
The TechCrunch AI News Feed

Flapping Airplanes, a new AI research lab focused on data‑efficient training, announced it has secured $180 million in seed funding. The undisclosed round gives founders Ben and Asher Spector and Aidan Smith runway to develop novel AI models that require far less data.

ElevenLabs announced a $500 million fundraising round, valuing the voice‑AI startup at $11 billion. The round, led by Sequoia Capital, will fund the company’s push to make voice the next major AI interface across devices. The announcement was made during...

Apple announced the acquisition of Q.ai, an Israeli imaging and machine learning startup, in a deal valued at nearly $2 billion. The purchase aims to strengthen Apple's AI capabilities in audio and vision technologies, with Q.ai's founders joining Apple as part...

Handshake announced the acquisition of Cleanlab, a data‑quality software startup, in an acqui‑hire that adds nine Cleanlab employees, including its co‑founders, to Handshake's research team. The terms were undisclosed, and the deal aims to strengthen Handshake's AI data‑labeling capabilities for...

Tesla disclosed a $2 billion investment in Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI, joining other investors in the company’s $20 billion Series E round. The investment was made despite a shareholder vote rejecting authorization and aligns with Tesla’s AI and robotics strategy.

Modelence, a Y Combinator‑backed startup that simplifies AI‑driven app building, announced a $3 million seed round. The round was led by Y Combinator with participation from Rebel Fund, Acacia Venture Capital Partners, Formosa VC and Vocal Ventures. The funding will help...

Microsoft unveiled the Maia 200, its next‑generation AI inference chip, featuring over 100 billion transistors and delivering more than 10 petaflops in 4‑bit precision and roughly 5 petaflops in 8‑bit mode. The processor is positioned as a workhorse for running large language models with...

Nvidia unveiled its Earth‑2 suite of AI weather models at the American Meteorological Society meeting, highlighting a Medium Range model that outperforms Google DeepMind’s GenCast on more than 70 variables. The new models—Medium Range, Nowcasting, and Global Data Assimilation—run on...

British AI startup Synthesia closed a $200 million Series E round, lifting its valuation to $4 billion, up from $2.1 billion a year earlier. The funding, led by GV and backed by existing investors, coincides with the company surpassing $100 million in annual recurring revenue...

CVector, an industrial AI startup, announced a $5 million seed round to expand its AI-powered software platform for large-scale manufacturing and utilities. The round was led by Powerhouse Ventures with participation from Fusion Fund, Myriad Venture Partners and Hitachi's corporate...

Sunny Sethi’s HEN Technologies has turned fire‑suppression hardware into a data‑driven platform, launching high‑efficiency nozzles that claim up to 300% faster fire control while using 67% less water. Backed by NSF research, the company expanded into smart valves, monitors and...

Science fiction and pop‑culture institutions are tightening rules on generative AI. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) now disqualifies any Nebula‑Award entry that used large language models, after a brief reversal and member backlash. San Diego Comic‑Con similarly banned...

Fire‑suppression startup HEN Technologies announced a $20 M Series A round and $2 M of venture debt, bringing total funding to over $30 M. The round was led by O’Neil Strategic Capital with participation from NSFO, Tanas Capital and z21 Ventures. The capital will...

Harvey, the $8 billion‑valued legal AI leader, has acquired Hexus, a startup that builds AI‑powered product demos, videos, and guides. The acquisition brings Hexus’s engineering talent, led by founder Sakshi Pratap, into Harvey’s San Francisco hub and will later expand to a...

Harvey, a legal AI startup, announced it has acquired Hexus, a tool‑building startup for product demos and videos. Deal terms were not disclosed; Hexus’s San Francisco team has joined Harvey and its India engineers will move after a Bangalore office opens,...

The World Economic Forum’s Davos meeting in 2026 was reshaped by AI, with CEOs and tech giants dominating the agenda. Meta and Salesforce turned the promenade into AI‑focused storefronts, pushing topics like trade policy and AI bubbles ahead of climate...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is slated to travel to India in mid‑February for a series of closed‑door meetings that will run alongside the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. The summit, scheduled for February 16‑20, will host top AI executives...

OpenAI has appointed Barret Zoph, a former VP of post‑training inference, to lead its enterprise division as the company seeks to recapture lost market share. Zoph returned after a stint at Mira Murati’s Thinking Machine Labs, positioning him at the forefront of...

A new white‑collar benchmark called APEX‑Agents, released by Mercur, tests AI agents on real consulting, banking and legal tasks. Leading models, including Gemini 3 Flash and GPT‑5.2, achieved only about a quarter of queries correctly, with most responses wrong or missing. The...

Neurophos, an Austin‑based photonics startup spun out of Duke University, announced a $110 million Series A round led by Gates Frontier and backed by Microsoft’s M12 and other investors. The company has built a metasurface‑based optical processing unit that is claimed to...

Anthropic’s performance‑optimization team has repeatedly overhauled its take‑home technical interview as Claude’s capabilities have surged. Since 2024, each new Claude model—most recently Opus 4.5—has matched or exceeded the output of top human applicants, eroding the test’s discriminative power. The company now...

Quadric, a San Francisco‑based chip‑IP startup, is capitalizing on the shift from cloud‑based AI to on‑device inference, expanding its customer base beyond automotive to laptops and industrial devices. Licensing revenue is projected to reach $15‑$20 million in 2025, up from $4 million...

Quadric, a chip‑IP startup focused on on‑device AI inference, announced a $30 million Series C funding round led by Accelerate Fund, managed by Beenext Capital Management. The round brings total funding to $72 million and supports its expansion into laptops, industrial devices, and...

GPTZero scanned all 4,841 papers accepted at NeurIPS 2025 and identified 100 fabricated citations across 51 submissions. The incidence translates to roughly 1.1% of papers containing at least one erroneous reference, a figure the conference deems statistically negligible but still...

The U.S. Department of Energy projects geothermal could supply 60 GW by 2050, but Zanskar CEO Carl Holland argues that conventional geothermal alone could unlock up to a terawatt of capacity. The startup uses AI‑driven discovery and Bayesian Evidential Learning to...

Bolna, an Indian voice‑orchestration startup, closed a $6.3 million seed round led by General Catalyst, adding Y Combinator and several angel investors. The company now processes over 200,000 calls daily and is on track to surpass $700,000 in annual recurring revenue,...

Zanskar, an AI-powered geothermal startup, announced a $115 million Series C funding round led by Spring Lane Capital, with participation from a slate of investors including Union Square Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, and Munich Re Ventures. The capital will be used to expand its AI-driven...

Ukrainian‑origin language learning platform Preply announced a $150 million Series D round, pushing its valuation to $1.2 billion and cementing its unicorn status. The funding will support AI‑driven features and expansion across its four offices in Barcelona, London, New York and Kyiv.

Elon Musk announced Tesla will restart development of its third‑generation AI chip, Dojo 3, repurposing it for “space‑based AI compute.” The revival follows a shutdown earlier this year that saw the Dojo team disband and many engineers join rival startup DensityAI....

Emergent, an Indian AI "vibe‑coding" startup, closed a $70 million Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Khosla Ventures, lifting its post‑money valuation to $300 million. The company now reports $50 million in annual recurring revenue and over 5 million users in more...

Runpod, an AI‑app‑hosting platform founded by former Comcast developers, has reached a $120 million annual revenue run rate. The company bootstrapped to $1 million in revenue within nine months, leveraging Reddit outreach to acquire early users and attract a $20 million seed round...
AI startups are rapidly converging on healthcare, with OpenAI acquiring Torch, Anthropic launching Claude for healthcare, and MergeLabs securing a $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation. These moves signal a flood of capital and product development focused on health...

Anthropic has hired Irina Ghose, former Microsoft India managing director, to lead its Indian operations as it prepares to open a Bengaluru office. The move reflects the company’s ambition to turn India’s massive internet user base into a revenue engine,...

A federal judge denied Elon Musk’s attempts to dismiss his lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, scheduling a jury trial in Oakland for late April. Musk alleges OpenAI breached its original nonprofit charter after receiving billions from Microsoft and converting to...

Symbolic.ai, an AI journalism startup founded by former eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica co‑founder Jon Stokes, has secured a partnership with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The deal will see News Corp deploy Symbolic’s AI publishing platform across its...

OpenAI wrote the lead check in Merge Labs’ $250 million seed round, valuing the Sam Altman‑backed brain‑computer interface startup at $850 million. Merge Labs aims to create non‑invasive BCIs that use molecular carriers and ultrasound to communicate with neurons, positioning itself as...

The Wikimedia Foundation announced new AI partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, Mistral AI and several others through its commercial offering, Wikimedia Enterprise. The deals give these tech firms high‑volume, low‑latency access to Wikipedia’s 65 million articles in 300 languages, supporting...

Former OpenAI executive Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines Lab announced the departure of co‑founder and CTO Barret Zoph, who, along with co‑founder Luke Metz and researcher Sam Schoenholz, are returning to OpenAI. Soumith Chintala will replace Zoph as CTO....

Emversity, a Bengaluru‑based workforce‑training startup, raised $30 million in a Series A round led by Premji Invest, valuing the company at $120 million. The funding will fuel expansion of its AI‑resistant, grey‑collar talent pipelines across healthcare, hospitality and soon EPC and manufacturing. To...

OpenAI has signed a multi‑year, $10 billion agreement with AI‑chipmaker Cerebras to provision 750 megawatts of compute power from 2024 through 2028. The partnership focuses on delivering low‑latency, real‑time inference that speeds up OpenAI’s customer‑facing services. Cerebras claims its wafer‑scale chips outperform...

VoiceRun announced a $5.5 million seed round led by Flybridge Capital to launch its code‑first platform for AI voice agents. The startup positions itself between low‑code visual builders and fully custom development tools, letting developers write, test, and deploy agents with...

ElevenLabs reported $330 million in annual recurring revenue, reaching that milestone in just three years after launching its first product in 2023. The company accelerated from $100 million ARR in 20 months to $200 million in 10 months, and hit $330 million in the...

Deepgram announced a $130 million Series C funding round, valuing the voice‑AI company at $1.3 billion. The round was led by AVP and included existing backers plus new strategic investors such as Twilio, SAP and Y Combinator. Deepgram, now cash‑flow positive, plans to expand...

Brazil’s competition authority (CADE) has ordered Meta to halt its WhatsApp Business API rule that blocks third‑party AI chatbots, launching an antitrust probe into the policy’s exclusivity. The restriction, introduced in October, would have prevented services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and...

Converge Bio, a Boston‑Tel Aviv AI startup, closed a $25 million Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from TLV Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, and unnamed executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Wiz. The company offers generative‑AI platforms that integrate antibody...

Meta‑backed Hupo, originally a mental‑wellness app, has pivoted to AI‑driven sales coaching for banks, insurers and financial services. The startup raised a $10 million Series A led by DST Global, bringing total funding to $15 million. Its platform, trained on real financial products...

Amazon unveiled Bee, an AI‑powered wearable clip‑on pin and bracelet, at CES 2026 following its 2025 acquisition. Bee records conversations, transcribes them, and acts as a personal AI companion that taps into Gmail, Calendar, contacts and Apple Health. The device extends...

Motional, the Hyundai‑Aptiv joint venture, has rebooted its robotaxi program with an AI‑first architecture and aims to launch a fully driverless service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026. After missing earlier milestones, losing Aptiv’s backing and slashing its workforce...

Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that lets AI agents handle end‑to‑end shopping experiences. Developed with retailers such as Shopify, Walmart and Target, UCP streamlines discovery, checkout and post‑purchase support across platforms. The protocol will power...

Indonesian officials said Saturday that they are temporarily blocking access to xAI’s chatbot Grok.

Anthropic announced a partnership with German insurer Allianz to embed its Claude Code AI‑coding tool and custom agents across the company, while adding a transparent logging system for regulatory compliance. The deal, whose financial terms were undisclosed, underscores Anthropic’s focus on...

OpenAI announced an acqui‑hire of Convogo’s three co‑founders, bringing the executive‑coaching AI team into its AI cloud division. The deal does not include Convogo’s intellectual property, and the startup’s product will be shut down. This marks OpenAI’s ninth acquisition in...

Snowflake announced a definitive agreement to acquire observability platform Observe for an estimated $1 billion, marking its largest deal to date. Observe, founded in 2017 and built on Snowflake’s database from the start, has raised nearly $500 million and was valued at...

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI has been cleared for a jury trial in March after a federal judge found evidence that the company’s leaders may have promised to keep its original nonprofit structure. Musk, an early backer who invested roughly...

Venture partner Vanessa Larco predicts 2026 will be a breakout year for consumer‑tech startups, driven by AI‑powered products that deliver immediate, measurable value to users. She argues that consumer adoption cycles are faster than enterprise, allowing startups to validate product‑market fit...

Spangle, the AI‑e‑commerce platform founded by former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla, closed a $15 million Series A round that lifts its valuation to $100 million. The Seattle‑based startup, now backed by NewRoad Capital and several venture firms, has grown its enterprise roster to...

Ford announced an AI‑powered digital assistant that will first appear in its revamped smartphone app in early 2026, with native in‑vehicle integration slated for 2027. The assistant runs on Google Cloud using off‑the‑shelf large language models and will have deep...

AI e‑commerce startup Spangle announced a $15 million Series A round led by NewRoad Capital Partners, bringing total funding to $21 million and valuing the company at $100 million. The round also included Madrona, DNX Ventures and Streamlined Ventures, along with strategic angel investors....

OpenAI announced an acqui‑hire of the Convogo team, the creators of an AI‑powered executive coaching platform. The all‑stock deal will see Convogo’s three co‑founders join OpenAI to work on its AI cloud initiatives, while Convogo’s product will be wound down....

Snowflake announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire observability platform Observe for an estimated $1 billion. The deal, subject to regulatory approval, will integrate Observe’s telemetry capabilities into Snowflake’s data cloud, enhancing monitoring and debugging for customers.

Vanessa Larco, partner at Premise, says 2026 will be the year consumer AI finally takes off, with AI‑driven concierge services reshaping how users browse the web. She warns legacy platforms such as WebMD and TripAdvisor may be folded into larger...

Meta announced a $2 billion acquisition of AI assistant platform Manus, sparking regulatory scrutiny in both the United States and China. The deal follows a recent financing round led by Benchmark and raises concerns over export controls as Manus relocates from...

Lemon Slice announced a $10.5 million seed round to fund its AI‑driven digital avatar platform. The round was led by Matrix Partners and Y Combinator, with participation from Dropbox CTO Arash Ferdowsi, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and The Chainsmokers.

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s new AI‑assistant startup Dazzle announced an $8 million seed round at a $35 million valuation. The round was led by Forerunner Ventures’ Kirsten Green with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Greycroft, Offline Ventures, Slow Ventures and Bling Capital.

Resolve AI, an autonomous site reliability engineering startup, announced a Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing the company at $1 billion. The round’s exact size was not disclosed, but the funding will accelerate its AI‑driven SRE platform.

AI pioneer Yann LeCun announced the formation of Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) Labs and is targeting a €500 million raise at a €3 billion valuation. The fundraising is being pursued immediately after launch, positioning AMI Labs as a major new player in...

Peripheral Labs announced a $3.6 million seed round to fund its affordable volumetric video platform for sports, led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Daybreak Capital, Entrepreneurs First and Transpose Platform. The funding will accelerate product development and go‑to‑market efforts targeting...

Lovable, the Stockholm‑based AI‑driven vibe‑coding platform, announced a $330 million Series B round led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures, valuing the company at $6.6 billion. Existing backers Khosla Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Databricks Ventures and other investors also participated.

MoEngage, the Bengaluru‑based customer engagement platform, announced a $180 million Series F follow‑on round, with $123 million coming from secondary sales and $57 million as primary capital. The round was led by ChrysCapital and Dragon Funds, with participation from Schroders Capital, TR Capital, B...
Databricks announced a $4 billion Series L financing round, pushing its valuation to $134 billion as it doubles down on AI‑centric products. The round was led by Insight Partners, Fidelity and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with participation from a slate of top venture and...
Leona Health announced a $14 million seed round to expand its AI‑copilot that organizes doctor‑patient messaging on WhatsApp across 14 Latin American countries. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from General Catalyst, Accel, Maven Clinic, Nubank and Rappi,...
Berlin‑based AI startup Mirelo announced a $41 million seed round to fund its video‑to‑soundtrack technology. The round was led by Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Atlantic and several angel investors. The capital will accelerate product development and hiring...
First Voyage announced a $2.5 million seed round led by a16z speedrun, SignalFire and True Global to expand its AI companion app Momo Self Care. The funding will support an Android launch and further AI enhancements, positioning the startup in the...
Port announced a $100 million Series C round led by General Atlantic, with participation from Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners and Team8, valuing the startup at $800 million. The funding will accelerate its AI‑driven developer portal platform that competes with Spotify’s Backstage. The round...
AI DevOps platform Harness announced a $240 million Series E round, pushing its post‑money valuation to $5.5 billion. The round was led by Goldman Sachs with participation from IVP, Menlo Ventures and Unusual Ventures, and includes a $40 million employee tender offer.
Norwegian AI startup Spoor announced a recent €8 million ($9.3 million) Series A round led by SET Ventures, with participation from Ørstead Ventures and Superorganism. The funding will accelerate its computer‑vision platform for protecting birds around wind turbines and expand into new markets.
Empromptu, an AI platform that lets enterprises build applications via chat, announced a $2 million pre‑seed round on Tuesday. The round was led by Precursor Ventures with participation from Zeal Capital, Alumni Ventures, Founders Edge and South Loop, and will fund...
Calgary‑based AI startup Cashew Research announced it has closed a C$1.5 million pre‑seed round, aimed at expanding its AI‑powered market research platform. The funding will support product development and U.S. market expansion as the company targets B2B customers.
Former Databricks AI head Naveen Rao's startup Unconventional AI announced a $475 million seed round at a $4.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Lux Capital and DCVC, marking a massive early‑stage raise...
Aaru, a one‑year‑old AI‑driven synthetic research startup, announced a Series A financing that values the company at a $1 billion headline valuation. The round was disclosed by sources to TechCrunch, marking a significant milestone for the market‑research platform.

Paris-based AI voice startup Gradium announced a $70 million seed round led by FirstMark Capital and Eurazeo, with participation from Xavier Niel, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt and others. The funding will support the launch of its ultra‑low‑latency audio‑language models for developers across...

Simular announced a $21.5 million Series A round led by Felicis, with existing seed investors NVentures and South Park Commons also participating. The funding will support the rollout of its AI‑driven agent for macOS and the upcoming Windows version.
OpenAI announced it is acquiring an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, a private‑equity‑style firm that backs AI‑focused companies. The terms were not disclosed, but the partnership will embed OpenAI’s engineering and research teams within Thrive‑owned businesses to accelerate AI adoption....

The U.S. Commerce Department announced a deal to provide up to $150 million in equity funding to semiconductor startup xLight, marking the government’s third equity stake in a private company. The investment, sourced from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, aims...
Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment in Synopsys, purchasing shares at $414.79 each as part of a multi‑year partnership to integrate Nvidia’s AI hardware with Synopsys’s EDA tools. The corporate venture aims to accelerate chip‑design workflows by moving Synopsys’s platform to...
Supabase, the open‑source database platform, announced a new $100 million financing that lifts its valuation to $5 billion. The round follows a $200 million raise at a $2 billion valuation just months earlier, underscoring rapid growth in its backend‑as‑a‑service business.

Onton, the AI‑driven shopping platform formerly known as Deft, announced a $7.5 million funding round led by Footwork with participation from Liquid 2, Parable Ventures and 43. The capital will fuel expansion into new categories such as apparel and consumer electronics.

AI testing startup Momentic announced a $15 million Series A round led by Standard Capital with participation from Dropbox Ventures and existing backers including Y Combinator, FCVC, Transpose Platform and Karman Ventures. The funding will help expand its AI‑powered software testing platform and...

Finnish AI startup NestAI announced a €100 million funding round, led by sovereign fund Tesi and hardware giant Nokia, to develop physical AI for defense and autonomous systems. The capital will help establish Europe’s leading physical AI lab and support the...

Indian IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced it has secured a $1 billion investment from private‑equity firm TPG to fund the first phase of its $2 billion HyperVault AI data‑center initiative. The multi‑year partnership will help build gigawatt‑scale, liquid‑cooled facilities...

Sortera announced a $20 million equity raise and $25 million debt financing led by VXI Capital, with participation from Overlay Capital, Yamaha Motor Ventures and Trinity Capital. The capital will fund a replica plant in Tennessee slated for operation in spring 2026,...

Function Health announced a $298 million Series B round led by Redpoint Ventures, pushing its valuation to $2.5 billion. The round also included participation from a16z, Aglaé Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Battery Ventures, NFDG and other investors, fueling the launch of its Medical Intelligence...

Berlin‑based Peec AI announced a $21 million Series A round led by European VC Singular, with participation from Antler, Combination VC, identity.vc and S20. The funding will accelerate product growth, expand the team and support a new US office as the...

PowerLattice, a chiplet startup focused on energy‑efficient AI hardware, announced a $25 million Series A round led by Playground Global and Celesta Capital, bringing its total funding to $31 million. The round was disclosed as the company emerged from stealth on Monday, positioning...

Seoul‑based Bone AI announced a $12 million seed round led by Third Prime, with strategic participation from Kolon Group. The funding will support the startup's AI‑driven autonomous drones, ground and marine vehicles targeting defense and government contracts across Asia and beyond.

Luminal announced a $5.3 million seed round on Monday, led by Felicis Ventures with angel participation from Paul Graham, Guillermo Rauch, and Ben Porterfield. The funding will support its GPU‑code optimization framework aimed at improving inference performance for AI workloads.

Tokyo‑based Sakana AI announced a $135 million Series B round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $2.65 billion. The round was led by a mix of Japanese financial heavyweight Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and global venture firms including Khosla Ventures, Macquarie Capital, NEA,...

AI‑agent security startup Runlayer announced an $11 million seed round on Monday, raised from Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois and Felicis Ventures. The funding will help the company expand its all‑in‑one MCP security platform for enterprise customers, including several unicorns that...

Cursor announced a $2.3 billion funding round on Thursday, boosting its valuation to $29.3 billion. The round was co‑led by Accel and Coatue, with participation from Thrive Capital, Nvidia and Google as strategic investors. Proceeds will fund the development of Composer, Cursor’s...

Israeli AI startup Milestone announced a $10 million seed funding round led by venture firm Heavybit and Hanaco Ventures, with participation from Atlassian Ventures and several angel investors. The round will help the company expand its platform that correlates GenAI tool...

AI‑focused startup Bindwell announced a $6 million seed round led by General Catalyst and A Capital, with participation from Paul Graham and SV Angel. The funding will fuel development of its proprietary AI models for designing new pesticide molecules and pursuing licensing deals...

Former physician Jenny Shao’s AI companion startup Robyn announced a $5.5 million seed round, led by venture firm M13 with participation from investors Lars Rasmussen, Bill Tai, Ken Goldman and Christian Szegedy. The funding will support product launch and growth of...

AI sales startup 1mind announced a $30 million Series A round on Monday, led by Battery Ventures, bringing its total funding to $40 million. The round also included Primary Ventures, Wing Venture Capital, Operator Collective, Harmonic Growth Partners, Success Venture Partners and several...

Scribe announced a $75 million all‑equity Series C round, valuing the workflow‑automation startup at $1.3 billion. The round was led by StepStone with participation from Amplify Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Tiger Global, Morado Ventures and New York Life Ventures, and will fund the rollout of...
Kaltura announced the acquisition of Israel‑based eSelf.ai, a conversational avatar platform, in a deal valued at about $27 million. The acquisition will integrate eSelf’s real‑time AI avatar technology into Kaltura’s video solutions for enterprise customers.

California‑based Subtle Computing announced it has closed a $6 million seed round, led by Entrada Ventures with participation from Amplify Partners and Abstract Ventures. The funding will accelerate development of its voice‑isolation models for noisy environments and support upcoming product launches.

AI startup Inception announced a $50 million seed round to develop diffusion‑based models for code and text. The round was led by Menlo Ventures with additional angel contributions from Andrew Ng and Andrej Karpathy. The funding will accelerate the rollout of its...

Wabi, the AI‑driven "YouTube of apps" platform founded by Replika creator Eugenia Kuyda, announced a $20 million pre‑seed funding round. The round was backed by a roster of high‑profile angels including Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan, Justin Kan, Amjad Masad, Akshay Kothari,...

Rivian announced the creation of Mind Robotics, an industrial AI and robotics spinoff, which has secured a $115 million seed round led by venture firm Eclipse. The funding aims to develop advanced AI-driven robotic solutions for manufacturing and other physical‑world businesses.

Microsoft announced a $15.2 billion AI investment plan for the UAE, which includes a $1.5 billion equity stake in G42, the country's sovereign AI company. The deal was unveiled at the Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit, marking a major corporate venture into...

AI startup Adam announced a $4.1 million seed round led by TQ Ventures, with participation from 468 Capital, Pioneer, Script Capital, Transpose Platform and several angel investors. The funding will accelerate development of its AI copilot for professional CAD workflows, moving...
Figma announced it has acquired AI-powered image and video generation startup Weavy, which will join Figma under a new brand called Figma Weave. The Tel-Aviv-based startup’s 20 employees will join Figma; the companies did not disclose the deal valuation.

The Y Combinator‑backed startup The Prompting Company announced a $6.5 million seed round to expand its generative engine optimization platform that helps brands appear in AI‑powered recommendations. The round was led by Peak XV Partners with participation from Base10, Y Combinator, Firedrop and angel...

Bevel, a New York‑based health‑tech startup, announced a $10 million Series A round led by General Catalyst to scale its AI‑driven health companion that aggregates wearable and nutrition data. The funding will support product expansion and user growth as the company targets...

Nvidia announced it has invested $1 billion in Nokia to help pioneer AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks, using Nokia products alongside Nvidia platforms. The move was disclosed by Nvidia the week of Oct. 29, 2025 as part of its broader...

Warsaw‑based CampusAI is currently raising a $20 million Series A to expand its AI upskilling platform into 40 markets by 2030, focusing on B2B sales and enterprise customers. The two‑year‑old startup says it is on track for $2M+ ARR and...

OpenAI announced completion of a recapitalization converting into a for‑profit OpenAI Group controlled by a non‑profit foundation, with ownership split (Foundation 26%, Microsoft ~27%, investors and employees 47%). The restructuring accompanies a reported $30B SoftBank investment and extends Microsoft’s IP...

Mem0 raised $24 million in total funding, comprising $3.9M in previously unannounced seed and a $20M Series A led by Basis Set Ventures with participation from Kindred Ventures, Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners, and the GitHub Fund, to expand its...

Mercor raised $350 million in a Series C at a $10 billion valuation, led by Felicis Ventures with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst and Robinhood Ventures. The AI-focused talent and training marketplace will use the capital to expand its expert...

RADiCAIT, an Oxford spinout using AI to generate PET-quality images from CT scans, came out of stealth this month with $1.7M in pre-seed financing and has just opened a $5M seed raise to fund FDA clinical trials and commercial pilots.

Nephrogen, a biotech startup combining AI and gene‑editing delivery tech to target kidney disease, is raising a $4 million seed round to advance its delivery mechanism and drug into clinical studies anticipated in 2027.

Tensormesh launched from stealth with a $4.5M seed round led by Laude Ventures and additional angel funding from Michael Franklin to build a commercial version of the LMCache utility, aiming to reduce AI inference costs and optimize GPU usage for...

London-based AI creative studio Wonder Studios raised $12M in a seed round led by Atomico with participation from LocalGlobe, Blackbird and other investors. The funds will be used to grow engineering, pursue IP ownership and accelerate original and commercial AI-generated...

Cluely, an AI meeting assistant startup, raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz earlier in 2025. The funding has been used for marketing, staffing and office expansion as the company scales.

Turbo AI, an AI note‑taking startup founded by Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan, raised $750,000 last year in an early financing. The company remains profitable and is cautious about raising more despite strong user growth and inbound interest.

OpenAI has acquired Software Applications, Inc., the startup behind Sky, an unreleased AI-powered natural language interface for Mac. Deal terms were not disclosed; the startup had previously raised $6.5M from investors including Sam Altman and Dylan Field.

Adaption Labs, a startup co-founded by former Cohere VP of AI Research Sara Hooker and Sudip Roy, has closed a seed funding round after talks to raise $20M–$40M earlier this fall; the final amount was not disclosed. The company will...

Platform-engineering startup Shuttle raised $6 million in a seed round to help deploy and manage applications produced by vibe-coding and other AI coding systems. Investors include former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke and Segment co-founder Calvin French-Owen; funds will be used...

Multimodal AI startup Fal.ai has closed a new funding round of approximately $250M that values the company at over $4 billion. Major investors in the round include Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia; the raise follows a $125M Series C earlier in...

Open‑source AI agent platform LangChain raised $125 million in a growth-stage financing that values the company at $1.25 billion. The round was led by IVP and included new investors CapitalG and Sapphire Ventures alongside existing backers Sequoia, Benchmark and Amplify.

Dubai-based Cercli raised an oversubscribed $12M Series A led by Picus Capital, with participation from Knollwood Investment Advisory, Y Combinator, Afore Capital, and COTU Ventures. The startup will use the funding to expand its AI-native HR, payroll and compliance platform...

1001 AI, an AI infrastructure startup for aviation, logistics and oil & gas in the MENA region, raised a $9M seed round led by CIV, General Catalyst and Lux Capital with participation from several angels. The funding will accelerate product...

Periodic Labs, founded by former OpenAI and Google Brain researchers Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, raised a $300M seed round led by Felicis to fund AI‑powered materials science R&D and a wet lab. Other backers include Andreessen Horowitz, DST,...

OpenEvidence raised $200 million at a $6 billion valuation in a growth-stage funding round led by Google Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Blackstone, Thrive Capital, Coatue Management, Bond and Craft. The startup, founded in 2022, provides an...

Goldman Sachs is acquiring Industry Ventures in a deal valued at up to $965 million, signaling Wall Street's interest in the secondary venture market. The acquisition was reported in TechCrunch's Oct 17, 2025 article referencing the transaction.

London-based recruitment startup Jack & Jill raised $20 million in a seed round led by EU investor Creandum to expand its conversational AI job-hunting platform and pursue U.S. growth. The company already has nearly 50,000 users in London and will...

General Intuition, a spinout from Medal, raised $133.7M in a seed round led by Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst with participation from Raine. The startup will use Medal’s gaming video dataset to train foundation models and AI agents focused on...
Flint, an AI startup that automates building and updating websites, emerged from stealth with a $5M seed round led by Accel and participation from Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners and Neo. The funding will support product development to enable dynamic, personalized...

Goldman Sachs is acquiring venture firm Industry Ventures in a deal valued at up to $965 million, signaling Wall Street’s growing interest in the secondary venture market.
Enterprise-focused AI presentation startup Prezent has raised $30 million to pursue acquisitions of AI services firms, including an initial deal with the founder’s other company. The round follows a prior $20M raise and is earmarked to accelerate growth through M&A.
Datacurve raised $15 million to fund growth of its bounty-hunter dataset labeling platform aimed at competing with Scale AI. The capital will be used to scale operations and attract skilled engineers to complete hard-to-source datasets.
Reflection has raised $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation to expand from autonomous coding agents into an open-source frontier AI lab positioned against closed western labs and Chinese rivals like DeepSeek. The funding will support scaling research and platform...

Commonwealth Fusion Systems closed an $863M Series B2 round in August 2025 with participation from Google and Nvidia (and others), backing the company as it builds its Sparc demonstration reactor and advances commercial fusion efforts.