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stories 301–360 of 1102FUNDING$23B robotics / $17.4B defense
Robotics And Defense Tech Funding Hits Records
Robotics startups have raised roughly $23 billion in 2026 while defense tech funding hit a record $17.4 billion, led by megadeals at Saronic, Quantum Systems and Anduril.
BY THE NUMBERS
Motive Raises $1.3B To Scale Fleet AI
FUNDING$1.3B growth financing
Motive Raises $1.3B To Scale Fleet AI
Fleet management software company Motive secured more than $1.3 billion in growth financing from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund, one of four US companies to raise $1 billion or more in a single week.
DEEP DIVE
Boring Company Raises $3B At $23B, UAE Leads
FUNDING$3B Series D at $23B valuation
Boring Company Raises $3B At $23B, UAE Leads
Elon Musk's tunneling venture The Boring Company raised $3 billion in a Series D led by the UAE, valuing the company at $23 billion -- a fourfold increase from 2022 -- to fund more than 150 kilometers of new tunnels across the Emirates.
DEEP DIVE
Instinct Eyes $1B Raise As Compute Costs Bite
FUNDINGup to $1B raise sought
Instinct Eyes $1B Raise As Compute Costs Bite
Personal AI assistant Instinct is in talks to raise as much as $1 billion at a valuation up to $10 billion, weeks after its last round, as compute costs strain its free-to-use product.
FOLLOW-UP
Bending Spoons Buys Miro For $1.355B, Weeks After Airtable
FUNDING$1.355B acquisition
Bending Spoons Buys Miro For $1.355B, Weeks After Airtable
Italy's Bending Spoons agreed to acquire whiteboard-turned-AI-workspace Miro at a $1.355 billion enterprise value, its second major collaboration-software acquisition in weeks.
DEEP DIVE
This $950M Fund Bets Against VC-Fueled Growth
FUNDING$950M Fund VI
This $950M Fund Bets Against VC-Fueled Growth
Boston growth-equity firm Volition Capital raised $950 million for its largest fund yet, targeting profitable, bootstrapped software companies as LPs worry about AI disrupting SaaS.
DEEP DIVE
Positron AI Raises $875M At $5B Valuation
FUNDING$875M at $5B valuation
Positron AI Raises $875M At $5B Valuation
AI inference-chip startup Positron AI raised $875 million at a $5 billion valuation, more than quadrupling its value in seven months as it races to tape out its memory-heavy Asimov chip on TSMC's N3P process.
DEEP DIVE
Pinegrove Closes $1.5B Fund Of Funds, Oversubscribed
FUNDING$1.5B fund close
Pinegrove Closes $1.5B Fund Of Funds, Oversubscribed
Pinegrove Venture Partners closed its Strategic Investors Fund XII at $1.5 billion across early- and scale-stage strategies, an oversubscribed vehicle giving institutional LPs concentrated exposure to a curated set of venture managers.
DEEP DIVE
VC Firms Are Buying Sports Teams And Cards
FUNDING
VC Firms Are Buying Sports Teams And Cards
Thrive Capital, Collaborative Fund and a Griffin Gaming managing director are all redirecting venture money and personal capital into sports franchises and trading cards as a hedge against startup-market froth.
DEEP DIVE
Mach Industries Doubles Valuation To $3.7B
FUNDING$600M add-on at $3.7B valuation
Mach Industries Doubles Valuation To $3.7B
Defense-tech drone maker Mach Industries raised an additional $600 million, doubling its valuation to $3.7 billion just three months after its original Series C, an eightfold jump in a little over a year.
FOLLOW-UP
Alibaba, Tencent Back UniPat AI At $2.5B
FUNDING$300M at $2.5B
Alibaba, Tencent Back UniPat AI At $2.5B
Alibaba is leading a $300 million investment in UniPat AI, an AI model-testing and benchmarking startup founded by a former Alibaba intern, valuing the company at $2.5 billion with Tencent also participating.
DEEP DIVE
29 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In August
FUNDING
29 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In August
Twenty-nine companies crossed billion-dollar valuations in August, adding roughly $63 billion in aggregate value, with AI software and semiconductors leading and 16 of the 29 based in the US.
DEEP DIVE
Cognition Raises $2B, Hits $48B Valuation
FUNDING$2B at $48B valuation
Cognition Raises $2B, Hits $48B Valuation
AI coding startup Cognition raised more than $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation, nearly doubling its mark from four months ago as its annualized revenue grew from $492 million to $900 million.
DEEP DIVE
Harvey Hits $15.5B Valuation With $550M Round
FUNDING$550M at $15.5B valuation
Harvey Hits $15.5B Valuation With $550M Round
Legal AI startup Harvey raised $550 million at a $15.5 billion valuation, nearly doubling its mark in nine months, with the fresh capital earmarked for building its own AI models rather than relying solely on frontier labs.
DEEP DIVE
Clay Closes $115M Series D At $7.1B
FUNDING$115M at $7.1B valuation
Clay Closes $115M Series D At $7.1B
Clay's AI go-to-market platform closed a $115 million Series D at a $7.1 billion valuation led by Wellington, confirming the $7 billion pre-money mark reported as a rumor eleven days earlier.
FOLLOW-UP
Lightfield raises $47M to build CRM for the agent era
FUNDING$47M Series A
Lightfield raises $47M to build CRM for the agent era
Lightfield raised a $47 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz to build an AI-native CRM that automatically structures customer data from email, calendar, calls and Slack, positioning itself against Salesforce and HubSpot.
DEEP DIVE
Harvey Raises $550M At $15.5B Valuation
FUNDING$550M at $15.5B valuation
Harvey Raises $550M At $15.5B Valuation
Legal AI startup Harvey raised $550 million at a $15.5 billion valuation, nearly doubling in nine months across two rounds while building its own open-weight model instead of depending solely on OpenAI or Anthropic.
DEEP DIVE
Rightway Healthcare Quietly Raises $155M
FUNDING$155M round
Rightway Healthcare Quietly Raises $155M
Rightway Healthcare closed a $155 million round disclosed only through an SEC filing, with no press release, named lead investor, or valuation -- unusually quiet for a company that has taken nearly $400 million since 2017.
DEEP DIVE
TRM Labs Valuation Doubles To $2 Billion
FUNDING$2B valuation
TRM Labs Valuation Doubles To $2 Billion
TRM Labs raised fresh capital from existing backers at a $2 billion valuation, doubling its worth six months after a $70 million Series C, as the blockchain-intelligence firm expands into AI-driven crime detection.
DEEP DIVE
Solstice Oncology Launches With $225M Series A
FUNDING$225M Series A
Solstice Oncology Launches With $225M Series A
Solstice Oncology launched with a $225 million Series A led by RA Capital Management to advance porustobart, a second-generation CTLA-4 immunotherapy licensed from Harbour BioMed, into two Phase 2 cancer trials.
DEEP DIVE
Savvy Wealth Raises $100M At $600M Valuation
FUNDING$100M at $600M valuation
Savvy Wealth Raises $100M At $600M Valuation
AI-native RIA platform Savvy Wealth closed a $100 million Series C at a $600 million valuation led by Ryan Smith and Ryan Sweeney's Halo Fund, after growing recruited assets past $4 billion this year.
DEEP DIVE
Besxar Builds Chip Fabs On SpaceX Rockets
FUNDING
Besxar Builds Chip Fabs On SpaceX Rockets
Besxar is testing orbital semiconductor manufacturing pods called Fabships across a dozen SpaceX Falcon 9 booster flights, betting that the vacuum of space can produce cleaner wafers than Earth-based clean rooms.
DEEP DIVE
Listen Labs Ditches Term Sheet For Salesforce Deal
FUNDING~$2B acquisition (reported price)
Listen Labs Ditches Term Sheet For Salesforce Deal
Listen Labs walked away from a signed $125 million Series C term sheet at a $1.5 billion valuation to pursue a sale to Salesforce reportedly worth around $2 billion; Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire the company on September 29 without disclosing the price.
DEEP DIVE
Startups Are Coming Back for More Money, Faster
FUNDING
Startups Are Coming Back for More Money, Faster
A handful of 2026's hottest companies are raising follow-on rounds four to six months apart at 2x-plus step-ups, a pace with almost no historical precedent outside this cycle.
BY THE NUMBERS
Bluecore Energy Raises $50M Seed For Floating Nuclear
FUNDING$50M seed
Bluecore Energy Raises $50M Seed For Floating Nuclear
Bluecore Energy closed an oversubscribed $50 million seed round just two months after emerging from stealth, adding to a $10 million pre-seed as it develops floating small modular reactors for ports and AI data centers.
DEEP DIVE
Poseidon Aerospace Raises $60M for Pilotless Cargo
FUNDING$60M Series A
Poseidon Aerospace Raises $60M for Pilotless Cargo
Poseidon Aerospace raised a $60 million Series A led by TQ Ventures ahead of the first test flight of its uncrewed cargo aircraft, Egret, expected by the end of the year.
DEEP DIVE
Poseidon Aerospace Lands $60M Series A
FUNDING$60M Series A
Poseidon Aerospace Lands $60M Series A
Poseidon Aerospace raised a $60 million Series A led by TQ Ventures ahead of the first test flight of its uncrewed cargo aircraft Egret, adding to an $11 million seed round closed last year.
DEEP DIVE
Exploration Company Raises $450M To Rival SpaceX
FUNDING$450M Series C
Exploration Company Raises $450M To Rival SpaceX
The Exploration Company, a Munich- and Bordeaux-based spacecraft maker, raised a $450 million Series C led by Atomico, Bessemer and the Scaleup Europe Fund to fund its Storm rocket engine and Nyx reusable capsule program.
DEEP DIVE
Forus Triples Valuation To $3B In Series C
FUNDING$150M Series C
Forus Triples Valuation To $3B In Series C
Forus raised a $150 million Series C led by Bain Capital Ventures at a $3 billion valuation, tripling its worth months after its Series B, as its AI agents automate prescription prior authorization for providers nationwide.
DEEP DIVE
Moonwalk Biosciences Raises $70M For Obesity RNAi
FUNDING$70M Series B
Moonwalk Biosciences Raises $70M For Obesity RNAi
Moonwalk Biosciences closed an oversubscribed $70 million Series B to advance an adipose-targeted RNA interference therapy for obesity toward its first human trial, bringing total funding to roughly $127 million since its 2024 launch.
DEEP DIVE
BrainChild Bio Raises $116M for Kids' Brain Cancer Trial
FUNDING$116M Series A
BrainChild Bio Raises $116M for Kids' Brain Cancer Trial
BrainChild Bio closed $116 million in Series A financing to fund a pivotal Phase 2 trial of its CAR T-cell therapy for DIPG, a rare and near-uniformly fatal pediatric brain tumor.
DEEP DIVE
This Week Showed AI Funding's Two Speeds at Once
FUNDING
This Week Showed AI Funding's Two Speeds at Once
Stoke Space and Mistral raised a combined $4.2 billion this week while Sapien and NavigateAI, two real vertical-AI companies with paying customers, raised a combined fraction of that -- the same split Pulse has tracked in AI money all year.
BY THE NUMBERS
Hardware Is Getting Software's Round Sizes Now
FUNDING
Hardware Is Getting Software's Round Sizes Now
Stoke Space's $1 billion round joins Castelion's $1.05 billion and Atoms' $1.7 billion as capital-intensive physical-hardware startups now command the round sizes and speed that used to be reserved for software.
DEEP DIVE
Forus Triples to a $3B Value in Four Months
FUNDING$150M Series C
Forus Triples to a $3B Value in Four Months
Forus, an AI network that automates prescription access between doctors, pharmacies and payers, raised $150 million at a $3 billion valuation -- roughly triple its mark from four months ago.
DEEP DIVE
Venture Funding's 2026 Boom Is Really Fewer, Bigger Bets
FUNDING
Venture Funding's 2026 Boom Is Really Fewer, Bigger Bets
August's $42B in global venture funding, a $14.6B defense-tech record, and a wave of billion-dollar seed rounds all point to the same mechanism: more dollars chasing fewer, later-feeling deals.
DEEP DIVE
Defense Tech's Record Year Is Concentrating, Not Broadening
FUNDING
Defense Tech's Record Year Is Concentrating, Not Broadening
Defense tech has already topped 2025's full-year funding record with four months left in 2026, but deal volume is barely up -- the dollars are concentrating into fewer, larger rounds led by Anduril and Castelion.
DEEP DIVE
Robotics' $55.8B Year Looks Like Infra Spend, Not Venture
FUNDING
Robotics' $55.8B Year Looks Like Infra Spend, Not Venture
Robotics companies have raised $55.8 billion in 2026, but the capital intensity and multi-year development cycles behind that number look more like project-finance infrastructure spending than a venture-return profile.
THE VC READ
Stoke Space Raises $1B to Out-Reuse SpaceX
FUNDING$1B Series E
Stoke Space Raises $1B to Out-Reuse SpaceX
Stoke Space closed a $1 billion Series E led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, pushing total funding to $2.3 billion as it builds a rocket designed so both stages fly back and refly.
DEEP DIVE
The Exploration Company Raises $450M for Nyx
FUNDING$450M Series C
The Exploration Company Raises $450M for Nyx
The Exploration Company raised a $450 million Series C, the largest ever for a European space startup, to scale its reusable Nyx cargo capsule toward crewed and lunar missions.
DEEP DIVE
Mistral Raises Another €3B to Sell Europe Independence
FUNDING€3B Series D
Mistral Raises Another €3B to Sell Europe Independence
Mistral closed a €3 billion Series D at a valuation above €21 billion, led by Samsung Electronics and an EU-backed scaleup fund, betting that governments will pay a premium for AI infrastructure they control.
DEEP DIVE
Sapien Wants to Be the AI That Finds Your Margin
FUNDING$180M valuation
Sapien Wants to Be the AI That Finds Your Margin
Sapien, a two-year-old AI startup that traces operational decisions to their effect on a company's profit and loss, raised new funding at a $180 million valuation led by Neo's Ali Partovi.
DEEP DIVE
Why I'd Rather Own the Robotaxi Aggregator
FUNDING
Why I'd Rather Own the Robotaxi Aggregator
Uber put $100 million into Atoms and builds nothing itself, while Atoms, Waymo and Tesla carry the full capital and safety burden of running actual fleets -- that asymmetry is the whole argument.
THE VC READ
Opendoor's Founder Built NavigateAI to Sell AI to Electricians
FUNDING$25M seed
Opendoor's Founder Built NavigateAI to Sell AI to Electricians
NavigateAI, the construction-labor AI startup from Opendoor founder Eric Wu, raised a $25 million seed at a $225 million valuation from Elad Gil, Khosla Ventures and a roster of operator angels.
DEEP DIVE
Pixxel Raises $100M, India's Biggest Space Round
FUNDING$100M Series C
Pixxel Raises $100M, India's Biggest Space Round
Pixxel raised $100 million in Series C funding, the largest single round ever for an Indian space startup, to expand its hyperspectral earth-imaging satellite constellation.
DEEP DIVE
August Venture Funding Hit $42B, Up 122%
FUNDING$42B in August
August Venture Funding Hit $42B, Up 122%
Global venture investors deployed $42 billion across more than 1,500 startups in August 2026 -- more than double August 2025, but a quarter below July's $56 billion.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Billion-Dollar Seed Round Is Now a Category
FUNDING
The Billion-Dollar Seed Round Is Now a Category
Three AI labs have now raised a billion dollars or more in what their investors call a seed round, at valuations between $5 billion and $12 billion before shipping a product -- a pricing convention that did not exist two years ago.
DEEP DIVE
The Application Layer Is Where I'd Be Writing Checks
FUNDING
The Application Layer Is Where I'd Be Writing Checks
Nearly $5 billion went into three compute-layer companies in a single week while the software built on top of that compute raised a fraction of it -- and the compute bets are credit trades wearing venture clothes.
THE VC READ
This Week's AI Money: Crusoe, Fluidstack and a $100M Security Check
FUNDING$4.5B+ disclosed this week
This Week's AI Money: Crusoe, Fluidstack and a $100M Security Check
Pulse's own tally of this week's disclosed rounds shows AI infrastructure and security pulling in well over $4.5 billion in six days, before counting fintech, space or robotics separately.
BY THE NUMBERS
Defense Tech's Two Speeds: Hypersonics and Everyone Else
FUNDING$13B and $12.7B valuations
Defense Tech's Two Speeds: Hypersonics and Everyone Else
Castelion's $13 billion valuation and Shield AI's $12.7 billion mark show defense-tech capital concentrating hard in a handful of hardware primes-in-waiting, while smaller Tier 2/3 suppliers are left to roll up instead of raise.
DEEP DIVE
Fintech's $1.36B Week, Led by FNZ's $450M
FUNDING$1.36B across 12 deals
Fintech's $1.36B Week, Led by FNZ's $450M
WealthTech giant FNZ took the largest of twelve fintech rounds this week at $450 million, in a period where US companies made up seven of the twelve deals and wealth-management platforms dominated the category mix.
BY THE NUMBERS
Kalanick's Atoms Is Building Robotaxi Tech
FUNDING$1.7B Series A
Kalanick's Atoms Is Building Robotaxi Tech
Travis Kalanick's robotics company, which raised $1.7 billion in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz with $100 million from Uber, is hiring and acquiring toward becoming an autonomous-vehicle player.
DEEP DIVE
Humanoid Robots Are Funded Like Software
FUNDING$23B robotics, $8.6B humanoid
Humanoid Robots Are Funded Like Software
Robotics startups have raised roughly $23 billion in 2026, nearly matching all of last year, and humanoid funding alone has topped $8.6 billion -- multiples that only work if hardware margins behave like software margins.
THE VC READ
Why AI Compute Swallowed the Week's Venture Dollars
FUNDING$4.8B in five days
Why AI Compute Swallowed the Week's Venture Dollars
Crusoe, Fluidstack and Gimlet Labs closed $4.8 billion between them in five days, and every dollar landed in the layer between the chips and the models rather than in the applications built on top.
DEEP DIVE
Space Startups Raise a Record $20.3B in 2026
FUNDING$20.3B in 2026
Space Startups Raise a Record $20.3B in 2026
Venture funding into space companies has already topped every full prior year, with orbital data centers emerging alongside launch and satellite manufacturing as a category investors treat as a genuine new subsector.
BY THE NUMBERS
InsurTech Funding Is Really Just Three Companies
FUNDING$1.67B disclosed, 1 year
InsurTech Funding Is Really Just Three Companies
French insurer Alan's $550 million round and Corgi's three raises together account for more than half of all disclosed InsurTech capital over the past year, a category where a handful of winners absorb nearly everything.
DEEP DIVE
AI Labs Have Now Committed $275B to Cloud Compute
FUNDING$275B Committed
AI Labs Have Now Committed $275B to Cloud Compute
Anthropic alone has signed five multibillion-dollar compute deals in 2026 -- with AWS, Fluidstack, Nscale, SpaceX and Lambda -- pushing one company's committed cloud spending past a quarter-trillion dollars before it has even gone public.
DEEP DIVE
Defense Tech Funding Hits a Record $35.6B in 2026
FUNDING$35.6B YTD
Defense Tech Funding Hits a Record $35.6B in 2026
Defense-tech funding is up 40% year-over-year to $35.6B YTD, with robotics at $18.8B YTD versus $15B for all of 2025 -- both categories on pace for record annual totals.
BY THE NUMBERS
Scan.com Raises $220M to Build a US Imaging Network
FUNDING$220M ($90M equity + $130M debt)
Scan.com Raises $220M to Build a US Imaging Network
The diagnostic-imaging marketplace combined a $90 million equity round with $130 million in debt to expand a network booking MRIs and CT scans across independent US imaging centers, betting scheduling friction is the real bottleneck.
DEEP DIVE
Jane Street Leads $1.5B Into Fluidstack at $18B
FUNDING$1.5B at $18B valuation
Jane Street Leads $1.5B Into Fluidstack at $18B
The Oxford spinout that builds and operates data centers for Anthropic and Google has more than doubled its valuation since December, on the back of contracts it signed before it owned a single chip.
DEEP DIVE
Nscale Lines Up $3.5B Pre-IPO War Chest From Nvidia
FUNDING$3.5B Pre-IPO Financing
Nscale Lines Up $3.5B Pre-IPO War Chest From Nvidia
The London AI cloud firm is in talks for roughly $2 billion from Nvidia and $1.5 billion in Third Point-led convertible notes ahead of a planned New York listing, with contracts now topping $103 billion.
DEEP DIVE