MENLO TIMES

Deepgram, enabling human-machine interactions with voice AI, led by Scott Stephenson , Adam Sypniewski , Shadi Baqleh , and others, has secured $130 million in Series C funding at a $1.3 billion valuation, led by AVP . All major existing investors joined the round, including Alkeon , In-Q-Tel, Madrona , Tiger, Wing , Y Combinator , and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. Several new investors, including Alumni Ventures and Princeville Capital , participated in the round

Diffraqtion , an MIT and University of Maryland spinout building the next generation of visual AI hardware and software to make satellites and machines see further and think faster, led by Johannes Galatsanos, Christine Yi-Ting Wang, Saikat Guha, Mark Michael, and others, has raised its pre-seed funding round, led by QDNL Participations , with participation from milemark•capital , Aether VC , ADIN, Offline Ventures , and a non-dilutive DARPA SBIR Direct-to-Phase 2 contract su

Boltz , helping every scientist reshape biology, led by Gabriele Corso, Jeremy Wohlwend, and Saro Passaro, announced its launch with $28 Million Seed Round from Zetta , Amplify , a16z , and strategic angels, including Clement Delangue (CEO of Hugging Face), Factorial Capital , and Obvious Ventures . AI-powered molecular modeling is advancing rapidly, offering the potential to make biology programmable, digitize experiments, and accelerate drug development. However, emerging

Protege , building the data layer for AI training, led by Bobby Samuels, Travis May, Engy Ziedan, and Richard Ho, has announced a $30 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz ( a16z ). The financing expands the company’s $25 million Series A from August 2025 and brings total funding to $65 million since the company’s founding in 2024. Returning investors include Footwork , CRV , Bloomberg Beta , Flex Capital, Shaper Capital , and more. Bobby Samuels, CEO and co-found

Luxury Presence , the growth platform for real estate’s top performers, led by Malte Kramer, has raised $37 million in new capital to accelerate the launch of Presence® CRM and deepen the data and intelligence layer that feeds our platform, including $22 million in Series C equity, led for the third time by Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Partners , with participation from NextEquity Partners , GSBackers , a Stanford alumni fund, including Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff,

Unusual , surveys AI models to discover how they see your brand, and then creates content to shape their view, led by Will Jack and Keller Maloney, has secured $3.6 million seed round, led by BoxGroup , Long Journey Ventures , Y Combinator , Instacart co-founder Max Mullen, and Phosphor Capital . AI models now influence a significant share of buying decisions, yet most brands have little insight into how these systems describe them, or how to correct inaccuracies. Gartner es

Lyte , an end-to-end integrated perception company for robotics and Physical AI, led by Alexander Shpunt, Dr. Arman Hajati, and Dr. Yuval Gerson, has emerged from stealth with $107 million in aggregate funding from some of the industry's premier investors, including Avigdor Willenz's group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Atreides Management , Exor Ventures , Key1 Capital , and Venture Tech Alliance . Based in Mountain View, California, Lyte was founded by Alexander

Boston Dynamics , which develops practical robotics solutions designed to tackle today's and tomorrow's toughest automation challenges, and Google DeepMind , the world’s premier AI Lab, have formed a new AI partnership aimed at bringing a new era of artificial intelligence to humanoid robots. Announced at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, the two teams aim to integrate cutting-edge Gemini Robotics AI foundation models with Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas ® robots. The strategic partnership

Manus , building general AI agents as the Action Engine for life, led by Red Xiao (Xiao Hong), Yichao "Peak" Ji, Tao Zhang, and others, has joined Meta. Manus launched to develop a general-purpose AI agent capable of handling research, automation, and complex workflows. Ongoing product iteration has strengthened reliability and expanded applicability across an increasing number of real-world scenarios. Within a few months, the system has processed more than 147 trillion toke

Dazzle AI , a new company founded by entrepreneur, executive, and technologist Marissa Mayer, has raised $8 million in seed funding at a $35 million post-money valuation, led by Kirsten Green of Forerunner with participation from Kleiner Perkins , Greycroft , Offline Ventures , Slow Ventures , Bling Capital , Amino Capital , and the Acquired Wisdom Fund . Founded in 2025 by Marissa Mayer, Dazzle AI aims to bridge the gap between human intent and AI capability by building pr

Nabla , one of the most advanced AI assistants in clinical care, led by Alexandre Lebrun, Delphine Groll, Martin Raison, Laurent Landowski, and others, has announced an exclusive strategic partnership with Advanced Machine Intelligence, the new AI research company founded by Professor Yann LeCun. This next chapter builds on LeCun’s early belief in Nabla’s mission and his continued confidence in the company’s technical vision. As part of a board-supported transition, Nabla co

Neural Concept , revolutionizing how customers design their products by speeding up R&D cycles, augmenting product performance and solving their next engineering challenges, led by Dr Pierre Baqué, Théophile Allard, Dr Jonathan Donier, Thomas von Tschammer, and Philippe Cuendet, has raised a $100 million Series C funding round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with participation from existing investors Forestay Capital , Alven , HTGF , D. E. Shaw Ventures

Finny , the organic growth engine for financial advisors, led by Eden Ovadia, Victoria Toli, and Theodore Janson, has secured $17 million in Series A funding led by Venrock , with participation from Activant , Altruist’s Jason Wenk, and continued support from Y Combinator , Maple VC, and Crossbeam Ventures . Nick Beim from Venrock and Bill McNabb, the former Chairman and CEO of Vanguard, will join the Board. Financial advisors play a critical role in helping Americans navigat

Trigger.dev , the open source platform for building AI agents and workflows in TypeScript, led by Matt Aitken, Eric Allam, Dan Patel, and James Ritchie, has secured a $16M Series A led by Standard Capital , with new investment from Michael Grinich and the CTO fund. Existing investors, including Y Combinator , Liquid 2 , Wayfinder Ventures , Pioneer Fund , and Rebel Fund , also participated again in the round. Trigger.dev empowers developers to build production-grade AI

Ben , the London-based platform using AI to help global enterprises manage employee benefits, led by David Duckworth and Sebastian Fallert, has raised $27.5m (£20.8m) led by Mercia Ventures with strong participation from existing investors Atomico , Cherry Ventures , DN Capital , and Seedcamp , along with new backing from Revolut founder Nik Storonsky’s QuantumLight Capital . The investment comes amid rapid growth, fueled by strong adoption among enterprises previously usin

Ankar AI , empowering patent teams with AI tools to innovate more efficiently, thoroughly, and productively, led by Wiem Gharbi and Tamar Gomez, has secured a $20 million Series A round led by Atomico , with Index Ventures doubling down and Norrsken VC and Daphni participating, bringing the total funding to $24 million. The company will use the funding to grow its team and expand further into the US. AI is transforming how inventions become protected assets, but fragmented

MoEngage , empowering consumer marketers with AI-powered tools to succeed in a fast-paced, competitive, digital-first, and multi-channel world, led by Raviteja Dodda, Yashwanth Kumar, Yashwanth Reddy, Narasimha Reddy, Krishna Reddy, Nalin Goel, Ajish Nair, and others, has closed an additional $180 million as part of Series F, bringing the total round to $280 million, led by new investors ChrysCapital and Dragon Funds , alongside Schroders Capital , with continued participat

Leona Health , the AI-powered assistant built for doctors to securely and intelligently manage patient care through WhatsApp, led by Caroline Merin, Tom Chokel, and Arela Solis, announced its launch with backing from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), General Catalyst, Accel, and seasoned tech luminaries, including David Vélez, co-founder and CEO of Nubank, Simón Borrero, co-founder and CEO of Rappi, and Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven Clinic. In Latin America, WhatsApp is th

Root Sustainability , empowering retailers to instantly turn complex product data into simple, actionable life cycle assessments, led by Gijs de Mol and Maud Schijen, has secured a €1,000,000 seed round led by Borski Fund , with participation from VC investor Rockstart and angel investors Spotlight and Empower Impact , along with additional private investors. Root provides an AI-powered data foundation that helps retail brands turn fragmented value-chain data into audit

Mindoo , the European platform for deploying safe and governed agentic workflows in healthcare, led by Dr. Gauthier Willemse and Bart Lens, has secured €5 million in seed financing from 6DC , Syndicate One , and a group of strategic angel investors. The investment advances Mindoo’s mission to deliver a scalable AI workforce that automates routine tasks for hospitals and practices, easing staff pressure while keeping teams in control. Healthcare providers face a growing gap