led by Summit Partners on June 24 at a $1 billion valuation. The company disclosed $240 million in annual recurring revenue and confirmed it turned down acquisition offers exceeding $500 million to remain independent.
xCures Raises $46M Series B to Turn Messy Medical Records Into Clean Clinical Data With AI
FUNDING$46M
xCures Raises $46M Series B to Turn Messy Medical Records Into Clean Clinical Data With AI
xCures landed a $46 million Series B led by Innovius Capital to scale its AI platform that converts fragmented patient records into structured, decision-ready clinical data. The round more than doubled its valuation to $127 million post-money, on the back of ARR that tripled to ~$10M in 2025 and a cash-flow-breakeven business.
Mirendil Raises $200M Seed to Build AI That Excels at AI R&D
FUNDING$200M
Mirendil Raises $200M Seed to Build AI That Excels at AI R&D
Mirendil, a San Francisco frontier lab building systems designed to excel at AI research and development itself, raised a $200 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. The gargantuan seed reflects investor conviction that automating AI research -- models that help build better models -- could be the highest-leverage frontier in the field.
Valor Equity Partners Looks to Raise a $2.5B Fund VII on Its SpaceX and Anduril Marks
FUNDING$2.5B target
Valor Equity Partners Looks to Raise a $2.5B Fund VII on Its SpaceX and Anduril Marks
Antonio Gracias's Valor Equity Partners is raising a $2.5 billion Fund VII, per Bloomberg -- a step up from the $2.35 billion Fund VI it closed in 2024. A long-time backer of Elon Musk's companies, Valor has reserved part of the new fund for additional SpaceX investment, where it owns roughly 4% of the now-public rocket maker.
Upscale AI Raises $190M at $2B Valuation for AI Networking Infrastructure
FUNDING$190M
Upscale AI Raises $190M at $2B Valuation for AI Networking Infrastructure
AI networking startup Upscale AI raised a $190 million Series A extension led by Premji Invest at a $2 billion valuation, bringing total financing to roughly $500 million. The company builds the high-speed networking fabric that links thousands of AI accelerators into coherent clusters -- an increasingly critical and capital-hungry layer as model training and inference scale.
Ex-Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka Launches Hang Ten Systems With $32M to Aim AI at IT Services
FUNDING$32M seed
Ex-Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka Launches Hang Ten Systems With $32M to Aim AI at IT Services
Vishal Sikka, the former Infosys CEO, has emerged with a new startup, Hang Ten Systems, backed by a $32 million seed round led by Mayfield with Aramco Ventures participating. The company uses agentic AI and reusable 'skills' to build, modify and operate enterprise software -- a direct bet that AI can replace, not just assist, the traditional IT-services workforce.
Menlo Ventures Raises $3B -- Its Largest Fund Ever -- After Its Anthropic Bet Turned Into ~$14B
FUNDING$3B
Menlo Ventures Raises $3B -- Its Largest Fund Ever -- After Its Anthropic Bet Turned Into ~$14B
Menlo Ventures closed $3 billion in new capital, the largest fundraise in the firm's 50-year history, on the strength of a 2024 bet on Anthropic that is now worth roughly $14 billion. The Silicon Valley firm 'white-knuckled it' to lead a $750 million round in the AI lab two years ago; that conviction call has become one of the defining venture wins of the cycle.
Superhuman Acquires AI-Detection Startup GPTZero, Maker of a $30M-ARR 'AI Slop' Filter
FUNDINGAcquisition
Superhuman Acquires AI-Detection Startup GPTZero, Maker of a $30M-ARR 'AI Slop' Filter
Superhuman -- the email client now owned by Grammarly -- has acquired GPTZero, the AI-detection startup founded by Princeton grad Edward Tian. GPTZero, which reached 19 million registered users and ~$30 million in ARR helping identify AI-generated text, gives Superhuman a second AI-authenticity engine as the internet drowns in machine-written content.
Groq Confirms $650M Raise and Rebuilds Leadership After Nvidia's $20B 'Not-Acqui-Hire'
FUNDING$650M
Groq Confirms $650M Raise and Rebuilds Leadership After Nvidia's $20B 'Not-Acqui-Hire'
AI chipmaker Groq confirmed a $650 million funding round and a near-total leadership rebuild, six months after Nvidia signed a roughly $20 billion non-exclusive licensing deal that also hired away Groq's founder-CEO Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra and other senior staff. The round -- led by Dallas firm Disruptive and hedge fund Infinitum -- bankrolls Groq's pivot from selling chips to running an AI inference 'neocloud.'
AppsFlyer Raises Over $1B from Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco at a $2.7B Valuation
FUNDING$1B+
AppsFlyer Raises Over $1B from Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco at a $2.7B Valuation
Ad-measurement company AppsFlyer raised more than $1 billion in Series E funding at a $2.7 billion post-money valuation, with Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco each taking minority stakes. The four advertising giants are betting that independent, neutral attribution becomes essential infrastructure as AI takes over how ads are bought and optimized.
Robotics Startups Have Already Raised $18.8B in 2026 -- Smashing Every Prior Annual Record
FUNDING$18.8B YTD
Robotics Startups Have Already Raised $18.8B in 2026 -- Smashing Every Prior Annual Record
Robotics startups have raised $18.8 billion globally so far in 2026, according to Crunchbase data -- already eclipsing the $15 billion raised in all of 2025 and the $14.1 billion of the 2021 peak, with half the year still to go. The surge is concentrated in embodied AI and humanoids, headlined by billion-dollar rounds for Saronic, Neura Robotics, Skild AI and others as investors stop treating robotics as a risky hardware bet.
Seedcamp Closes $320M Across Two Funds, Hits $1B AUM and Pushes Into the US
FUNDING$320M
Seedcamp Closes $320M Across Two Funds, Hits $1B AUM and Pushes Into the US
European seed pioneer Seedcamp raised $320 million across two new vehicles -- a $220 million seventh flagship fund and a $100 million 'Select' fund for follow-on bets -- crossing $1 billion in assets under management. After 18 years focused on Europe, the firm is using the capital to expand into the United States.
Autonomous-Maritime Startup Saronic Raises $1.75B Series D at a $9.25B Valuation
FUNDING$1.75B
Autonomous-Maritime Startup Saronic Raises $1.75B Series D at a $9.25B Valuation
Saronic, the Austin-based builder of autonomous surface vessels for defense, raised a $1.75 billion Series D at a $9.25 billion valuation -- the single largest robotics round of 2026 so far. The raise underscores how unmanned maritime systems have become a priority as navies race to field cheap, attritable autonomous fleets.
Germany's Neura Robotics Raises $1.4B to Scale Humanoid Production
FUNDING$1.4B
Germany's Neura Robotics Raises $1.4B to Scale Humanoid Production
Neura Robotics, the German developer of cognitive humanoid and collaborative robots, raised roughly $1.4 billion in a Series C -- one of the largest robotics rounds ever in Europe. The financing positions Neura as the continent's marquee humanoid bet against US and Chinese rivals.
Skild AI Raises $1.4B at $14B+ for an 'Omni-Bodied' Robot Foundation Model
FUNDING$1.4B
Skild AI Raises $1.4B at $14B+ for an 'Omni-Bodied' Robot Foundation Model
Skild AI raised roughly $1.4 billion at a valuation north of $14 billion to build a single 'omni-bodied' AI brain capable of operating any robot for any task. The round is among the year's largest and reflects investor belief that a general robot foundation model -- not bespoke hardware -- is where the durable value sits.
Europe's Seedcamp Closes $320M Across Two Funds and Crosses $1B in AUM
FUNDING$320M
Europe's Seedcamp Closes $320M Across Two Funds and Crosses $1B in AUM
Veteran European seed investor Seedcamp closed $320 million across two new funds and crossed $1 billion in assets under management, reinforcing its position as one of the continent's most prolific early-stage backers. The raise lands as European venture matures and LPs concentrate capital with managers who have a long track record of returns.