Tootfinder

Latin American VC funding rose 14.3% YoY in 2025 to $4.1B, with early-stage investment up 31.9% YoY to nearly $2B and late-stage/growth deals reaching $1.63B (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/vcs-bullish-latam-startup-…

LatAm Startup Funding Rebounds In 2025 As Mexico Sees Surge In Investment And VCs Remain Bullish On Region
Latin America startup investment climbed by 14.3% in 2025, driven by a boost in both early- and late-stage funding, Crunchbase data shows. 

US startup seeks to reclaim Twitter trademarks 'abandoned' by Musk’s X
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/us-startup-seeks-to-reclaim-twitter-trademarks-abandoned-by-musk-s-x/ar-AA1RXPdy
…

Sources: OneTrust, which sells privacy and compliance software and was last valued at $4.5B in 2023, is exploring a sale, possibly to private equity buyers (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/onetrus…

OneTrust, Privacy Startup Last Valued at $4.5 Billion, Discusses Private Equity Sale
OneTrust, a nine-year-old startup that benefited from a wave of European and U.S. laws regulating how companies collect and share website data, is exploring a sale—possibly to private equity buyers, according to people familiar with the discussions. The Atlanta-based startup, which sells privacy ...

Amazonas-Aufforstung: Google-Deal mit brasilianischem Startup
Google kauft Ausgleichszertifikate für 200.000 Tonnen CO₂ von dem brasilianischen Wiederraufforstungs-Startup Mombak. Der Deal wird kurz vor der COP30 bekannt.

AI startup Kartel names longtime TV exec Kevin Reilly as CEO; earlier in 2025, Kartel released a sizzle reel with an AI-generated Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and others (Steven Zeitchik/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/d…

Kevin Reilly Set to Lead AI Startup Kartel
The longtime TV exec, with successful turns at NBC, Fox and Turner, is becoming CEO of the Beverly Hills-based company.

A profile of Eric Migicovsky's Core Devices, a five-person company that he says is "not a startup" and aims to be "sustainable", as it builds new Pebble devices (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/12/pebble-f…

Pebble founder says his new company is 'not a startup' | TechCrunch
Pebble's founder talks about how his new company is doing things differently.

Intels Übernahme von SambaNova für 1,6 Milliarden wohl kurz vor Abschluss
Mehreren US-Berichten zufolge ist der Deal fast abgeschlossen: Intel will das Startup für KI-Chips vollständig kaufen.
ht…

Cursor says it has crossed $1B in annualized revenue, has 300 employees, and its in-house models "generate more code than almost any other LLMs in the world" (Ashley Capoot/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/13/cursor-ai-startup-funding-round-valuati…

AI startup Cursor raises $2.3 billion funding round at $29.3 billion valuation
Cursor built a popular AI coding tool that helps software developers generate, edit and review code.

Singapore-based ChemLex raised a $45M funding round led by Granite Asia to build an AI-powered, automated chemistry lab to accelerate drug discovery (Rachyl Jones/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/12/12/2025/singapore-startup-b…

Singapore startup builds AI-powered, self-running chemistry lab
The self-driving lab consists of AI software and robots that design experiments, run them, and gather data, with limited human intervention.

Now, 10,000 EV drivers in Finland are contributing to grid stability. The smart charging service Synergi, which already optimises EV charging according to dynamic power prices, now provides FCR support to the national grid using this aggregated fleet.
https://tech.eu/2025/11/12/finlands-fi

Finland’s first EV virtual power plant goes live
After years of R&D, energy startup Synergi today launched Finland’s first EV virtual power plant. Synergi is the first company in Finland to aggregate thousands of electric vehicles via its consumer app, effectively creating a virtual power plant that supports grid balancing when needed. For consumers, this means the ability to earn rewards with home EV charging. Synergi‘s free mobile app is already trusted by over 10,000 households. Check out our earlier interview with Antti Hämmäinen,�…

I have to say, spending a decade organizing (for bike/ped/transit infrastructure) has done more for my understanding of how the world _actually_ functions than working at any company or startup, taking any classes*, or really anything else. It's the weird interactions between businesses, the public, technology, and the political landscape that really shape our society.
* Not that classes aren't useful! I took a law class in college and use the knowledge I gained there on a wee…

The most San Francisco headline ever.
#SanFrancisco

CES 2026: Self-driving glasses for the blind https://www.eetimes.com/ces-2026-self-driving-glasses-for-the-blind/ about .lumen; YouTube video at

CES 2026: Self-Driving Glasses for the Blind
Romanian startup .lumen unveils self-driving glasses for the blind at CES 2026—discover how AI-powered mobility is redefining independence.

Cyber Startup Saviynt Raises $700 Million to Secure Identity and Access
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cyber-startup-saviynt-raises-700-million-to-secure-identity-and-access-ba50cbae

🌊 Offshore Pumped Hydro Could Solve Clean Energy's Biggest Problem
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Offshore-Pumped-Hydro-Could-Solve-Clean-Energys-Biggest-Problem.html

Offshore Pumped Hydro Could Solve Clean Energy's Biggest Problem
An Italian startup is developing an offshore pumped hydro storage system that avoids the environmental and geographical constraints of traditional land-based dams, offering a potentially disruptive solution for long-duration energy storage and grid stability.

Source: OpenEvidence, which offers an AI chatbot for doctors, is raising $250M at a $12B valuation, up from $6B in Oct., and has $150M in annualized ad revenue (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ch

‘ChatGPT for Doctors’ Startup Doubles Valuation to $12 Billion as Revenue Surges
OpenEvidence, which operates a ChatGPT-like product for doctors to find health information from medical journals and other trusted sources, is raising $250 million in equity financing that will value the three-year-old startup at $12 billion after the investment, doubling its last private ...

Ein #Startup aus #Tirol erzeugt #Strom durch das Gewicht von Fahrzeugen.
Im Hamburger Hafen ist nun erstmals das

Tiroler Startup erzeugt Strom aus Bodenschwellen
Die Technik des Unternehmens ist seit vergangener Woche offiziell am Hamburger Hafen im Einsatz

Meta Is Making a Big Bet on Nuclear With Oklo
Meta will finance Oklo’s purchase of uranium for its reactors. It’s a massive vote of confidence for both the startup and nuclear power, but challenges remain
h…

Meta Is Making a Big Bet on Nuclear With Oklo
Meta will finance Oklo’s purchase of uranium for its reactors. It’s a massive vote of confidence for both the startup and nuclear power, but challenges remain.

Boston- and Tel Aviv-based Converge Bio, which uses AI trained on molecular data to help pharma and biotech companies develop drugs, raised a $25M Series A (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/ai-d

Converge Bio raises $25M, backed by Bessemer and execs from Meta, OpenAI, Wiz | TechCrunch
AI drug discovery startup Converge Bio raised $25 million in a Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with additional backing from executives at Meta, OpenAI, and Wiz.

"French startup unveils solar canopy for motorhomes"
#France #SolarPower #Energy

French startup unveils solar canopy for motorhomes
France’s Genelios has developed an 8 kW modular solar canopy for motorhomes, offering manufactured-in-France construction, multiple installation options, and services that include design, monitoring, and maintenance for users across France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.

"So imagine the Brownstone startup puts 50 pods in one big room. Once they rent pod #1, that person appears to have the right to the entire room. Renting pods #2 through #50 could violate Section 1950. If they do, they are double letting, and 'every tenant in the building, under the same landlord' could withhold rent for as long as the 'double letting' continues." 👀

Sleeping Pods in San Francisco: Are They Even Legal? — Dean Preston
The rise of sleeping pods as a housing solution in San Francisco raises questions about legality. California Civil Code Section 1950 prohibits double letting, but is the startup Brownstone breaking the law?

Wie sich mit KI verborgene geothermische Energiequellen aufspüren lassen
Standorte für Geothermie sind schwer zu entdecken. Das US-Startup Zanskar hat für die Suche jetzt ein KI-Modell integriert – und das ist schon fündig geworden.

Deepgram, which is building enterprise voice-recognition tech, raised a $130M Series C led by AVP at a $1.3B valuation, taking its total funding to $215M (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/deepgram-raises-130m-at-1-3b-…

Deepgram raises $130M at $1.3B valuation and buys a YC AI startup | TechCrunch
Deepgram is raising its Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation.

Not surprised that the said #AI sweatshop workers are from the #Philippines ​🇵🇭
https://futurism.com/arti…

AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents
The powerful surveillance startup Flock was caught using workers in the Philippines to collate data on US residents.

A Bahrain startup just proved you don't need to tear everything down to make buildings climate-resilient.
GeoStruXer used AI and satellite data to stabilize a warehouse in Saudi Arabia, cutting the required micropiles from 2,700 to far fewer—slashing materials, costs, and emissions while extending the structure's life another decade.
Their approach just won Bentley's sustainability award, beating 270 entries.

Sources: AI chip startup Etched raised $500M led by Stripes at a $5B valuation, bringing its total funding to almost $1B (Dina Bass/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-13/ai-chip-startup-etched-raises-500-m…

I mean I'll take "Engineer" but why the fuck would you put this into your "free wireless at our location" captive portal?

TW.nl: Startup maakt waterstof en stroom uit ammoniak: zó efficiënt dat het de industrie op z'n kop kan zetten
https://tw.nl/startup-maakt-waterstof-en-stroom-uit-ammoniak-zo-efficient-dat-het-de-industrie-op-zn-kop-kan…

Tucuvi, which develops AI agents that check in with patients and escalate cases to human teams when needed, raised a $20M Series A, led by Cathay and Leadwind (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2026/01/08/clinical-voice-ai-startup-tucuvi-raises-20m/

Clinical voice AI startup Tucuvi raises $20M
A Spanish AI voice startup, which says its tech makes minor clinical decisions while on the call with patients, has raised $20m in a Series A funding round.Tucuvi was founded by Maria Gonzalez, its CEO, whose mother passed away after a reported hospital administration error.The Series A funding round was led by VC firm Cathay Innovation and Madrid-based Kfund, through its early-growth fund Leadwind, with participation from existing investors Frontline Ventures, Seaya Ventures, and Shilling.Tucu…

Aluminium: Ein US-Startup will alte Dosen in Wärme und Wasserstoff verwandeln
Das Startup Found Energy meint, mit Aluminiumabfällen einen vielversprechenden Weg gefunden zu haben, industrielle Prozesse ohne Öl und Gas zu betreiben.

"German startup installs industrial heat pump producing 139 C steam"
#Germany #HeatPumps #Energy

German startup installs industrial heat pump producing 139 C steam
German start-up SPH has installed its ThermBooster heat pump at Philip Morris International’s Italian factory, producing high-temperature steam at 139 C. The system boosts energy efficiency, cuts gas use by up to 50%, and recovers 20–30% of water from exhaust.

CrowdStrike acquires Israel-based browser security startup Seraphic, a source says for around $400M; Seraphic has raised around $37M in total (Meir Orbach/CTech)
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bjhljcmhzx

CrowdStrike acquires browser security startup Seraphic for $400 million
Founded in 2020, the Israeli company focuses on embedding security directly into the browser. 

Fertility startup Inito, which offers an at-home health diagnostics platform, raised a $29M Series B and plans to use AI-designed antibodies to make new tests (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/fert

Fertility startup Inito wants to use AI-designed antibodies to expand at-home health tests | TechCrunch
Inito has raised $29 million in new funding to invest in and develop AI-engineered antibodies that will help it offer new types of tests and improve the accuracy of existing ones.

Search and browser startup Brave says it has passed $100M in annualized revenue in Q1, and had 100M MAUs as of September, up from 77M at the end of 2024 (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/li

The Little-Known Search and Browser Startup Generating $100 Million in Annualized Revenue
Consumer-focused AI developers such as OpenAI and Perplexity are jockeying for a share of the browser market, now dominated by Google’s Chrome. But before they have a chance of dethroning Chrome, they first have to surpass Brave.Brave has been around for a decade and passed $100 million in ...

Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal says the Indian edtech startup's valuation has fallen from its $3.5B peak three years ago to less than $500M, and confirms M&A talks (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/unac

Unacademy's founder says startup is now worth less than $500M, confirms M&A talks | TechCrunch
Unacademy's valuation has dropped by over 85% from its pandemic-era peak price tag of $3.5 billion, its founder said.

A profile of Klay, whose app will let users remake songs using AI; Klay has raised ~$10M and is the first AI startup to close deals with the three major labels (Abram Brown/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/secretive-startup-klay-jump…

Secretive Startup Klay Jumps Into the Fray Over AI Music
“So here’s a real surprise,” said Ary Attie, holding open a hidden door in the bowels of the Walker Hotel in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. “There used to be a lot more cool, interesting places in New York—and there’s still a few left.” Attie, the 30-year-old founder of Klay, a new ...

Sources: AI chipmaker Cerebras is in talks to raise ~$1B, valuing the startup at $22B before the new investment, up from an $8.1B valuation in September 2025 (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/chipmaker-cerebras-tal…

Chipmaker Cerebras in Talks to Raise $1 Billion at a $22 Billion Valuation
AI chip startup Cerebras Systems is in talks to raise about $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion before the new investment, as the chipmaker prepares to go public this year, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. That’s a big jump from its last private valuation of $8.1 ...

Sources: Intel is in advanced talks to acquire AI chip startup SambaNova for about $1.6B including debt; the deal could come together as soon as next month (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-12/intel-nears…

LI.FI, which provides businesses with price comparisons of crypto exchange rates and bridging fees, raised $29M, bringing its total funding to ~$52M (Carlos Garcia/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/11/exclusive-crypto-startup-li-fi-raises-29-million/

Exclusive: Crypto startup LI.FI raises $29 million for cross-blockchain price discovery tool
The company aims to make moving across blockchains more efficient.

"Butter made from air? This startup is spreading carbon-conscious innovation"
#Butter #Food

Butter made from air? This startup is spreading carbon-conscious innovation | The Optimist Daily
Savor’s butter, made from CO₂, hydrogen, and oxygen, offers a near-zero emissions alternative to dairy butter — and it tastes just like the real thing.

E-Bike-Startup Sushi Bikes ist insolvent
Das Münchner E-Bike-Startup Sushi Bikes hat Insolvenz angemeldet. Der Store ist zurzeit dicht, der Gründer hofft, weiterzumachen.
https://www.heise.de/news/E-B…

Nvidia: Vertragsschluss mit Inferenz-Chip-Startup
Nvidia hat einen Lizenzvertrag mit dem Chip-Startup Groq vereinbart, auch wechseln Groq Mitarbeiter im Rahmen des 20-Milliarden-Deals zu Nvidia.
https://www.

Mumbai-based wealth management startup Dezerv raised a ~$40M Series C co-led by Premji Invest and Accel's Global Growth Fund, taking its total funding to ~$100M (Shashank Pathak/Entrackr)
https://entrackr.com/news/wealthtech-firm-deze…

Wealthtech firm Dezerv raises $40 Mn led by Premji Invest and Accel
Wealth tech platform Dezerv has raised Rs 350 crore (about $40 million) in a funding round co-led by Premji Invest and Accel’s Global Growth Fund. News

Israeli startup Wonderful, which helps companies manage customer-facing AI agents across voice, chat, and email, raised $100M at a $700M valuation (Steven Scheer/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/israeli-ai-s…

Coinbase confirms that it has called off acquisition talks with stablecoin infra startup BVNK; reports previously put the acquisition price around $2B (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/11/11/coinbase-bvnk-2-billion-deal-falls-through-stableco…

Exclusive: Coinbase and stablecoin startup BVNK call off $2 billion acquisition
BVNK was previously fielding offers from not only Coinbase but Mastercard.

Indian investment app Groww raised ~$748M in its Indian IPO, closing up 29% and giving it a ~$9B market cap; Groww is the first Indian YC-backed startup to IPO (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/groww-rais…

Groww raises nearly $750M in IPO as India's retail investing boom continues | TechCrunch
The company's shares opened 12% above their issue price, at ₹112, and closed at ₹128.85, lending it a market cap of ₹795 billion (approximately $9 billion).

Flip, which offers an Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, raised a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $31M (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/vertical-ai-based-customer-service-flip-raise/<…

Flip Raises $20M Series A For Its Verticalized Approach To AI-Based Customer Service
Flip, a startup that claims to offer an Amazon Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively.

Jeff Bezos gründet KI-Startup Project Prometheus
Jeff Bezos steigt als CEO und Gründer in das KI-Startup Project Prometheus ein, das bereits Milliarden-Finanzierungen erhalten haben soll.
https://www.

Serval, which offers an AI-powered IT support assistant, raised a $75M Series B led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation, bringing its total raised to $127M (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/ai-startup-serval-…

Crypto custody company BitGo aims to raise up to $201M in its IPO on the NYSE at an up to $1.96B valuation, selling 11.8M shares at $15 to $17 per share (Prakhar Srivastava/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-cust…

Red Queen Bio, spun out of mRNA therapeutics company Helix Nano to focus on preventing AI-enabled bioweapons development, raised a $15M seed led by OpenAI (Deepa Seetharaman/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-backs-startu…

Alembic, which offers AI-powered data analytics for marketers, raised a $145M Series B led by Prysm and Accenture at a $645M valuation, up from $49M in 2024 (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/accenture-and

Israeli data security startup Cyera raised a $400M Series F led by Blackstone Growth at a $9B valuation, up from $6B after raising $540M in June 2025 (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/01/08/cyera-c

Exclusive: Cyera CEO Yotam Segev on raising $400 million and why the stakes in cybersecurity are getting higher
Just six months after fetching a $6 billion valuation, cyber startup Cyera has raised $400 million at a $9 billion valuation.

Sources: Aaru, which uses AI to simulate user behavior, has raised a Series A led by Redpoint Ventures at multiple valuation tiers, including a $1B tier (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/05/ai-syntheti…

Sources: AI synthetic research startup Aaru raised a Series A at a $1B 'headline' valuation | TechCrunch
The one-year-old startup, which does market research on simulated populations, had a multi-tier valuation round, sources tell TechCrunch.

Pomelo Care, which delivers 24/7 virtual care for women by using data to flag pregnancy risks and more, raised $92M led by Stripes at a $1.7B valuation (Amy Feldman/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/20

This CEO’s $1.7 Billion Health Startup Began With Moms. Now She Wants To Expand To All Women.
Former Flatiron Health exec Marta Bralic Kerns raised $92 million to expand her virtual care model to women at all stages of their lives.

Israeli startup Port, which offers a proprietary developer portal competitor to Spotify's open-source Backstage, raised a $100M Series C at an $800M valuation (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/11/port-raises-100m-at…

Port raises $100M at $800M valuation to take on Spotify’s Backstage | TechCrunch
Port offers a proprietary alternative to Spotify's popular devtool catalog Backstage, but with a valuable addition: it can be used to manage AI agents, too.

Worktrace AI, founded by ex-OpenAI product lead Angela Jiang and researcher Deepak Vasisht, launches with a $9.3M seed, and unveils a workflow automation agent (Alex Konrad/Upstarts Media)
https://www.upstartsmedia.com/p/worktrace-ai-automation-openai

OpenAI-Backed Automation Startup Worktrace AI Launches With $9M
Worktrace AI founders Angela Jiang and Deepak Vasisht are launching a workflow automation agent with $9M from Conviction, 8VC, OpenAI and prominent alumni like Mira Murati.

Sources: Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun plans to leave in the coming months to found his own startup; a source says he is in early talks to raise funds (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/c586eb77-a16e-4363-ab0b-e877898b70de

Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to exit and launch own start-up
Turing Award winner seeks to depart as Mark Zuckerberg makes ‘superintelligence’ push

Cursor launches Visual Editor, a vibe-coding product for designers that integrates professional design controls with natural language editing (Maxwell Zeff/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/cursor-launches-pro-design-tools-figma/

Cursor Launches an AI Coding Tool For Designers
The 300-person startup hopes bringing designers aboard will give it an edge in an increasingly competitive AI software market.

Microsoft plans to spend $10B to build a data center in the Portuguese town of Sines in partnership with Portuguese developer Start Campus and UK startup Nscale (Henrique Almeida/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Tel Aviv-based Torq, which operates an autonomous AI-powered security operations platform, raised $140M led by Merlin Ventures at a $1.2B valuation (Andrew Martin/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-11/secur…

Israeli startup Zafran, an AI-native threat exposure management service, raised a $60M Series C led by Menlo Ventures, bringing its total funding to $130M (Globes)
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-startup-zafran-security-raises-60m-100152808…

Israeli startup Zafran Security raises $60m
Zafran has also launched its agentic exposure management suite, positioning it to complete the entire end-to-end lifecycle across asset inventory, vulnerability detection, risk assessment, and autonomous remediation workflows.

A profile of AI hearing aid startup Fortell, which has raised $150M so far and is targeting affluent clients in NYC with a $6,800 device that uses a custom chip (Steven Levy/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/hearing-aid-startup-ai-fortell/

New Hearing Aid Company, Foretell, Brings in Steve Martin and Others as Fans
AI-powered startup Fortell has become a secret handshake for the privileged hearing-impaired crowd who swear by the product. Now, it wants to be in your ears.

Saviynt, an identity and access management service focused on "human and nonhuman" identity controls, raised a $700M Series B led by KKR at a $3B valuation (Angus Loten/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cyber-startup

Sources: Anthropic is in talks to buy developer tool startup Bun for low hundreds of millions, its first acquisition; Claude Code hit $1B in annualized revenue (Sri Muppidi/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/an

Anthropic in Advanced Talks to Buy Developer Tool Startup in First Acquisition
Anthropic is in advanced discussions to buy Bun, a maker of software used to run and manage code more efficiently, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. The artificial intelligence company is in talks to pay in the low hundreds of millions of dollars for the startup, which would be ...

LMArena, which runs a leaderboard ranking AI models based on their performance, raised $150M at a $1.7B post-money valuation, taking its total funding to $250M (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-evaluation-…

AI Evaluation Startup LMArena Valued at $1.7 Billion in New Funding Round
LMArena, astartup that operates a widely cited ranking of AI models based on their performance, has raised $150 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion, including the new money, according to the company. That’s nearly triple the valuation of its seed funding round, announced in May 2025. The ...

CrowdStrike buys identity management startup SGNL, in a deal valued at nearly $740M, to bolster identity security defenses on its flagship Falcon platform (Samantha Subin/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/08/crowdstrike-ai-cybersecurity-sgnl-acquisition.ht…

CrowdStrike buys identity security startup SGNL for $740 million in latest deal push
Last year's big cybersecurity deals include Google's $32 billion Wiz acquisition and Palo Alto Networks' $25 billion CyberArk takeover.

Mumbai-based Snapmint, a BNPL partner to brands that lets consumers pay in monthly instalments via India's UPI, raised a $125M Series B led by General Atlantic (Shashank Pathak/Entrackr)
https://entrackr.com/news/bnpl-startup-snapmint-raises…

BNPL startup Snapmint raises $125 Mn led by General Atlantic
Buy now pay later startup Snapmint has raised $125 million in its Series B funding led by General Atlantic, with participation from Prudent Investment Managers. News

How Pathway, a startup developing an alternative to the transformer, aims to use its Dragon Hatchling architecture to create a new class of adaptive AI systems (Steven Rosenbush/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-ai…

A look at an "etiquette camp" for young founders in San Francisco, which teaches them how to dress, act, and talk, amid shifting expectations for tech founders (Lisa Bonos/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/07/te…

Tech bros head to etiquette camp as Silicon Valley levels up its style
As Silicon Valley grows in power and prominence, some insiders say it’s time for the tech industry to remake its slobby image. An etiquette camp for founders showed how.

Sources: AI chip startup SambaNova is exploring a sale after it struggled to complete a fundraising round; SambaNova was last valued at $5B in 2021 (Valida Pau/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-chip-startup-sambano…

AI Chip Startup SambaNova Explores Sale After Stalled Fundraising
Artificial intelligence chip startup SambaNova Systems is exploring a sale, after it struggled to complete a fundraising round, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The Palo Alto, Calif., startup was last valued at $5 billion in 2021. SambaNova and other AI chip startups have ...

DEEP Robotics, a Hangzhou-based startup that builds quadruped and humanoid robots, raised a $70M Series C to expand R&D and production capacity (Danielle Popov/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/arti

China’s Deep Robotics raises US$70 million as sector draws more investors
Company founder Zhu Qiuguo says the new funding would be used for research and the recruitment of top robotics talent.

Vista Equity-backed infrastructure software company LogicMonitor acquires Catchpoint, which monitors user experiences across the internet, for $250M in cash (Liana Baker/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-1…

Vista-Backed LogicMonitor Buys Monitoring Startup Catchpoint
Vista Equity Partners-backed infrastructure software company LogicMonitor is acquiring the startup Catchpoint for more than $250 million in cash.

A profile of Klay, whose app will let users remake songs using AI; Klay has raised ~$10M and is the first AI startup to close deals with the three major labels (Abram Brown/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/secretive-startup-klay-jump…

Secretive Startup Klay Jumps Into the Fray Over AI Music
“So here’s a real surprise,” said Ary Attie, holding open a hidden door in the bowels of the Walker Hotel in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. “There used to be a lot more cool, interesting places in New York—and there’s still a few left.” Attie, the 30-year-old founder of Klay, a new ...

Chinese startup Moonshot releases Kimi K2 Thinking, an open-source model it claims beats GPT-5 in agentic capabilities; source: the model cost $4.6M to train (Evelyn Cheng/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/alibaba-backed-moonshot-releas…

Alibaba-backed Moonshot releases its second AI update in four months as China’s AI race heats up
The Chinese AI startup on Thursday released its newest "Kimi K2 Thinking" artificial intelligence model.

Sources: legal AI startup Harvey raised $150M led by a16z at an $8B valuation, up from a $5B valuation in June, bringing its total raised to over $1B (Iain Martin/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2025/10/29/le…

AI Startup Harvey Raises $150 Million At $8 Billion Valuation
The San Francisco-based startup that provides AI tools for lawyers has raised a new round of funding, its third in 2025 alone, led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Canada-based CoLab, which makes collaboration software for manufacturers, raised a $72M Series C led by Intrepid Growth Partners (Lucinda Shen/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/all-deals/2025/11/10/manufacturing-software-colab-72-million
…

Exclusive: Manufacturing software startup CoLab raises $72 million
AI can accelerate manufacturing processes meaningfully.

Horizon Quantum, which aims to list on Nasdaq via a SPAC in Q1 2026, claims it is the first private company to deploy a commercial quantum computer in Singapore (Dylan Butts/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/04/horizon-qu

Software startup deploys Singapore’s first quantum computer for commercial use
Singapore-based software firm Horizon Quantum Computing has become the first private firm to deploy a quantum computer for commercial use in the city-state.

Majestic Labs, which makes patent-pending server architecture that promises more memory capacity, raised $100M, including a $71M Series A led by Bow Wave (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/10/majestic-labs-meta-google-ai-funding.html
…

Former Google, Meta executives raise $100 million for high-capacity AI servers startup
The three plan to sell high-memory server technology.

Sources: DeepSeek is developing its new AI model using several thousand Nvidia Blackwell chips, which were smuggled into China via third-party countries (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/deepseek-using-banned-nvidia-chi…

DeepSeek is Using Banned Nvidia Chips in Race to Build Next Model
DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup, has been developing its next major model using several thousand Nvidia’s state-of-the-art Blackwell chips which the U.S. has forbidden from being exported to China, according to six people with knowledge of the matter. The chips DeepSeek is using were smuggled ...

You.com CEO Richard Socher is working on a new AI lab to automate AI research, and, sources say, hopes to raise $1B for it; Socher will remain at You.com (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/com-ceo-socher-seeks-1-billion-new-ai-lab

You.com CEO Socher Seeks $1 Billion for New AI Lab
Richard Socher, CEO of AI search startup You.com and a former chief scientist at Salesforce, hopes to raise around $1 billion for a new AI research startup he will oversee, said two people who spoke to senior staff at You.com. Socher will remain at the helm of You.com, he said in an interview. ...

Scribe, which helps enterprises identify where AI and automation investments will yield genuine returns, raised a $75M Series C at a $1.3B post-money valuation (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/10/scribe…

Scribe hits $1.3B valuation as it moves to show where AI will actually pay off | TechCrunch
Scribe Optimize is the startup's next major offering to help organizations identify where AI will be most useful.

Sources: ServiceNow is in advanced talks to buy corporate data management and security startup Veza for $1B in a deal as early as next week (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/servicenow-advanced-talks-buy-security…

ServiceNow in Advanced Talks to Buy Security Startup For At Least $1 Billion
ServiceNow, an IT and HR software provider, is in advanced talks to buy five-year-old security startup Veza for more than $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Veza’s subscription software helps businesses see which of their employees, as well as AI agents that automate ...

Grab plans to invest $60M in remote driving service Vay, potentially rising to $410M within the next year if Vay hits certain milestones, set to close in Q4 (Olivia Poh/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-…

Sources: Snowflake is in talks to buy app monitoring startup Observe for around $1B; Observe has raised more than $470M (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/snowflake-talks-buy-app-monitoring-startup-observe…

Snowflake in Talks to Buy App Monitoring Startup Observe Inc. For Around $1 Billion
Snowflake is in talks to buy app monitoring startup Observe Inc. for around $1 billion, which would likely be the biggest deal in Snowflake’s history, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Observe, based in San Mateo, Calif., sells so-called observability tools that help ...

Sunday Robotics, which debuted its Memo home robot on Nov. 19, hired at least 10 former Tesla employees, including engineers who worked on Autopilot and Optimus (Grace Kay/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-loses-ai-staff-startup-sund…

Tesla loses some AI staff to a new robotics startup
Sunday Robotics came out of stealth mode last week and revealed a team stocked with Tesla alumni.

Chinese AI startup MiniMax jumped as much as 54% in its Hong Kong debut on Friday, after raising ~$619M in its IPO priced at ~$21.17 per share (Jeanny Yu/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/ai-firm-min…

Chinese AI startup Z.ai releases the GLM-4.6V series of vision models, with support for native function calling, available with 106B and 9B parameters (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat)
https://venturebeat.com/ai/z-ai-debuts-open-source-glm-4-6v-a-n…

Italy-based humanoid robotics startup Generative Bionics raised €70M led by CDP Venture Capital, with participation from Tether, AMD Ventures, and others (Daniele Lepido/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-1…

Sources: Marvell is in advanced talks to buy chip startup Celestial AI in a cash-and-stock deal that could top $5B; Celestial was valued at $2.5B in March 2025 (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/marvell-advanced-talks-b…

Marvell In Advanced Talks to Buy Celestial AI in Multibillion Deal
Marvell is in advanced talks to buy Santa Clara-based chip startup Celestial AI in a cash-and-stock deal worth multiple billions of dollars, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Under the deal they’re discussing, Marvell would pay several billion dollars upfront for the startup, which ...

Meta has agreed to acquire AI startup Manus; the Singapore-based startup said in December that its annual revenue run rate is over $125M (Kurt Wagner/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-29/meta-acquires-startup-manu…

Sources: data center startup Crusoe is arranging an employee share sale involving ~$120M worth of shares that values it at ~$13B, up from $10B just weeks ago (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-data-cen…

OpenAI’s Data Center Partner Nears $120 Million Stock Sale For Its Employees
Crusoe, a startup developing a large data center in Texas for Oracle and OpenAI, is arranging an employee share sale that values the seven-year-old firm at around $13 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the transaction. The deal involves selling around $120 million worth of ...

Israel-based RAAAM, whose "GCRAM" on-chip memory tech aims to deliver up to 10x power savings relative to high-density SRAM, raised a $17M Series A led by NXP (Meir Orbach/CTech)
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sjjv3pp1bg

Chip giant NXP leads $17.5M Series A for Israeli startup tackling AI’s memory bottleneck
RAAAM Memory Technologies’ “GCRAM” promises denser, lower-power on-chip memory as the semiconductor industry races to support next-generation AI processors. 

PubMatic partners with Kontext to let advertisers choose the chatbots they'd like to appear in and use Kontext's tech to generate ads that fit the chatbot chats (Kendra Barnett/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/pubmatic-deal-…

PubMatic Strikes Deal With Startup Kontext to Inject Ads Into AI Chatbots Via Programmatic Auctions
The integration enables advertisers to buy ads across a range of AI interfaces through PubMatic or their DSP of choice.

Tracxn: VC funding for Indian startups fell 17% YoY to $10.5B in 2025 across 1,518 deals, down ~39% YoY; AI startups raised $643M, up 4% YoY, across 100 deals (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/27/india-startu…

India startup funding hits $11B in 2025 as investors grow more selective | TechCrunch
Startup funding rounds in India fell sharply in 2025 as investors concentrated capital into fewer companies.

A look at Bret Taylor's AI agent startup Sierra as it launches new products; source: Sierra is on track to exceed $100M in annualized revenue by January 2026 (Richard Nieva/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2025/11/05/sierra-bret-taylor-c…

How Two Silicon Valley A-Listers Became Billionaires By Remaking Customer Service With AI
Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor had leadership roles at the world's biggest tech companies. Now they’re in the startup trenches, using AI agents to help companies interact with their customers.

A look at ElevenLabs, as ~50% of its $193M in trailing 12-month revenue now comes from corporates, like Cisco, and ~50% from YouTubers, podcasters, and authors (Iain Martin/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

How A Tiny Polish Startup Became The Multi-Billion-Dollar Voice Of AI
ElevenLabs’ computer voices are so convincing they could fool your mother. That’s both a blessing and a curse for the four-year-old company.

African fintech Flutterwave acquires Nigerian open banking startup Mono, sources say in an all-stock deal valued at $25M to $40M; Mono raised $17.5M since 2020 (Tage Kene-Okafor/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/flutterwave-buys-nige…

Flutterwave buys Nigeria's Mono in rare African fintech exit | TechCrunch
Africa’s largest fintech company, Flutterwave, has acquired Nigerian open banking startup Mono in an all-stock deal.

Source: OnePay, the fintech firm behind Walmart's "super app", recently bought back shares from employees at a price that values the startup at more than $4B (Emily Mason/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20