Tootfinder

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.

Driverless truck startup Einride raised a $113M PIPE at a $1.35B pre-money valuation, down from $1.8B initially attached to its upcoming SPAC deal (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/26/self-driving-truck-sta…

Self-driving truck startup Einride raises $113M PIPE ahead of public debut | TechCrunch
Self-driving trucks startup Einride has raised an oversubscribed $113 million PIPE in advance of its SPAC merger scheduled for early 2026.

Customize what happens when you start R: #rstats #environment

Apple übernimmt Photonik-Startup invrs.io
Apple hat ein Start-up übernommen, das Werkzeuge für den Entwurf optischer Bauteile entwickelt. Das Wissen könnte in VR-Brillen und Smart Glasses fließen.
https://www.

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 ...

A proposed constellation of satellites has astronomers very worried.
Unlike satellites that reflect sunlight and produce light pollution as an unfortunate byproduct,
the ones by US startup
"Reflect Orbital" would produce light pollution by design.
The company promises to produce “sunlight on demand” with mirrors that beam sunlight down to Earth so solar farms can operate after sunset.
It plans to start with an 18-metre test satellite named Earendil-1 wh…

A US startup plans to deliver ‘sunlight on demand’ after dark. Can it work – and would we want it to?
Satellites beaming sunlight down to Earth sound like science fiction – and they have astronomers very worried.

Sources: Saronic, which is building autonomous warships, is raising up to $1.5B at a ~$7.5B pre-money valuation; Saronic was last valued at $3.4B a year ago (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/autonomous-warship-s…

Autonomous Warship Startup Saronic Raising at $7.5 Billion Valuation
Saronic, a startup that builds autonomous warships, is raising as much as $1.5 billion in a financing that would value the company at about $7.5 billion, before including the investment, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Kleiner Perkins, the storied venture capital firm that ...

Israel-based Gambit Security, which offers an AI-native cyber resilience platform that autonomously maps infrastructure, raised $61M across seed and Series A (Globes)
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-startup-ggambit-security-raises-61m-1001…

Israeli startup Gambit Security raises $61m
The company was founded less than 12 months ago to help enterprises remain resilient across their entire technology stack.

Encord, whose software helps companies developing AI models manage training data for robots and other uses, raised $60M at a $500M pre-money valuation (Rocket Drew/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/robot-data-startup-raises-60-million

A Robot Data Startup Raises $60 Million
Companies developing AI models to power humanoid and other robots have been hard at work collecting videos and other data for training their models, even paying people to record themselves completing tasks in homes and workplaces.As these data-collection efforts start to pay off, and robots take ...

from my link log —
Does the QUIC handshake require compression to be fast?
https://www.fastly.com/blog/quic-handshake-tls-compression-certificates-extension-study
saved 2020-05-19

Does the QUIC handshake require compression to be fast? | Fastly
QUIC promises a built-in, low-latency handshake. But can it achieve its promise alone? Let’s look at the value of handshake compression in helping QUIC achieve fast startup performance.

Point One Navigation, which develops precise location tech, raised a $35M Series C led by Khosla Ventures, a source says at a post-money valuation of $230M (Kirsten Korosec/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/20/this-khos…

This Khosla-based startup can track drones, trucks, and robotaxis, inch by inch | TechCrunch
Point One Navigation, now valued at $230 million, is building out well beyond automotive.

Entropy, a decentralized crypto custodian that raised a $25M seed led by a16z in June 2022, is shutting down after "several pivots, and two rounds of layoffs" (Zack Abrams/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/386942/entro…

Entropy, a16z-backed decentralized custody startup, is winding down and returning capital to investors
Entropy's "anti-capitalist anarchist" founder is winding down the firm and returning capital to investors after failing to find a scalable business model.

Profound, which tracks how AI models recommend brands across millions of prompts, raised a $96M Series C at a $1B valuation, bringing its total funding to $155M (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/exclusi

Exclusive: As AI threatens search, Profound raises $96 million to help brands stay visible
The Lightspeed-led round values the 18-month-old startup at $1 billion as marketers race to understand how ChatGPT and other AI systems describe them.

There absolutely must be SOME way to detect WHY a #Java #Tomcat server would suddenly, after 6 years operation, spontaneously exit after 25-50 seconds of perfectly functional uptime and yet leave no #JVM hs_err crash file.
In catalina.sh debug, it logs the startup, sits idle, then the debugger reports 'disconnected'. This suggests it self-destructs, rather than an external kill - 9?

Disruptive CEO Alex Davis says Nvidia has agreed to buy assets from Groq for $20B in cash; leaked email: Jensen Huang says Nvidia is not acquiring Groq (David Faber/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-g…

Exclusive: Nvidia buying AI chip startup Groq for about $20 billion in its largest acquisition on record
Nvidia is making its largest purchase ever, acquiring nine-year-old chip startup Groq for about $20 billion.

This $15-20k device extracts gasoline from CO₂ in the air at about one gallon per day per unit. "When we power our machines with standalone off-grid photovoltaic panels, this will correspond to less than $1.50/gallon in energy cost."
https://www.jalopnik.com/2083556/new-york-

My brain looked at this log and merged the last two plugin names into "yiffing".
I've clearly spent too much time on the internet.

Cyborg-Tauben: Russisches Startup testet Fernsteuerung per Gehirn-Chip
Das russische Startup Neiry will Tauben über ein Gehirnimplantat fernsteuern. Die Firma sieht zivile Anwendungen, Experten warnen vor anderen Einsatzfeldern.

AI company which trains its models on stolen data accuses other AI companies of stealing data 🤣
Anthropic Accuses Chinese Companies of Siphoning Data From Claude - Slashdot https://slashdot.org/story/26/02/23/1810225/anthropic-acc…

London-based enterprise coding startup SolveAI raised a $45M Series A led by GV in November 2025 and a $5M pre-seed led by Accel in August 2025 (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/02/25/exclusive-solveai-eight-months-raises-…

Exclusive: SolveAI, at eight months old, raises $50 million to take on the AI coding tool race
Steve Basher’s startup wants his AI to generate software that mimics what an enterprise’s own engineers would have written.

Google acquires Common Sense Machines, whose AI models create 3D assets from 2D images, and was last valued at $15M after raising $10M from a16z and others (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/exclusive-google-acquires-3d-im…

Exclusive: Google Acquires 3D Image Generator Startup
Google has acquired Common Sense Machines, a Cambridge, Mass.,-based startup developing generative artificial intelligence models to create three-dimensional assets from two-dimensional images, a Google spokesperson confirmed. The deal closed this week, according to the spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to provide a price. The company had around a dozen employees, according to its

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 ...

Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity is partnering with brands like Gap, Visa, and Tinder to market its World ID human verification product (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/sam-altmans-human-verification-startup-le…

Marissa Mayer's new startup Dazzle, which is building next-gen AI personal assistants, raised an $8M seed at a $35M valuation and plans to exit stealth in 2026 (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/23/mari

Marissa Mayer’s new startup Dazzle raises $8M led by Forerruner's Kirsten Green | TechCrunch
Mayer launched Dazzle after shuttering her photo and contact management startup Sunshine.

KI-Inferenz in Silizium gegossen: Taalas kündigt HC1-Chip an
Das Startup Taalas will mit dem HC1 ein fest verdrahtetes Llama 3.1 8B mit knapp 17.000 Token/s liefern – fast 10-mal schneller als bisherige Lösungen.

Mission Mondnacht: Startup plant günstige Energieerzeugung auf dem Erdtrabanten
Mit hocheffizienten Radionuklidbatterien will Deep Space Energy die Überlebensdauer von Mondrovern vervielfachen und Europas Souveränität im All stärken.

Yelp acquires Hatch, which charges a monthly fee for AI-powered agents that can respond to customer inquiries and make appointments, for $300M (Laura Mandaro/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/yelp-buy-ai-agent-startup-300-million<…

Yelp to Buy AI Agent Startup for $300 Million 
Recommendation app Yelp on Wednesday said it agreed to acquire AI agent startup Hatch for $300 million, or roughly 12 times the startup’s annual recurring revenue. Hatch charges a monthly fee for AI-powered agents that can respond to customer inquiries and make appointments. Yelp, which has a $1.8 billion market capitalization, said it plans to operate Hatch as a standalone business as well as

StepFun, a Chinese AI startup that develops LLMs and has partnered with automaker Geely and smartphone brands like Oppo and Honor, raised a ~$717M Series B (Eudora Wang/DealStreetAsia)
https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/stepfun-series-b-round-470495/

Tencent-backed China LLM unicorn StepFun bags $720m in Series B+ round
StepFund expects to deploy its LLMs into over one million vehicles this year.

London-based enterprise AI video startup Synthesia raised a $200M Series E led by GV at a $4B valuation, up from $2.1B after raising $180M in January 2025 (Nat Rubio-Licht/The Deep View)
https://www.thedeepview.com/articles/synthesia-doubles-to-usd4b-pre…

Personalisierte Gentherapien: Startup hofft auf gelockerte Zulassung in den USA
Aurora Therapeutics will Gentherapien gegen die Krankheit PKU entwickeln. Bei jetzigen Zulassungsregeln müsste die Firma in den USA 1.600 Studien durchführen.

MatX, an AI chip startup founded by two alumni of Google's chip business, raised $500M led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness to compete with Nvidia (Dina Bass/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026…

London-based Dwelly, which aims to roll up independent UK real estate agencies and modernize their operations using AI, raised £32M in equity and £37M in debt (Jeremy Kahn/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/02/25/dwelly-

A startup buying up U.K. real estate brokers and streamlining their processes with AI gets $93 million in funding to fuel expansion
Dwelly's new funding round is being led by General Catalyst and Trinity Capital

Chinese autonomous trucking company DeepWay raised ~$173M ahead of its planned Hong Kong IPO, filed in November 2025; DeepWay reported ~$215M in H1 2025 revenue (Dong Cao/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Sources: NY-based Tandem, which uses AI to automate the paperwork for writing and receiving medical prescriptions, raised a $100M Series B at a $1B valuation (Rebecca Torrence/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Coverbase, an AI procurement and risk platform provider, raised a $16.5M Series A led by Canapi Ventures, bringing its total funding to $20M (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/coverbase-raise-ai-powered-procurement/

Exclusive: With Customers Like Okta And Coinbase, Coverbase Raises $16M To Grow AI-Powered Procurement...
Coverbase, an AI-powered procurement platform, has raised $16 million in a Series A round led by Canapi Ventures, the startup tells Crunchbase News exclusively.

Montreal-based Stay22, which helps publishers and creators earn money from online sales, raised $122M from Summit Partners and reports $1B in 2025 transactions (Mathieu Dion/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…

Zocks, which offers an AI assistant for financial advisers, raised a $45M Series B co-led by Lightspeed and QED Investors, taking its total funding to $65M (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/fintech/zocks-raises-seriesb-ai…

Exclusive: Zocks Raises $45M Series B From Lightspeed, QED For AI Assistant To Financial Advisers
Zocks, a builder of an AI assistant for financial advisers, has raised $45 million in a Series B funding co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and QED Investors, the startup told Crunchbase News exclusively.

Pune-based supply chain robotics startup Unbox Robotics raised a $28M Series B in a mix of primary and secondary capital, after raising $15M in earlier rounds (Anjali Jain/Inc42 Media)
https://inc42.com/buzz/automation-startup-unbox-robotics-r…

Automation Startup Unbox Robotics Raises $28 Mn To Expand Global Presence
Deeptech startup Unbox Robotics has raised $28 Mn (about INR 243 Cr) in its Series B round in a mix of primary and secondary capital.

Lightning AI merges with data center operator Voltage Park to create an "AI cloud" with a $2.5B valuation, managing 35,000 Nvidia GPUs across six data centers (Iain Martin/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

AI Startup Merges With A Billionaire-Backed Data Center Operator In $2.5 Billion Deal
The startup behind open source tool PyTorch Lightning has merged with compute provider Voltage Park to create a “full stack AI cloud” to serve corporates and startups like Cursor.

Coinbase agrees to acquire prediction markets startup The Clearing Company for an undisclosed sum; the startup was founded in 2025 and raised a $15M seed (Yogita Khatri/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/383497/coinbase-to-acquire-…

Inside the turmoil at Thinking Machines; sources say Meta discussed buying TML, and CTO Barret Zoph had been in talks since October 2025 about an OpenAI return (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/technology/thinking-machines-ai-startup-o…

The Drama at Thinking Machines, a New A.I. Start-Up, Is Riveting Silicon Valley
Defections, secret conversations, deal talks that fizzled and a battle for control: The turmoil at Thinking Machines Lab is the artificial intelligence industry’s latest drama.

Cursor-developer Anysphere acquires code review startup Graphite and says Graphite will continue operating as an independent product (Beatrice Nolan/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/19/cursor-ai-coding-startup-graphite-competition-heats-up/

Exclusive: Cursor acquires code review startup Graphite as AI coding competition heats up
By purchasing Graphite, Cursor, currently valued at $29 billion, gains more code review and debugging capabilities

ServiceNow agrees to acquire cybersecurity startup Armis for $7.75B, set to close in H2 2026, pending approvals; Insight acquired Armis in a $1.1B deal in 2020 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/serv…

Selector, which offers an AI platform that promises to simplify network monitoring, raised a $32M Series B led by AVP at a $375M valuation (Maria Deutscher/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2026/02/18/network-observability-startup-selector-reels-32m…

Network observability startup Selector reels in $32M - SiliconANGLE
Network observability startup Selector reels in $32M - SiliconANGLE

ZaiNar, a developer of a GPS alternative that uses Wi-Fi and 5G to provide location data, raised $10M at a $1B valuation, bringing its total funding to $100M (Katie Roof/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/st

Startup Developing GPS Alternative for Physical AI Earns $1 Billion-Valuation
Over the last two years, investors and researchers have flocked to startups helping bring AI into the physical world, from developing robot hands to the AI models that train robots to software to train self-driving cars.Now one startup says it can solve a perennial problem for robots and other ...

Dutch startup Axelera AI, which builds power-efficient AI inference chips, raised $250M led by Innovation Industries, with investment from BlackRock and others (Charlotte Hughes-Morgan/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

London-based self-driving startup Wayve raised a $1.2B Series D at an $8.6B post-money valuation, with Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Nissan among investors (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/181aee87-4815-4a0e-805f-c1d04f0c2f36

Chinese humanoid robot startup Galbot raised over $300M led by China Mobile's industry investment fund at a $3B valuation, bringing its total funding to $800M (Eudora Wang/DealStreetAsia)
https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/galbot-raises-over-300m-467245

Chinese humanoid robot developer Galbot raises $300m at $3b valuation
The financing will accelerate the adoption of the robots across different use cases.

Letter AI, whose sales software provides personalized, deal-specific guidance, raised a $40M Series B, four months after a $10.6M Series A (Geoff Weiss/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/letter-ai-pitch-deck-raises-sales-software-2026-2…

Sales startup Letter AI snags $40 million Series B four months after its last raise. Read its pitch deck.
Letter AI raised $40 million four months after its Series A, underscoring investor appetite for AI tools aimed at reshaping sales.

Digital savings startup Vestwell raised a $385M Series E co-led by Blue Owl and Sixth Street, after a $125M Series D in 2023, taking its total funding to $660M (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/fintech/digital-savin…

Digital Savings Startup Vestwell Lands $385M, Doubles Valuation
New York-based Vestwell, a digital savings platform, has raised $385 million in a Series E funding round co-led by Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth.

Code Metal, which uses AI to let engineers translate legacy code into modern languages, raised a $125M Series B led by Salesforce Ventures at a $1.25B valuation (Lauren Goode/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/vibe-coding-startup-code-metal-raises-seri…

Code Metal Raises $125 Million to Rewrite the Defense Industry’s Code With AI
The Boston startup uses AI to translate and verify legacy software for defense contractors, arguing modernization can’t come at the cost of new bugs.

Bluesky integrates Germ DM, an E2E encrypted messaging app built on AT Protocol, making it the first private messenger natively available in the Bluesky app (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/a-st

A startup called Germ becomes the first private messenger that launches directly from Bluesky's app | TechCrunch
Social network Bluesky now offers private messaging by integrating the startup Germ's E2E encrypted messenger natively in its app.

David Luan, the head of Amazon's AGI lab, is leaving the company less than two years after he joined through an acqui-hire deal of his startup Adept (Annie Palmer/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/24/head-of-amazons-agi-lab-is-leaving-the-company.html…

Head of Amazon’s AGI lab is leaving the company
David Luan, the head of Amazon's artificial general intelligence lab, announced on Tuesday that he will be departing the company at the end of the week.

Austin-based Circuit, which is building an AI platform for manufacturing and service enterprises, raised $30M from a group of angel investors (Karoline Leonard/Austin American-Statesman)
https://www.statesman.com/business/technol

Former Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle raises $30M for Austin AI startup
Former Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle’s Austin startup Circuit raised $30 million in one of Texas’ largest angel rounds to address manufacturing labor shortages.

RunPod, an AI app hosting service launched four years ago that raised a $20M seed in May 2024, says it has reached a $120M annual revenue run rate (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/16/ai-cloud-startup-runpod-h…

AI cloud startup Runpod hits $120M in ARR — and it started with a Reddit post   | TechCrunch
Their startup journey is a wild example of how if you build it well and the timing is lucky, they will definitely come.

Endra, whose AI tools automate mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design for commercial buildings, raised a $20M seed led by Notion (Jeremy Kahn/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/18/endra-ai-startup-automating-mep-design…

Exclusive: Swedish startup automating mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design for commercial buildings raises $20 million in seed round
Notion Capital is leading the seed round for Endra, which says reduces the time to design buildings' electrical systems from months to hours.

Profound, which tracks how AI models recommend brands across millions of prompts, raised a $96M Series C at a $1B valuation, bringing its total funding to $155M (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/exclusi

Exclusive: As AI threatens search, Profound raises $96 million to help brands stay visible
The Lightspeed-led round values the 18-month-old startup at $1 billion as marketers race to understand how ChatGPT and other AI systems describe them.

ADT agrees to acquire Origin Wireless for $170M to integrate advanced AI motion classification into its popular home security suite starting in 2027 (Samantha Kelly/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Stefano Ermon's Inception releases Mercury 2, a diffusion AI model designed to field questions from users significantly faster and more cheaply than its rivals (Dina Bass/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Basis, which builds AI agents to help accounting firms with tasks like tax returns, raised $100M led by Accel at a $1.15B valuation, for $138M in total funding (Rebecca Torrence/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Nvidia agrees to a licensing deal with Groq; CEO Jonathan Ross and other top executives will join Nvidia; Groq says it will continue operating independently (Ian King/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-24/nvidia-…

Sources: AI legal software startup Legora is in talks to raise $400M at a $5B valuation, after raising $150M in October 2025 at a $1.8B valuation (Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/02/17/legal-…

Legal AI Startup Legora Eyes $400 Million Raise At $5 Billion-Plus Valuation
As investors double down on the promise of automating legal work, the company is in talks to raise $400 million following two rounds in late 2025.

London-based Fyld, which makes AI tools to assist infrastructure and utility fieldwork operators, raised a $41M Series B led by Energy Impact Partners (Kyt Dotson/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2026/02/17/ai-field…

AI field operations startup FYLD raises $41M to help build large-scale infrastructure - SiliconANGLE
AI field operations startup FYLD raises $41M to help build large-scale infrastructure - SiliconANGLE

Sources: General Intuition, which trains AI agents in spatial reasoning, is in late-stage talks to raise several hundred million dollars at a $2B valuation (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/a-new-world-model-startup-is-quietly

A new world model startup is quietly raising big money
General Intuition is building a general-purpose AI agent and world model.

Sources: Resolve AI, which is developing an autonomous site reliability engineering tool, raised a Series A at multiple valuation tiers, including at $1B (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/19/ex-splunk-execs-…

Ex-Splunk execs' startup Resolve AI hits $1 billion valuation with Series A | TechCrunch
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to people familiar with the deal.

Marketing tech startup Applecart raised $100M in a minority funding round led by Blackstone's growth equity business, a source says at a ~$700M valuation (Myles Miller/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-0…

Interviews with Cluely's Roy Lee, Donald Boat, and other highly "agentic" young men, as agency becomes more valuable than technical skills in Silicon Valley (Sam Kriss/Harper's)
https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-start…

Child’s Play, by Sam Kriss
Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking

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. 

Listen Labs, whose AI tools help Microsoft and others run customer research and interviews, raised a $69M Series B led by Ribbit Capital at a $500M valuation (Iain Martin/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

This $500 Million AI Startup Runs Customer Interviews For Microsoft And Sweetgreen
The San Francisco-based company, which has run more than 1 million customer interviews with its automated AI tools to help major companies figure out what their users want, has now raised $69 million.

Sources: Salient, which uses AI to automate loan servicing, raised $10M following a $60M Series A in June, pushing its valuation to ~$500M; its ARR hit $25M (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/18/salient

Salient’s quiet AI boom: How this two-year old startup is building a company to survive the bubble burst
Salient cofounder Ari Malik built AI to automate loan servicing, turning collections calls into a high-growth business now valued around $500 million.

Replit launches Mobile Apps on Replit, which enables vibe-coding of iOS apps with integrated Stripe monetization (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/15/ai-startup-replit-launches-feature-to-vibe-code-mobile-apps.html

AI startup Replit launches feature to vibe code mobile apps
Replit launched a feature that lets users create publishable mobile apps using just natural language prompts.

Bengaluru-based digital payments startup Juspay raised $50M, in a mix of primary and secondary investments, from WestBridge Capital at a $1.2B valuation (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/t

Juspay closes $50 million funding from WestBridge Capital; valuation hits $1.2 billion
Founded in 2012, Bengaluru-based Juspay powers payment systems for major global brands such as Amazon, Flipkart, Google, IndiGo, and Swiggy. The company said in a statement that it now processes over 300 million transactions daily, with annualised total payment volume exceeding $1 trillion.

India's updated startup framework doubles deep-tech startup eligibility to 20 years and triples the revenue cap for tax, grant, and regulatory benefits to ~$33M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/07/india-has-changed-its-startup…

India has changed its startup rules for deep tech | TechCrunch
India is adjusting startup rules to help more of its deep tech startups with funding and long-term success.

Legal AI startup Ivo, which aims to reduce hallucinations by breaking legal reviews into 400 tasks, raised a $55M Series B, a source says at a $355M valuation (Aditya Soni/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/legal-ai-startup…

Drone delivery startup Zipline raised $600M , boosting its valuation to $7.6B, and says it has now completed 2M commercial deliveries of 20M different items (Edward Ludlow/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01…

Sources reveal inconsistencies in Megaspeed's chip inventory, as the US probes the Singapore AI startup over alleged Chinese ownership and Nvidia chip smuggling (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-…

Sources: AI inference startup Baseten raised $300M led by IVP and CapitalG at a $5B valuation, more than doubling its valuation; Nvidia invested $150M (Kate Clark/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-invests-150-million-in-ai…

French accounting software startup Pennylane raised $204M led by TCV, a source says at a ~$4.25B valuation, with participation from Blackstone, DST, and others (Yazhou Sun/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-0…

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…

Customer engagement service MoEngage raised $180M in a follow-on Series F, split into a $57M primary and $123M secondary round, weeks after raising $100M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/16/week…

Weeks after raising $100M, investors pump another $180M into hot Indian startup MoEngage | TechCrunch
The deal valued MoEngage at "well over" $900 million post-money.

Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, raised $35M for his new global exchange AX, which offers perpetual futures, a source says at a $187M valuation (Yueqi Yang/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/former-ftx-head-raises-…

Former FTX US Head Raises $35 Million for New Exchange
Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, has raised $35 million for his startup Architect Financial Technologies, which offers a global perpetual futures exchange. The round, led by Miami International and Tioga Capital, values the company at $187 million, according to a person familiar with the fundraising. The exchange, AX, offers perpetual futures on traditional assets such as stocks

Sources: Richard Socher's Recursive is in talks to raise hundreds of millions at a $4B pre-money valuation to build self-improving superintelligent AI (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/ai-startup…

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.

February investor memo: Cohere hit ~$240M in ARR in 2025, above its $200M target, with QoQ growth of 50% and average gross margins of ~70% throughout the year (Ashley Capoot/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/ai-startup-cohere-revenue-ipo.html

Enterprise AI startup Cohere tops revenue target as momentum builds to IPO: Investor memo
Cohere's competitors OpenAI and Anthropic are also weighing potential IPOs and competition for enterprise customers is heating up.

Sources: AI legal software startup Harvey seeks to raise $200M led by Sequoia and GIC at an $11B valuation, up from $8B after raising $160M in December 2025 (Iain Martin/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

Legal AI Startup Harvey In Talks To Raise $200 Million At $11 Billion Valuation
The startup, which develops AI software for lawyers and big law firms, is raising additional capital, increasing its valuation from $8 billion just two months ago.

Toronto-based chip startup Taalas, which hardwires AI models into custom silicon to achieve faster inference, raised $169M, bringing its total funding to $219M (Max A. Cherney/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific

Netflix acquires avatar creation platform Ready Player Me to let its subscribers carry their personas and fandoms across games; the startup raised $72M (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/19/netflix-acquires-gaming-avatar-maker-read…

Netflix acquires gaming avatar maker Ready Player Me | TechCrunch
The gaming startup will allow Netflix subscribers to create avatars that can extend across gaming titles.

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.

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 ...

Symbolic.ai, founded by ex-eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica cofounder Jon Stokes, partners with News Corp to offer AI tools to WSJ, Barron's, and others (Ben Sherry/Inc)
https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/this-ai-startup-just-lan…

This AI Startup Just Landed a Deal That Could Transform Newsrooms
Exclusive: An AI-based journalism platform aims to do it all. Can it deliver the accuracy and productivity it promises?

Israeli startup Claroty, which makes security tech for hospitals, manufacturing, and industrial systems, raised a $150M Series F, sources say at a $3B valuation (Meir Orbach/CTech)
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/syuo0xklwe

Claroty raises $150 million at a $3 billion valuation as cyberattacks on infrastructure surge
Israeli cybersecurity firm cites rising attacks on hospitals and industrial systems.  

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.

Chinese AI startup Z.ai releases GLM-4.7, an open-weight model that Z.ai says delivers significant improvements in coding performance compared to GLM-4.6 (Z.ai)
https://z.ai/blog/glm-4.7

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.

Bengaluru-based C2i Semiconductors, building a "grid-to-GPU" power system for datacenters, raised a $15M Series A led by Peak XV, bringing total funding to $19M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/15/as-a

As AI data centers hit power limits, Peak XV backs Indian startup C2i to fix the bottleneck | TechCrunch
C2i has raised $15 million as it tests a grid-to-GPU approach to reducing power losses in AI data centers.

Q&A with Yann LeCun on his new Paris-based startup Advanced Machine Intelligence, leaving Meta, real-world applications for world models, robotics, and more (Caiwei Chen/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/22/1131661/yann-…

Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models  
In an exclusive interview, the AI pioneer shares his plans for his new Paris-based company, AMI Labs.

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.

Source: Google DeepMind signs a licensing deal with Hume AI, which builds emotionally intelligent voice interfaces, to hire CEO Alan Cowen and ~7 top engineers (Will Knight/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/google-hires-hume-ai-ceo-licensing-deal-gemini/

Google Acquires Top Talent From AI Voice Startup Hume AI in Licensing Deal
Hume AI’s CEO, Alan Cowen, will join Google DeepMind along with several top engineers as part of a major licensing deal.

Source: Erebor, a digital bank co-founded by Palmer Luckey, raised $350M led by Lux Capital at a $4.35B post-money valuation; it secured FDIC approval last week (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/22/palmer-luckey-digital-bank

Scoop: Palmer Luckey's digital bank valued at over $4 billion
Investor excitement the stablecoin banking startup is reaching AI levels.