🦾 Robotics Funding Rounds by Month - February 2026
February 2026 saw robust robotics venture activity, with 113 equity rounds totaling $4.39 billion. The month’s headline deals included Wayve’s $1.2 billion Series D, Apptronik’s $520 million Series A, and Bedrock Robotics’ $270 million Series B. Smaller but notable raises such as RLWRLD’s $26 million seed round and multiple defense‑focused rounds rounded out the landscape. Approximately one‑third of reported deals omitted amounts, suggesting many minor rounds.
The M&A Accretion/Dilution Model Every Founder and Investor Should Run Before Any Deal
The VC Corner blog post unveils a free seven‑sheet Excel model that lets founders and investors run a full accretion/dilution analysis on any M&A transaction. The tool calculates whether the acquiring company’s earnings per share (EPS) will rise or fall...
How to Stand Out to Your Startup Investors
Early-stage founders can differentiate themselves by instituting a regular investor update cadence, typically quarterly. Investors repeatedly say they favor startups that keep them in the loop, noting that consistent communication builds trust and makes future funding easier. The article outlines...
Requiem for Daydream
Julie Bornstein, veteran of Stitch Fix and Sephora, has launched Daydream, an AI‑driven fashion shopping app positioned as the industry’s answer to ChatGPT. After raising $30 million for The Yes and $50 million from Google and other VCs, Daydream entered beta in...
FUNDED: Highlight AI Raises $40M to Fix the Coordination Mess AI Created
Highlight AI announced a $40 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures to build a shared intelligence layer that links disparate work tools and AI agents. The platform acts as a memory and coordination hub, automatically capturing decisions, tracking changes, and assigning...
Every Resource a Founder Needs to Raise and Build. In One Place
The VC Corner has compiled a one‑stop library of fundraising resources for founders, ranging from curated investor lists and financial‑model templates to real pitch decks and due‑diligence checklists. The collection targets every stage of a raise, from pre‑seed to late‑stage,...
Qdrant Raised $50M to Build Composable Vector Search as Core Infrastructure
Qdrant announced a $50 million Series B round led by AVP, with participation from Bosch Ventures, Unusual Ventures, Spark Capital, and 42CAP. The company positions its Rust‑built vector database as low‑latency, billion‑scale infrastructure for AI retrieval, emphasizing composable primitives over fixed pipelines....
Zymtrace Secures $12.2M to Recover Billions in Wasted GPU Spend Through Autonomous Optimization
Zymtrace announced a $12.2 million funding round, including an $8.5 million seed led by Venture Guides, to scale its autonomous AI‑infrastructure optimization platform. The company’s eBPF‑based solution continuously profiles GPU and CPU workloads, automatically generating pull‑requests that fix bottlenecks without code changes....
Court Reporting Services Provider Steno Amasses $49M in Series C Funding
Steno, a cloud‑based court reporting provider, closed a $49 million Series C round led by The Legal Tech Fund. The capital will fuel a U.S. market expansion, accelerate development of its AI‑driven transcription engine, and support the launch of new workflow tools...
$125M and a Cap Table That Reads Like a Who’s Who of Healthcare VC: What Qualified Health’s Series B Actually...
Qualified Health announced a $125 million Series B round, bringing its total funding to $155 million and led by NEA alongside a slate of top health‑tech investors. The company offers an enterprise‑wide AI infrastructure platform that replaces fragmented point‑solution approaches. Early adopters such...
Adonis Raises $40M Series C to Strengthen Healthcare Revenue Cycle
Adonis announced a $40 million Series C round to accelerate its revenue‑cycle platform for healthcare providers. The funding, led by a mix of existing and new investors, will support product expansion and deeper market penetration. CEO Akash Magoon highlighted persistent challenges such as...
VC Returns Revealed: Bessemer India’s Slow-Build Strategy Put to the Test
Bessemer Venture Partners has shifted from a modest, global‑fund‑backed approach in India to launching dedicated funds—a $220 million vehicle in 2021 and a $350 million fund slated for 2025. Over 15 years the firm committed $774 million to Indian startups, generating $683 million in cash...
Switzerland’s PAVE Space Closes $40 Million Seed Funding Round
Swiss startup PAVE Space announced a $40 million seed round led by Visionaries Club and Creandum, accelerating its LYOBA heavy‑lift kick stage development. The company, a 2024 spin‑off from the Gruyère Space Programme, targets rapid satellite transport between orbits and plans...
The Smarter Way To Bet On Anthropic And OpenAI
Investors are flocking to VCX, the Fundrise Growth Tech Fund, paying roughly 15 times its net asset value solely for exposure to Anthropic. The author argues that this premium is unjustified given the availability of superior, lower‑cost avenues to invest in...
Frore Systems Becomes $1.64B Unicorn as the “Thermal Stack” Emerges as Foundational Infrastructure for the AI Era
Frore Systems announced a $143 million Series D round that pushes its valuation to $1.64 billion, officially making it a unicorn and bringing total funding to $340 million. The capital will fund global rollout of its AI‑focused thermal stack, including LiquidJet, LiquidJet Nexus and AirJet...
Xscape Photonics Announces $37 Million in New Funding, Launches Eight-Wavelength Laser for AI Data Center Networks
Xscape Photonics announced an additional $37 million funding round, raising its total Series A to $81 million and doubling the company’s valuation. The new capital backs the launch of FalconX, the industry’s first fully redundant ELSFP laser module that delivers eight wavelengths and...
Dealflow.es #505: Bluetile Gaming Studio Acquired for $100M+. Freepik's Journey.
Indian gaming leader Nazara Technologies announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in Barcelona‑based Bluetile Bestplay for roughly $100 million. Bluetile, founded in 2019, boasts over 350 million lifetime installs and generates more than $150 million in annual revenue from its social casino...
Texas Weekly Deal Highlights
Texas’ startup ecosystem continued its post‑SXSW momentum, with Austin companies securing more than $60 million across sectors ranging from 3D printing to carbon removal and tokenized securities. Notably, drone‑swarm platform Swarmer completed a $15 million IPO on NASDAQ, while fintech Ironlight raised...
Should We Raise Capital?
Chenmark’s founders reflect on why they never took a $20 million external fund between 2015 and 2019, opting instead to bootstrap their hold‑co model. The lack of capital forced disciplined cash‑flow reinvestment, lean talent acquisition and a culture of shared risk....
Beautiful.ai Lands $45M to Turn Prompts Into Polished Decks
Beautiful.ai announced a $45 million non‑dilutive capital raise from General Catalyst’s CVF fund to accelerate its AI‑driven presentation platform. The tool transforms prompts, outlines or documents into on‑brand slide decks and now offers a conversational editing interface, 15‑language localization, a developer...
Bluesky Raised $100M a Year Ago but for Some Reason Only Disclosed It Now
Bluesky closed a $100 million Series B round in April 2025, but only disclosed the financing in March 2026. The round was led by Bain Capital Crypto with participation from Alumni Ventures, Anthos Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Knight Foundation and True Ventures. Founder Jay Graber...
Potomac Tech Wire - March 19
Virginia‑based tech firms announced a wave of capital raises in March, highlighted by Sands Capital closing a $1.1 billion Global Innovation Fund III and Cape securing a $100 million Series C for its privacy‑first mobile carrier. Other notable rounds include Claros’ $30 million seed...
Why We Invest in Volume
Team Ignite Ventures argues that investing in a large number of pre‑seed and seed deals improves venture fund performance. AngelList data shows portfolios with more than 50 companies achieve a median IRR of about 12%, versus roughly 3% for smaller...
Kenya: Swedfund Backs Jacaranda Maternity
Swedfund has pledged $600,000 to Jacaranda Maternity, a Kenyan provider of low‑cost maternal care, to accelerate its network expansion. The funding will finance new hospital openings, upgrade neonatal units, and improve existing facilities serving Nairobi’s low‑ and middle‑income neighborhoods. Jacaranda...
Adenia Partners Fund Reaches $180m Hard Cap
Adenia Partners announced the first close of its Adenia Entrepreneurial Fund I at a hard cap of $180 million, surpassing the original $150 million target in under a year. The fund targets control investments in small and lower mid‑cap African companies, the...
Fund Analysis: Glade Brook Capital Partners
Glade Brook Capital Partners announced the closing of its Gondola Fund at over $1 billion in March 2026, marking the firm’s largest publicly disclosed vehicle to date. A concurrent Form D filing for Strategic Growth V LP on February 5, 2026 showed zero commitments, so...
VC RETURNS REVEALED: Recent Thrive & Notable Funds in a League of Their Own at UTIMCO
UTIMCO’s latest disclosures reveal that several recent venture funds have generated extraordinary internal rates of return, driven largely by AI‑focused investments. Thrive Capital’s 2022 fund posted an IRR above 126% thanks to stakes in OpenAI, Cursor, Ramp and Base Power,...
What's Your SaaS Company Worth in 2026?
Private B2B SaaS valuations in 2026 are now anchored to a regression‑derived formula based on 63 cash transactions. The baseline multiple ranges from 4.8x ARR for bootstrapped firms to 5.3x for equity‑backed ones, while companies with Rule of 40 above...
Issue #28: The New New "Learn to Code"
EdTech firms are leveraging AI to reshape learning and upskilling, with UK‑based Calibr securing equity financing to train businesses in artificial intelligence and Kyiv‑based Kodree raising $10 million to offer AI‑powered, low‑cost skill courses. Replit launched Agent 4, a multi‑agent coding assistant...
As Flat as the Top of Table Mountain 🚠
The Big Deal analysis shows African startup funding has settled into a steady “cruising speed” of about $3.1 b over the past year, a level maintained since August 2025. This plateau follows a volatile cycle that peaked at $6.3 b in mid‑2022,...
Ironlight Group Raises $21M for Crypto Tokenized Securities:
Ironlight Group announced a $21 million Series A round to build blockchain infrastructure for tokenized securities. The round was led by former TD Bank CEO Greg Braca and other senior fintech investors. Ironlight aims to enable digital issuance, trading, and settlement of...
Letter #322: Doug Leone and Assaf Rappaport (2021)
In a candid conversation, Sequoia partner Doug Leone and Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport discuss Sequoia’s new permanent‑capital fund, its “spiky” founder ethos, and the firm’s expanding European presence. They highlight Wiz’s meteoric rise—from $1 million to $500 million ARR in 18 months—to...
What Top-Tier VCs Actually Look For in 2026
Fundraising in 2026 has slowed dramatically, with deals now taking six to nine months versus three to four in 2021. Seed investors expect the same unit‑economics and go‑to‑market rigor that once belonged at Series A, and AI startups command roughly 42%...
Who Will Be the "OpenEvidence of Europe"? Market Map and Critical Questions
OpenEvidence’s $150 million ARR and $12 billion valuation have sparked a debate about a European equivalent. Europe boasts over 2.3 million licensed physicians—roughly twice the U.S. pool—but linguistic and regulatory fragmentation hampers continent‑wide scaling. A crowded field of startups, incumbents like UpToDate, and...
Why Is Steph Curry Investing in Israeli Security Tech?
Steph Curry, through his advisory role at Penny Jar Capital, has joined major venture rounds for Israeli cybersecurity firms Upwind Security and Zafran, contributing over $300 million and $30 million respectively. Both startups are led by veterans of Israel’s elite Unit 8200 intelligence...
When Conviction Collapses Inside the VC Partnership
The piece dissects how conviction behind a Series A thesis can erode during internal investment‑committee debates, even when the memo is initially enthusiastic. It shows that individual partner belief must survive institutional dissent, and that reserve intensity, conditional language, and repeatability...
The OpenAI Valuation Trap: Someone’s Math Is Wrong
OpenAI’s current valuation of roughly $300 billion hinges on a projected $30‑50 billion in annual revenue by 2030, despite today’s $14 billion ARR and heavy compute burn. The post argues that rapid cost declines—about 80 % per year in model inference—are turning frontier AI...
Confirmed, Vast Data Raised $1 Billion at $30 Billion Valuation
Vast Data announced a $1 billion financing round, pushing its valuation to roughly $30 billion. The round was split evenly, with $500 million of new capital and $500 million of secondary‑market liquidity for early investors. The funding underscores the market’s confidence in Vast Data’s...
EDF Pulse Ventures Partners with Mara and NJJ to Support a New Phase of Exaion’s Development
EDF Pulse Ventures completed a transaction giving it a 64% stake in French HPC provider Exaion after regulatory clearance, while NJJ Capital acquired a 10% interest in Mara France, the partner that facilitated the deal. The agreement expands the Exaion...
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...
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...
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...
Akave Raises $6.65M to Challenge Traditional Cloud Storage with Compute-Agnostic Platform Built for AI Applications
Akave has launched Akave Cloud, a decentralized, S3‑compatible storage platform built on Avalanche’s Layer 1 blockchain, targeting AI and analytics workloads. The service offers flat‑rate pricing at $14.99 per terabyte per month with zero egress fees, on‑chain verifiable audit trails, 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...
Harvey and The LegalTech Fund to Invest in Startups Across the Ecosystem
Harvey, the AI‑driven legal platform, has partnered with The LegalTech Fund (TLTF) to co‑invest in emerging legal‑technology startups. The collaboration will leverage TLTF’s deal pipeline and Harvey’s product expertise to streamline startup vetting and potentially create a marketplace akin to...
CrawlJobs Closes Round at $3M Valuation to Expand AI Job Search
AI‑driven employment aggregator CrawlJobs announced the close of its first external funding round, valuing the company at $3 million. The round was led by senior executives from Fortune Global 500 firms and will fund expansion of its crawling infrastructure and the commercial...
Unlocking the Vault: Apollo Global and the Rise of the UK Long-Term Asset Fund (LTAF):
The FCA‑approved Apollo Long‑Term Asset Fund (LTAF) opens UK defined‑contribution pensions to private credit, infrastructure and venture capital. By imposing 90‑ to 180‑day redemption windows, the fund avoids the liquidity mismatches that plagued earlier products. Apollo will channel pension capital...
16 Unicorn Pitch Decks: Before the Billions
The author has assembled a visual collection of 16 early‑stage pitch decks from companies now worth over $1.5 trillion, including Airbnb, Uber, Facebook and WeWork. The decks, ranging from eight to twelve slides, reveal that the most successful seed presentations are...