UAE Blockchain Startup Utexo Raises $7.5 Million Seed Led by Tether
UAE‑based blockchain infrastructure startup Utexo announced a $7.5 million seed round led by Tether, with participation from several venture firms. The company builds enterprise‑grade APIs that let financial institutions, digital wallets and exchanges process USDT stablecoin payments directly on the Bitcoin network using layer‑2 solutions such as Lightning and RGB. Its technology promises sub‑second settlement, low fees and enhanced privacy, eliminating the need for extensive system overhauls. The new capital will support product development and expansion of Utexo’s services beyond the UAE.
Record Number of Female Founder Startups Raised Funding in 2025
TechIreland’s Female Founder Funding Review 2026 shows a record 82 Irish women‑founded startups raised €131 million in 2025, the highest annual total since 2017. While the number of deals surged, the average round shrank to €2.3 million and the median fell sharply...
Understood Care Raises $5M in Seed Funding
Understood Care, a New York‑based AI‑native patient advocacy platform, announced a $5 million seed round led by Rethink Education and Zeal Capital Partners. The funding follows a $3.4 million pre‑seed round backed by 1984 Ventures and Y Combinator. The capital will accelerate...
Ironlight Group Raises $21M in Series A Funding
Ironlight Group, an Austin‑based fintech, announced a $21 million Series A round. The round was backed by Greg Braca, the Sei Development Foundation and Laidlaw Private Equity. The capital will be used to scale Ironlight Markets’ alternative trading system and its tokenized...
Visa Processing Startup Atlys Raises $36 Mn in Series C Funding
Visa‑processing startup Atlys announced a $36 million Series C round led by Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, with participation from existing backers and new investor MakeMyTrip. The funding will fuel expansion into additional international markets and accelerate the company’s AI‑driven visa platform, covering...
Oxford Medical Simulation Secures €5.78 Million to Tackle Healthcare Training Gap with Virtual Reality
Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS) has secured €5.78 million in growth funding from Salica Investments. The capital will fund OMS’s expansion into U.S. health systems and universities, and accelerate product innovation such as AI‑driven scenarios, learning analytics, and workflow tools. The round...
Biotech Building ‘Molecular Glues’ AI Platform Raises £3.6m
London‑based Ternary Therapeutics announced a £3.6 million seed round to fund its AI‑driven platform for designing molecular glues, a class of drugs that can bind previously "undruggable" proteins. The startup, founded in 2024, merges machine learning, physics‑based molecular modelling and rapid...
Great Sky Raises $14M in Seed Funding
Great Sky, a Boulder‑based computing hardware startup, closed a $14 million seed round led by Bison Ventures with participation from Matchstick Ventures, Range Ventures and several angels. The funding will fuel expansion and development of its Superconducting Optoelectronic Networks (SOENs), which...
The Ultimate Investment Pitch: How to Win Funding on Conviction, Not Cash
The article argues that successful fundraising depends on conviction and narrative, not expensive pitch decks. Founders should prioritize a three‑act story—problem, solution, team—while keeping slides minimal and data‑driven. Financial credibility is conveyed through a few clear metrics and a precise...
After Novartis Pact, Macrocycle Shop Unnatural Products Gets $45M Series B
Santa Cruz‑based Unnatural Products secured a $45 million Series B round to accelerate its macrocycle drug platform. The financing follows a newly announced partnership with Novartis that will grant the pharma giant early access to the company’s pipeline and a co‑development option...
Grapevine Bags $4.1 Mn To Scale Its AI Job Discovery Platform TAL
Grapevine, a corporate networking platform, secured $4.1 million from Kae Capital, Peak XV Partners, and upGrad founder Ronnie Screwvala to expand its AI‑driven job discovery service, TAL. TAL acts as a talent agent, scanning listings and recommending matches for users. The round...
Nigeria to Provide up to ₦1 Billion ($735,000) in Funding for 100 Startups Through iDICE Startup Bridge
Nigeria’s government launched the iDICE Startup Bridge, a programme to fund and mentor early‑stage tech and creative startups. The 12‑week Founders Lab will award up to ₦10 million grants to the top 100 applicants, representing a total of ₦1 billion in funding....
Spotlight Pathology Secures £1.4 Million Seed Investment for AI Blood Cancer Diagnostics
Liverpool‑based Spotlight Pathology has closed a £1.4 million seed round to accelerate its AI‑driven blood cancer diagnostic platform. The round was co‑led by the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund and the Liverpool City Region Seed Fund, earmarked for product development,...
Pain Care Startup Betterhood Raises Seed Round Led by Kairon Capital
Preventive pain‑care startup Betterhood announced a Rs 5 crore seed round led by Kairon Capital, with participation from several angel investors. The funding will accelerate product development, expand the team, and scale both online and offline distribution. Founded in October 2024, Betterhood provides...
Peak XV Alumni to Launch Ambition Capital Targeting $250 Mn Early-Stage Fund: Report
Former Peak XV Partners executives Shailesh Lakhani, Harshjit Sethi and Mayank Porwal are establishing Ambition Capital, a Bengaluru‑based venture‑capital firm. The new fund aims to raise $250 million to back seed and Series A startups across AI, fintech, deep‑tech and consumer technology....
Saudi AI Startup Infobrim Secures Angel Funding at $3.5m Valuation
Infobrim, a Riyadh‑based artificial intelligence startup, has closed its first strategic angel investment at a $3.5 million valuation. While the round size and investor identities remain undisclosed, the capital will accelerate development of its AI‑native business intelligence lakehouse. The platform aims...
Wiz Investor Unpacks Google’s $32B Acquisition
Google closed a $32 billion purchase of cybersecurity firm Wiz, marking the largest deal in its history and the biggest ever for a venture‑backed startup. The acquisition positions Google at the nexus of artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, and rising security spend....
Exclusive: Workspace Interiors Startup OfficeBanao Raises ₹34.8 Cr
Workspace interiors startup OfficeBanao secured ₹34.8 Cr (≈$3.76 M) in a funding round led by Lightspeed, with Mangum II and Medra Family participating. The round valued the company at a pre‑money ₹522.7 Cr (≈$56.5 M) and was split into two tranches, allocating ₹10.62 Cr to Lightspeed,...
Zeno Raises $25m to Scale up Motorbike Production
Zeno, an electric‑motorbike startup operating in Kenya and Uganda, secured $25 million in Series A financing—$20.5 million in equity led by Congruent Ventures and $4.5 million in debt from Camber Road and Trifecta Capital. The capital will expand its weekly output of 70‑80 Emara...
Beyond Fundraising: Credit Capacity Meets Legal Insight, February 2026 - Sponsor-Backed Exits Add to Gains
Exit activity accelerated in January, with 148 sponsor‑backed transactions—the highest monthly count since 2023. The total deal value reached $51.6 billion, surpassing the trailing‑12‑month average by 26 %. This heightened exit velocity indicates stronger portfolio distributions for private‑equity and venture‑capital firms. Analysts...
Rox Secures $1.2 Billion Valuation as AI Sales Agents Scale
Rox, an AI‑driven sales‑automation startup, closed a funding round that lifted its valuation to $1.2 billion. The company projects $8 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2025. Launched in November 2024 with $50 million in seed and Series A capital from...
Nyne, Founded by a Father-Son Duo, Gives AI Agents the Human Context They’re Missing
Nyke, a startup founded by Michael and Emad Fanous, raised $5.3 million in seed funding to build an intelligence layer that gives AI agents full‑context understanding of individuals across their digital footprints. The company deploys millions of agents to aggregate public...
Young Founders Share 12 Pitch Decks that Raised Millions in the AI Boom
Business Insider interviewed 12 founders aged 25 or younger who have raised multi‑million‑dollar rounds in the AI boom. The founders, ranging from high‑school dropouts to college students, secured seed to Series A funding from $1.6 million to $22 million using concise pitch decks....
UK Tech Funding Roundup: This Week’s Deals From Nscale to Combat Medical
UK tech funding hit a record £1.64 bn between 9‑13 March, driven largely by AI hyperscaler Nscale’s massive £1.5 bn Series C round. The week also saw significant raises for ag‑tech gene‑editing firm Tropic (£79.2 m) and aerospace component maker Isembard (£37 m), among others. Investors...
Selina Hotels: When the Digital Nomad Dream Met Financial Reality
Selina Hotels rode a wave of digital‑nomad hype, launching via a $1.2 billion SPAC merger in 2022 and expanding to 163 destinations. The rapid rollout delivered only a 47% occupancy rate, while an asset‑light, lease‑heavy model inflated operating costs and debt....
VeryAI Secures $10M to Launch Biometric Palm Identity System
VeryAI raised $10 million in seed funding, led by Polychain Capital and backed by Solana co‑founder Anatoly Yakovenko, to launch a smartphone‑based biometric palm verification system. The solution creates a blockchain‑anchored digital identity using mathematical representations of palm prints, leveraging zero‑knowledge...
RyderVentures Bets on ‘Physical AI’ to Break Warehouse Automation’s Biggest Barriers
RyderVentures is championing "physical AI," a blend of artificial‑intelligence models with warehouse hardware that lets equipment perform multiple tasks instead of a single, fixed function. The approach tackles the biggest hurdle to warehouse automation—high upfront capital outlays and the risk...
MetaComp Raises $13M to Expand Web2.5 Payment and Wealth Platform
MetaComp Pte. Ltd., a pioneer of unified Web2.5 payments and wealth management, closed a $13 million Pre‑A+ round, bringing its three‑month funding total to $35 million. The capital will fuel expansion of its StableX Network and accelerate AI development for hybrid fiat‑stablecoin...
5 Interesting Startup Deals You May Have Missed: Blood-Drawing Robots, Inboxes For AI Agents, Franchised Defense Manufacturing, And More
February set a venture‑funding record, yet a slice of capital flowed to lesser‑known startups. Dutch Vitestro secured $70 million Series B to commercialize autonomous phlebotomy robots, aiming for U.S. regulatory clearance and hospital rollout. London‑based Isembard raised $50 million Series A to launch a...
Enterprise AI Security Firm Bold Raises $40m
Enterprise AI security startup Bold emerged from stealth after closing a $40 million Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Picture Capital and Red Dot Capital Partners. The company’s edge‑AI platform runs lightweight models on each endpoint to monitor user behavior,...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: Croatian Drone Tech Startup Orqa Raises €12.7M Series A
Croatian drone startup Orqa closed a €12.7 million Series A round, led by Expeditions with participation from AYMO Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Taiwania Capital, and Radius Capital. The funding will accelerate development of its first‑person view (FPV) unmanned aerial systems and support...
Vilnius-Based WhiteBridge AI Raises €2.6 Million for Its AI-Powered People Research Engine
Vilnius‑based startup WhiteBridge AI announced a €2.6 million seed financing round. The round was led by FIRSTPICK VC with participation from several other VCs and angels. WhiteBridge offers an AI‑powered people research platform that aggregates, verifies and analyses publicly available personal...
Tower Secures €5.5M to Support Data Engineers in the AI Era
Berlin‑based Tower announced a €5.5 million raise across pre‑seed and seed rounds, led by DIG Ventures and Speedinvest. The startup offers a unified storage‑compute platform that lets data engineering teams retain full data ownership while accelerating AI‑driven pipeline development. Leveraging Apache...
Exclusive: PhysicsWallah Co-Founder Prateek Boob Set to Invest in Newton School
Newton School, the Gurugram‑based certification platform, is raising roughly Rs 25 crore through an extension of its Series B round, issuing 72,738 preference shares at Rs 3,437 each. The fresh capital comes from Prateek Boob, co‑founder of PhysicsWallah, giving him about a 2.37% stake...
Meet the Female Operators Helping Africa’s Startup Ecosystem Scale
The article spotlights a cohort of female operators who form the operational core of Africa’s venture‑capital ecosystem. These women lead accelerators, government‑backed programs, angel networks and venture studios, linking founders to capital, policy and talent. Profiles include Ireayomide Oladunjoye at...
PixVerse Hits Unicorn Valuation with New Series C Funding
AI startup AIsphere's PixVerse achieved unicorn status after closing a Series C round led by CDH Investments. Although the amount raised and valuation were undisclosed, the company already reports over 100 million users in 175 countries and subscription revenue covering...
The Anatomy of Venture Capital
The piece reframes venture capital as a body composed of distinct investor archetypes—Brains, Hands, Amygdala, Assholes, and Hearts—each fulfilling a specific function. It argues that these roles, from data‑driven analysts to intuition‑driven believers, are all necessary for the ecosystem to...
Pickup Coffee Seeks Funding with up to $8 Million Convertible Notes
Pickup Coffee, a fast‑growing Philippine budget coffee chain, is issuing up to $8 million in convertible notes to Venturi Partners and Antler. The notes complement an equity raise that could total $20‑40 million, already closed months earlier. Founded in 2022, the brand...
Verifiable AI Startup Axiom Raises $200M to Prove AI-Generated Code Is Safe to Use
Axiom Quant Inc., a verifiable AI startup, announced a $200 million Series A round that lifts its valuation to $1.6 billion. The funding, led by Menlo Ventures, will accelerate its “verified AI” platform that generates code in the Lean proof language, guaranteeing mathematical...
Climate Tech Startup MGA Thermal Raises $17 Million
Australian climate‑tech startup MGA Thermal announced a $17 million financing round, bringing its total capital raised to $50 million. The round was led by IP Group Australia, with board seat for Shane Meaney, and included a mix of venture firms and government...
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...
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...
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....
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....
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...
