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Wafer Raises $40M Series A to Build AI That Optimizes AI
Wafer, building the fastest open-source LLMs for enterprise, at the lowest cost per token, led by Steven Arellano, Emilio Andere, and the team, has raised a $40 million Series A, co-led by Marathon and Chemistry, with participation from Wing, AMD Ventures, and Outset Capital. Existing investors Fifty Years and Y Combinator are also doubling down on Wafer. AI That Optimizes AI. Most inference optimization remains manual, service-heavy, and largely static after deployment. Wafe
9 hours ago
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Wonderful Raises $550 Million Series C to Scale the AI Operating System for the Enterprise
Wonderful, building applied AI for the enterprise, led by Bar Winkler, Roey Lalazar, and the team, has announced the closing of a $550 million Series C funding round at a $5B valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Salesforce and existing investors Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures, 9Yards, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Since its Series B in March 2026, Wonderful has expanded to 35+ markets, grown to 650 employees, and evolved its platform
14 minutes ago
HyImpulse Secures Over €50 Million to Scale Commercial Suborbital and Orbital Launch Operations and Strengthen Europe’s Sovereign Access to Space
HyImpulse, a leading European launch services company developing and providing suborbital and orbital launch capabilities based on a proprietary propulsion technology, led by Dr. Christian Schmierer, Dr. Mario Kobald, Konstantin Tomilin, and Ulrich Fischer, has announced a Series A Extension financing of more than €50 million in equity, co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital Partners, with participation from new investors, including North Ventures, BW-Capital, Bayern Kapital
5 hours ago
Empirik Emerges Out of Stealth with $21M in Seed Funding
Empirik, making agents system-aware, led by Kartik Chandrayana, Sudheer Dhurjati, and Avon Puri, has emerged out of stealth with $21 million in funding from Sequoia, S32, Canapi & Alumni Ventures. Software Is Becoming Autonomous. Infrastructure Is Still Manual. Coding agents are already writing, refactoring, and shipping software at machine speed, driving an explosion in infrastructure changes, from deployments and permissions to configuration updates and shifting dependenci
7 hours ago
Air Security Emerges Out of Stealth to Protect AI Agents
Air, the context firewall for AI agents, founded by Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, has announced that it is coming out of stealth. AI With Seatbelts. AI agents are becoming a fundamental part of enterprise knowledge work, with coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex seeing rapid adoption. Yet enterprises remain cautious about deploying them without stronger controls. Organizations face risks from employees using AI through personal accounts, untrusted agent harnesse
7 hours ago
Wafer Raises $40M Series A to Build AI That Optimizes AI
Wafer, building the fastest open-source LLMs for enterprise, at the lowest cost per token, led by Steven Arellano, Emilio Andere, and the team, has raised a $40 million Series A, co-led by Marathon and Chemistry, with participation from Wing, AMD Ventures, and Outset Capital. Existing investors Fifty Years and Y Combinator are also doubling down on Wafer. AI That Optimizes AI. Most inference optimization remains manual, service-heavy, and largely static after deployment. Wafe
9 hours ago
AI & Robotics
Wonderful Raises $550 Million Series C to Scale the AI Operating System for the Enterprise
Wonderful, building applied AI for the enterprise, led by Bar Winkler, Roey Lalazar, and the team, has announced the closing of a $550 million Series C funding round at a $5B valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Salesforce and existing investors Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures, 9Yards, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Since its Series B in March 2026, Wonderful has expanded to 35+ markets, grown to 650 employees, and evolved its platform
14 minutes ago2 min read
Wonderful Raises $550 Million Series C to Scale the AI Operating System for the Enterprise
Wonderful, building applied AI for the enterprise, led by Bar Winkler, Roey Lalazar, and the team, has announced the closing of a $550 million Series C funding round at a $5B valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Salesforce and existing investors Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures, 9Yards, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Since its Series B in March 2026, Wonderful has expanded to 35+ markets, grown to 650 employees, and evolved its platform
Empirik Emerges Out of Stealth with $21M in Seed Funding
Empirik, making agents system-aware, led by Kartik Chandrayana, Sudheer Dhurjati, and Avon Puri, has emerged out of stealth with $21 million in funding from Sequoia, S32, Canapi & Alumni Ventures. Software Is Becoming Autonomous. Infrastructure Is Still Manual. Coding agents are already writing, refactoring, and shipping software at machine speed, driving an explosion in infrastructure changes, from deployments and permissions to configuration updates and shifting dependenci
Wafer Raises $40M Series A to Build AI That Optimizes AI
Wafer, building the fastest open-source LLMs for enterprise, at the lowest cost per token, led by Steven Arellano, Emilio Andere, and the team, has raised a $40 million Series A, co-led by Marathon and Chemistry, with participation from Wing, AMD Ventures, and Outset Capital. Existing investors Fifty Years and Y Combinator are also doubling down on Wafer. AI That Optimizes AI. Most inference optimization remains manual, service-heavy, and largely static after deployment. Wafe
Perceptron Introduces Isaac 0.5: An Open-Source Embodied Foundation Model
Perceptron, a foundation model company building physical intelligence, led by Armen Aghajanyan and Akshat Shrivastava, has released Isaac 0.5, its new open-source embodied foundation model. To their knowledge, it is the first open model at the frontier of multimodal video understanding, embodied reasoning, and robot control. Isaac also establishes a scaling law for balancing general video, egocentric, UMI, and teleoperation data. It provides a framework for selecting the righ
Meet PinAI, the Ticket Hookup Every Fan Wishes They Had
SeatPin, the ticket marketplace built for fans, led by Galin Ananiev, has introduced PinAI, an AI-powered assistant that turns the search for any ticket into a simple conversation. Sold-out doesn’t have to mean out of luck. PinAI lets fans describe the event they’re looking for, by text or voice, and searches for relevant ticket options. Instead of scrolling through social media, websites, and ticket listings, users can simply ask for what they want, whether it’s two tickets
How Runable is Helping Businesses Build, Run, and Grow - End to End
Runable, a platform that can think and execute any task for you, led by Umesh Kumar and Saksham Sarda, has announced $21 million in funding, co-led by Susquehanna Venture Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, along with continued participation from its first believers, Together Fund and Array VC. Why Runable is Doing it. Businesses are built for customers, revenue, and sustainable operations, not just websites and landing pages. AI can now automate software development and webs
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Fintech
Standard Metrics has Raised $20M in Series B from Its Customers to Accelerate Innovation in the Private Markets
Standard Metrics, an AI‑driven portfolio management platform, led by John Melas-Kyriazi and Deny Khoung, has raised a $20M Series B led by 8VC. Other investors in this round include Salesforce Ventures, Spark Capital, January Capital, First Trust Capital Partners, Socii Capital, Kindergarten Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and more. The company has raised roughly $50M to date, and most of that capital has come from its customers. Why Standard Metrics Exists. Founded in 202
Standard Metrics has Raised $20M in Series B from Its Customers to Accelerate Innovation in the Private Markets
Standard Metrics, an AI‑driven portfolio management platform, led by John Melas-Kyriazi and Deny Khoung, has raised a $20M Series B led by 8VC. Other investors in this round include Salesforce Ventures, Spark Capital, January Capital, First Trust Capital Partners, Socii Capital, Kindergarten Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and more. The company has raised roughly $50M to date, and most of that capital has come from its customers. Why Standard Metrics Exists. Founded in 202
Aug 25
Silicon Data Raises $30.5 Million Series A to Build the Independent Benchmark Layer for the AI Compute Economy
Silicon Data, providing GPU performance data for companies, led by Carmen Li, and the team, has announced a $30.5 million initial closing of its Series A, led by the Valor Atreides AI Fund, with additional investment from CME Ventures, DRW, F-Prime, Samsung Next, VanEck, Further, Jump, Tectonic, and Wintermute. Breed, Hack, Blank VC, Sancus Ventures, and SoGal Ventures also participated. The Series A will support expansion across four areas: benchmark pricing, performance mea
Aug 20
Kita Raises $4.5 Million to Help Lenders Underwrite the Borrowers' Credit Bureaus Miss
Kita, an AI-native credit assessment built for lending globally, led by Carmel Limcaoco and Rhea Malhotra, has raised $4.5M in seed funding led by BoxGroup, with participation from Y Combinator, Golden Gate Ventures, US News Digital Ventures, BEENEXT, Kaya Founders, Genting Ventures, and Apex Star Capital, the family office of Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin. The round is supported by angels including Shivani Siroya (Tala), Kaz Nejatian (Opendoor), Linda Du (Valon), Kulveer Taggar
Aug 19
Axle Announces $17.5M Series A Led by Base10
Axle, building AI agents to automate insurance workflows led by Cameron Duncan, Nihar Parikh, and Armaan Sikand, has announced $17.5M in Series A funding led by Base10 Partners, with continued investment from Y Combinator and Gradient Ventures, and participation from Stage2 Capital, Chris Bayley (Co-Founder and CEO of Cover Genius), and other industry angel investors, joined by existing investors, including the early team at Plaid. Over the past six months, Axle has tripled t
Aug 12
River Markets Announces $8.5M Seed Round
River Markets, building prime brokerage for prediction markets, led by Oscar Levy and Antonin Parrot, has announced $8.5M seed round led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, UFO Holdings, Qube Research & Technologies (QRT), TENET, Humbition, Kima Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Stack Asset Management, Perpetual Strategies, Mark Kornfilt, Jacob Fortinsky (Novig), and other amazing angel investors from Citadel, Google, HRT, Tower Research Capita
Aug 12
Ellis Emerges from Stealth with More than $10 Million to Build the AI-Native Operating Foundation for Private Credit
Ellis, the AI-native operations platform for private credit, led by Ryan Williams, has launched today with more than $10 million in seed funding closed. First Round Capital led the financing with participation from a group of prominent operators and investors, including Kearny Jackson, 645 Ventures, Harlem Capital, Khosla Ventures, Slow Ventures, Wilshire Lane, Westbound, Collide Capital, Gallery Ventures, Ariel Alternatives CEO Mellody Hobson, Thrive Capital Founder Josh Kus
Aug 1
Venture Capital
Andreessen Horowitz Announces 'The Machine Age Fund'
A16Z has raised $1.1B for its newest fund: the Machine Age Fund, aimed at accelerating the physical buildout of AI. The fund reflects a broader push to bring AI into the physical world, positioning the technology as a powerful tool for solving real-world problems and expanding abundance. AI’s capabilities are expanding rapidly, with systems moving from chat to reasoning, coding, and increasingly complex forms of knowledge work. As utility and demand grow, so does the computat
Andreessen Horowitz Announces 'The Machine Age Fund'
A16Z has raised $1.1B for its newest fund: the Machine Age Fund, aimed at accelerating the physical buildout of AI. The fund reflects a broader push to bring AI into the physical world, positioning the technology as a powerful tool for solving real-world problems and expanding abundance. AI’s capabilities are expanding rapidly, with systems moving from chat to reasoning, coding, and increasingly complex forms of knowledge work. As utility and demand grow, so does the computat
4 days ago
Einride Founders Launch Navisalma to Turn Europe's Frontier Technologies into Global Leaders
Navisalma, the newly founded European Venture Platform, founded by Einride founders Robert Falck and Linnéa Kornehed Falck, together with previous McKinsey Partner and Material Economics co-founder Robert Westerdahl, announced its launch. Europe does not have an innovation problem. It has a scaling problem. Europe produces world-class science, engineering, and frontier technologies, backed by centuries of leadership in design, craftsmanship, industrial excellence, and quality
6 days ago
RunwayVC Announces Fund II to Back the Next Generation of Industry
RunwayVC, investing in founders shaping industry, led by Tor Bækkelund and the team, has announced the first close of RunwayVC Fund II at NOK 400 million (€40 million). Aker continues as the cornerstone investor, joined by Halliburton, Aker BP and Aker Solutions, institutional investors KLP and Investinor, Norwegian industrial families and a group of experienced technology and finance investors. Fund II reflects more than an increase in capital. It represents a broader convic
Aug 25
South Park Commons Announces $575M Fund IV
South Park Commons, helping the world's most talented technologists discover and build their life's work, announced $575M Fund IV. Since 2016, the firm’s thesis has been that exceptional outcomes emerge when high talent density meets innate curiosity. Its approach focuses on identifying intensely curious builders, bringing them together at the earliest and often most isolating stage of the startup journey, and supporting them through the uncertainty of company building. The f
Aug 6
Highland Europe Raises €1.1B Fund VI to Continue Backing Exceptional Founders at the Growth Stage
Highland Europe, a growth-stage specialist investor, has announced its sixth fund of €1.1B and promoted two new Partners, on the back of generating over €1 billion of liquidity in 2026. The firm will continue backing Europe’s next generation of technology leaders. Founded in 2012, Highland has raised €3.75 billion across six funds, backed more than 80 companies, and completed 30 exits. Notable outcomes include the $3 billion sale of Nexthink, Huel's agreed acquisition by Dano
Aug 1
SuperCharger Ventures Announces €10M Fund I to Back EdTech and Future-of-Work Startups
SuperCharger Ventures, the global ecosystem for EdTech startups led by Janos Barberis and the team, has announced the launch of Fund I. It will invest in EdTech and Future-of-Work companies worldwide, with a focus on pre-seed and seed-stage startups. Initial investments in selected startups will be up to €250,000, with follow-on funding ranging from €500,000 to €1.5 million. The fund is backed by family offices and high-net-worth investors, with 90% of first-close commitments
Jul 22
Deep Tech
HyImpulse Secures Over €50 Million to Scale Commercial Suborbital and Orbital Launch Operations and Strengthen Europe’s Sovereign Access to Space
HyImpulse, a leading European launch services company developing and providing suborbital and orbital launch capabilities based on a proprietary propulsion technology, led by Dr. Christian Schmierer, Dr. Mario Kobald, Konstantin Tomilin, and Ulrich Fischer, has announced a Series A Extension financing of more than €50 million in equity, co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital Partners, with participation from new investors, including North Ventures, BW-Capital, Bayern Kapital
HyImpulse Secures Over €50 Million to Scale Commercial Suborbital and Orbital Launch Operations and Strengthen Europe’s Sovereign Access to Space
HyImpulse, a leading European launch services company developing and providing suborbital and orbital launch capabilities based on a proprietary propulsion technology, led by Dr. Christian Schmierer, Dr. Mario Kobald, Konstantin Tomilin, and Ulrich Fischer, has announced a Series A Extension financing of more than €50 million in equity, co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital Partners, with participation from new investors, including North Ventures, BW-Capital, Bayern Kapital
Northwood Opens Torrance Factory to Mass-Produce Satellite Ground Infrastructure
Northwood, building a global ground network for the future of space communications, led by Bridgit Mendler, Griffin Cleverly, Shaurya Luthra, and the team, opened a new 185,000-square-foot headquarters and factory in Torrance, California, and expanded production of its satellite ground network. The new facility expands the company’s manufacturing footprint more than fivefold, from 25,000 to 135,000 square feet, enabling production of hundreds of antennas annually. The expans
Lockheed Martin Ventures and Sumitomo's Presidio Ventures Back Diffraqtion
Diffraqtion, an MIT and University of Maryland spinout building quantum camera platforms for defense and space sensing, led by Johannes Galatsanos, Christine Yi-Ting Wang, Saikat Guha, and the team, announced strategic investments from Lockheed Martin Ventures and Presidio Ventures, the venture arm of Sumitomo Corporation, bringing total funding to over $10M. Following strong investor interest, Diffraqtion elected to cap its pre-seed round, which also includes SBI US Gateway
Pacific Fusion Breaks Ground on First-of-a-Kind Fusion Facility in New Mexico
Pacific Fusion, powering a prosperous planet, led by Eric Lander, Carrie von Muench, Keith Lechien, and Will Regan, has broke ground on a $1 billion Research & Manufacturing Campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the company will build a fusion facility designed to achieve two first-ever milestones: net facility gain, an essential breakthrough on the path to commercial fusion power, and high-yield fusion, a critical capability for U.S. national security. The campus at Mesa
Architect Labs Unveils Redwood: The World’s First Fully AI-Designed AI Chip That Runs AI Models
Architect Labs, an AI research lab for custom silicon, led by Ebrahim Hussain and Aaditya Subedi, has announced that its AI System generated and fully verified end-to-end from a human-written specification, a production-worthy AI accelerator called Redwood. With just two human architects providing the specifications, the AI system designed and fully verified the chip in under two weeks. It also co-designed the firmware and custom kernels and mapped modern AI models to the har
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Security
Air Security Emerges Out of Stealth to Protect AI Agents
Air, the context firewall for AI agents, founded by Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, has announced that it is coming out of stealth. AI With Seatbelts. AI agents are becoming a fundamental part of enterprise knowledge work, with coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex seeing rapid adoption. Yet enterprises remain cautious about deploying them without stronger controls. Organizations face risks from employees using AI through personal accounts, untrusted agent harnesse
Air Security Emerges Out of Stealth to Protect AI Agents
Air, the context firewall for AI agents, founded by Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, has announced that it is coming out of stealth. AI With Seatbelts. AI agents are becoming a fundamental part of enterprise knowledge work, with coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex seeing rapid adoption. Yet enterprises remain cautious about deploying them without stronger controls. Organizations face risks from employees using AI through personal accounts, untrusted agent harnesse
Mindgard Raises $30M Series A
Mindgard, the leader in AI security led by James Brear, Dr. Peter Garraghan, and the team, has raised a $30 million Series A financing led by Album VC with participation from Karma Ventures and existing investors .406 Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, IQ Capital, and Lakestar. Mindgard plans to use the funding to scale the company across product, engineering, sales, and marketing in response to significant customer demand. Mindgard combines AI security research with offensive securi
Cytix Raises $7M To Take On Cyber Risk Posed By AI-Driven Software Development
Cytix, the security decision layer for software change led by Ben Armstrong and Thomas Ballin, has raised $7M, led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from existing investors, Auriga Cyber Ventures and NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance, which is managed by PXN Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II (NPIF II). The Challenge. Software change is becoming a growing security risk as AI-assisted development, agentic workflows, and continuous delivery outpac
Glow Announces Its Launch
Glow, the endpoint AI company led by Roi Tiger, Omer Singer, Ophir Arie, and the team, has announced its launch with $180M in funding, led by Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, Greenoaks, and Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures, Swish Ventures, Holly Ventures, Operator Collective, and Lux Capital. Traditional endpoint security has long forced organizations to choose between reacting after threats emerge or restricting business operations to reduce risk. As AI
Neo Launches with $100M to Secure AI Software Across the Enterprise
Neo, building real-time protection for the agentic enterprise, led by Nicholas Warner, Shlomi Salem, and Eran Shirazi, has emerged from stealth with $100M in funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Craft Ventures and Merlin Ventures. Neo was founded by former executives and engineers from SentinelOne, Wiz and Palo Alto Networks. The company's platform provides security operations (SecOps) teams with inventory management, posture
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