Today's Venture Capital Pulse
Nvidia joins $1B Series F, pushing Vast Data valuation to $30B
Vast Data secured a $1 billion Series F round, lifting its valuation to $30 billion. The round was led by Drive Capital and Access Industries and included investors such as Nvidia, Fidelity and NEA. The startup reported over $4 billion in cumulative bookings and more than $500 million in annual recurring revenue.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Japanet Holdings quadruples VC fund to $200M
Gumloop Raises $50M From Benchmark to Scale AI Agents
In this episode, host Jaden Schaefer highlights Gumloop, a startup that enables every employee to become an AI‑agent builder, automating routine tasks without needing code. Founded in mid‑2023 by Max Broder Urbass, Gumloop has quickly secured major enterprise customers like Shopify and Instacart and raised a $50 million Series B led by Benchmark’s Everett Randall. The discussion emphasizes Gumloop’s model‑agnostic platform, its viral internal adoption strategy, and its positioning amid growing competition from tools such as Zapier, Dust, and native offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Early Replit Investment Fuels Coding Access and Nonprofit Funding
We are very proud to have invested in @replit 9 years ago. We invested out of our first $53M fund and re-invested 3x. We were taken with @amasad vision to democratize coding and building. We could see that access to...
An LP Base that Women-Led VCs Can’t Afford to Ignore
A recent survey of high‑net‑worth women investors shows that nearly half are just beginning to explore private‑market opportunities, yet 67% intend to allocate $25,000‑$49,000 to venture funds this year. This emerging pool represents a sizable, yet under‑tapped, source of limited‑partner...
Raising Capital in Health Tech when the Market Has No Patience for Excuses
Health‑tech founders face a stark two‑speed venture market: early‑stage capital has compressed while late‑stage money surges. Carta data shows seed rounds fell 28% YoY in Q1 2025 and Series A deal count dropped 18% YoY in Q2 2025, extending fundraising timelines to a...
Naboo
Naboo.ai announced a Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with partner Antoine Moyroud joining the deal. The AI‑driven platform automates corporate event planning across the UK and Europe, handling venues, catering, activities, and transport in a single invoice. It...
Femtum Thinks Its Semiconductor Cutting Lasers Are Better than Yours
Quebec‑based startup Femtum announced an oversubscribed CAD 16 million Series A round, led by BDC Capital and joined by FTQ, Cathay Venture and other backers. The company’s flagship laser cleaning and trimming system claims to cut chip power consumption by 20‑40 % while boosting...
Onyx Security Launches With $40M
Onyx Security has launched its secure AI control plane, raising $40 million from investors Conviction and Cyberstarts. The platform consolidates security, governance, and infrastructure functions to monitor AI agents across enterprises. Powered by proprietary models, it promises compliance, risk mitigation, and...
Oxa Raises $103M to Automate Industrial Driving Tasks
UK‑based Oxa raised $103 million in a Series D round led by the National Wealth Fund, with participation from NVIDIA Ventures and other investors. The capital will fast‑track development of its Oxa Driver autonomous‑driving software and the Oxa Hub cloud platform, which...
Genspark.ai Extends Series B to $385M
Genspark.ai announced an extension of its Series B round to $385 million, pushing its valuation to roughly $1.6 billion. The company simultaneously launched Genspark Claw, billed as the first “AI employee,” and upgraded its AI Workspace to version 3.0, both running on a dedicated Genspark Cloud Computer....
AI Agents Now Autonomously Execute Internet Tools in Production
An AI agent can now discover a tool on the internet, call it, and take action in production. Two years ago unthinkable, today that's a slow Tuesday night. Every enterprise will need a control plane for AI -- we backed...
Humanoid Robotics Maker Sunday Reaches $1.15B Valuation to Build Household Robots
Sunday, a stealth‑launched humanoid robotics startup, announced a $165 million Series B round that lifts its valuation to $1.15 billion, granting it unicorn status. The round was led by Coatue Management with participation from Tiger Global, Benchmark, and Bain Capital Ventures. Sunday’s flagship...
Mantra Softech Taps $14M Investment to Accelerate Development
Mantra Softech, an Indian deep‑tech firm, secured $14 million in an initial funding round led by India SME Fund II and Motilal Oswal Principal Investments. The capital will fund AI‑enabled digital identity solutions, next‑generation biometrics, liveness detection, and a Centre of...
Exclusive: GalaxEye Raises ₹44 Cr In Ongoing Series A Funding Round
Indian spacetech startup GalaxEye announced it has secured about ₹44.2 cr (≈$4.8 m) in an extended Series A round. The round featured existing backers such as Mela Venture, Rainmatter, Mounttech Growth Fund and Speciale Invest, with institutional commitments ranging from ₹8 cr to ₹18 cr....
Early Bet on Digital Music Yields 20x Return
I backed a 25-year-old first-time founder who wanted to digitize music. This was 1988. I was excited by the prospect. I knew it was possible, but to most, the idea sounded insane. Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooke had started Digidesign, and I...
Gumloop Lands $50M From Benchmark to Turn Every Employee Into an AI Agent Builder
Gumloop announced a $50 million Series B round led by Benchmark to scale its no‑code AI agent builder for enterprises. The platform enables non‑technical employees at firms such as Shopify, Ramp and Instacart to create autonomous agents that automate multistep workflows without...
Biotech Startups Use Funding Extensions to Sidestep Full Capital Rounds
Biotech startups are increasingly opting to extend existing financing rounds instead of launching fresh fundraising campaigns. By adding capital to current rounds, companies can secure needed cash while avoiding the dilution and valuation pressure of a full round. This approach...
Big Tech AI Highways Fuel Massive Startup Wealth Transfer
Here's what nobody's saying out loud: Microsoft, Google, Amazon built the AI highways Startups are just driving on them Private valuations exploding while public tech multiples compress The infrastructure subsidy from Big Tech to private markets might be the largest wealth transfer in startup...
Atomico's Crunchbase Engine Generates One‑Third New Deals
How does @atomico scale data-driven venture investing across Europe? By integrating Crunchbase data into sourcing and diligence workflows. 💪 Today, 1 in 3 net-new opportunities in its pipeline originates from its data engine, with Crunchbase as the data backbone. 🔗: https://t.co/zf1JHLNAqP
Shorooq Invests in AMI Labs as AI Startup Hits $3.5 Billion Valuation
UAE‑based Shorooq joined a $1.03 billion seed round for AMI Labs, the AI startup founded by Turing Award winner Yann LeCun, valuing the company at $3.5 billion pre‑money. The round was co‑led by Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital and Bezos...
Raised $165M to Shift From Demos to Deployment
We raised $165M at a $1.15B valuation to stop doing demos. 2026 is about 1) deployment and 2) research. We will start shipping Memo with our new frontier models in a few months. Our series-B is led by Coatue, with Thomas Laffont...
Family VC: Collaborative Community for Family Office Investors
What is Family VC? A collaborative community of ambitious family office peers who are allocating to VC and navigating the wild world of family office operations. https://t.co/MLJG9YwWx3
General Atlantic Enters Secondaries Market in Partnership with Clipway
General Atlantic announced a strategic entry into the secondaries market through a partnership with Clipway. The joint venture aims to raise a $1 billion fund dedicated to growth‑equity and late‑stage venture capital secondary transactions. By leveraging Clipway’s technology platform, the partnership...
Tropic Secures $105M to Mass‑produce Non‑browning Bananas
Tropic, a British gene-editing startup, has raised $105 million in new financing to expand production of bananas that don’t brown https://t.co/rHHAMO6mST
Scaling AI for Everyone
OpenAI announced a $110 billion financing round that values the company at $730 billion pre‑money, with $30 billion each from SoftBank and Nvidia and $50 billion from Amazon. The capital backs a strategic partnership with Amazon and next‑generation inference compute from Nvidia, expanding global...
Corporate Value of the Global AI and Semiconductor Companies Invested by SK Square Increased up to Sevenfold in Two Years
South Korean conglomerate SK Square disclosed a KRW 30 billion investment in seven U.S. and Japanese AI and semiconductor startups, including data‑orchestration specialist Hammerspace. The fund, part of a KRW 100 billion program, has already generated outsized returns, with d‑Matrix’s market value soaring more...
Dishwashing Home Robot Maker Sunday Hits $1.15 Billion Valuation
Sunday Inc., a developer of a multifunctional home robot, announced a $165 million Series B financing round that lifted its valuation to $1.15 billion. The round was led by Coatue Management with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Tiger Global, Benchmark and Conviction Partners....
The Investment Theses Behind Vast and Sierra’s $500M+ Mega Rounds
Vast and Sierra each closed mega‑fundraising rounds exceeding $500 million, marking some of the largest venture capital commitments of the year. The capital will be deployed into deep‑tech sectors where both firms see outsized growth potential, such as AI‑driven data infrastructure...
Estonian Defence Startup Frankenburg Technologies Lands €30M Series A to Scale Missile Manufacturing
Estonian defence startup Frankenburg Technologies secured a €30 million Series A round led by Plural, with participation from SmartCap, to expand missile manufacturing across Europe. The capital will fund modular, containerised production hubs in the UK and Germany, each designed to output...
Investors Favor AI; Non‑AI Startups Face Funding Drought
I’ve seen a few media companies and dtc brands raising funding right now. I’m not an active angel…but I can’t imagine doing a non-ai company seed investment at the moment. God bless those companies. What’s the market like for non-ai...
Morocco Rising: Inside the Kingdom's Startup and VC Revolution
Morocco’s startup ecosystem surged in 2024, raising nearly $95 million in venture capital across 40 deals, almost tripling the previous year’s total. Domestic funds such as UM6P Ventures and Al Mada Ventures supplied about 70 % of the capital, while high‑profile rounds like...
Barcelona’s Delfos Energy Raises €3 Million to Build AI “Virtual Engineer” For the Energy Industry as It Charges up for...
Barcelona‑based Delfos Energy closed a €3 million seed extension, bringing its total funding to €10 million. The round, led by new investor Vox Capital/COPEL alongside existing backers, supports the company’s AI “virtual engineer” platform that now monitors over 1,000 renewable‑energy sites across...
AI May Never Be as Cheap as It Is Today
AI services are currently offered at unusually low prices, driven by venture‑capital subsidies and strategic compute discounts. However, as leading LLM companies prepare for IPOs, they will need to raise prices to achieve profitability. While advances in inference chips from...
Mosaic Wellness Raises Rs 200 Cr From 360 ONE; Spring Marketing Capital Partially Exits
Mosaic Wellness secured Rs 200 crore ($21 million) in primary capital from 360 ONE Asset, while early backer Spring Marketing Capital sold a portion of its stake. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $84 million and will fuel expansion across its digital‑first...
The Case for Patience
Corporate venture capital (CVC) firms are championing patience over the industry‑wide sprint mentality, arguing that long‑term strategic value outweighs short‑term hype. By investing in peripheral, nascent technologies and leveraging internal corporate resources, CVCs can hold positions longer than traditional VCs....
Maria 01 Report Shows Finnish Startups Tripled Funding in 2025
The Maria 01 Impact Report reveals Finnish startup funding surged to €337 million in 2025, more than tripling the €102 million recorded the year before. This growth came as overall European venture capital contracted, highlighting Finland’s out‑performance in a weak market. The surge...
Exclusive: Oro Labs, Which Uses AI to Streamline Corporate Procurement, Raises $100 Million
Oro Labs announced a $100 million Series C round, led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and Brighton Park Capital, bringing its total funding to $160 million. The Silicon Valley AI startup, which overlays existing ERP and procurement systems with an orchestration platform, reported...
Emergent's CEO Told Us These Are the 2 Biggest Threats to Vibe Coding
Emergent’s CEO Mukund Jha warned that vibe coding faces two major threats: sub‑par software quality and the possibility that autonomous AI agents could render traditional apps obsolete. He highlighted that many AI‑generated apps remain buggy and hard to scale, and...
Seekho Spends Rs 134 Cr on Advertising for Rs 142 Cr Revenue in FY25
Seekho, the Bengaluru‑based short‑learning video platform, posted FY25 revenue of Rs 141.5 crore, a 12.3‑fold increase from the prior year. The surge was driven by subscription fees, but the company spent Rs 134 crore on marketing—75% of total expenses—pushing its loss to Rs 38.8 crore and...
Elaia Closes Third DeepTech Seed Fund at €134 Million as “European DeepTech Is Reaching Escape Velocity”
Paris‑based venture capital firm Elaia has closed its third DeepTech Seed fund (DTS3) at €134 million, twice the size of its prior funds. The fund, backed by a mix of long‑standing and new investors such as PSL Université, INRIA, Bpifrance and...
Cursor Weighs Fresh Fundraise as Debate Rages on Coding Firm's Prospects
Cursor, the AI‑powered coding assistant, is reportedly exploring a fresh financing round as the startup navigates mixed signals about its long‑term viability. The company, backed by investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia, aims to capitalize on surging demand for...
One Billion Lost Packages
In September 2024 Hurricane Helene flooded Baxter International’s Marion, NC plant, halting 60% of U.S. IV‑fluid output and triggering nationwide shortages. The same month, 85 million U.S. packages arrived damaged—a 30% jump that cost roughly $4 billion. To address the chronic fragmentation...
Startup Vima Adds Parkinson’s to Movement Disorder Scope, Expanding Series A Round to $100M
Vima Therapeutics announced an additional $40 million raise, taking its Series A funding to $100 million. The capital will support parallel Phase 2 trials of its lead candidate VIM0423 in isolated dystonia and Parkinson’s disease, expanding the startup’s focus beyond the rare movement disorder....
Solayer – Hardware Accelerated Finance at the Speed of Metal
In this episode, Andy Pickering talks with Joshua Sum, Chief Product Officer at Solayer, about the company's hardware‑accelerated blockchain built on Solana that aims to achieve ultra‑high throughput for real‑time financial transactions. Joshua explains Solayer's approach of separating consensus onto...
Xscape Photonics Closes $81M Series A Round
Xscape Photonics closed a $37 million extension to its Series A, bringing total Series A funding to $81 million and doubling its valuation. The round, led by Addition with participation from IAG Capital Partners and NVIDIA, funds the rollout of FalconX, the first fully...
Zymtrace Secures $12.2M
Zymtrace, a distributed AI infrastructure optimization platform, announced it has raised a total of $12.2 million, including an $8.5 million seed round led by Venture Guides. The round attracted strategic angels such as Thomas Wolf of Hugging Face and Christian Bach of Netlify, alongside existing...
Swarm Aero Raises $35M Series A Financing
Swarm Aero announced a $35 million Series A round led by Two Sigma Ventures and Silent Ventures, bringing its total capital to $59 million. The financing includes participation from Khosla Ventures, Coatue, Founders Fund and several other investors. The company also unveiled an...
Spin.AI Secures K1 Investment, Accelerating Growth
Congrats to Dmitry Dontov , Helen Yevtushenko , and the Spin.AI team for their recent investment by K1 Investment Management . Best of luck as you kick off the next stage in your journey. Glad we could help. Check out...
STAKE Closes $8M Funding
Stake the Network for Renters closed an $8 million debt‑and‑equity round after reporting four‑fold revenue growth in 2025. The financing follows its acquisition of Lighthouse and UMoveFree, Texas’s largest apartment‑locating platform. Led by LAGO with participation from RET Ventures, Bluefield Capital, Hamilton...
Standard Kernel Scores $20M Seed Round
Standard Kernel, a Palo Alto‑based startup, develops AI‑driven tools that automatically generate ultra‑optimized GPU software. The company announced a $20 million seed round, led by Jump Capital, with participation from General Catalyst, Felicis, Cowboy Ventures, Link Ventures, Essence VC, and a...
Deep Tech Expertise Was Wise Before It Became a Meme
Backing deep tech was smart 5 years ago when it wasn't the meme, you say? It's important to have deep tech expertise, you say? Key is to have built an edge in deep tech, you say?