MENLO TIMES

Alinia AI , the company on a mission to make the deployment of Generative AI safer, led by Ariadna Font Llitjós and Carlos Muñoz Ferrandis, has secured a $7.5 million seed round led by Mouro Capital , with participation from Raise Seed For Good , Speedinvest , and Precursor Ventures . Development of the enterprise-grade Guardrails API and AI Compliance Platform is set to accelerate, enabling regulated organizations to deploy generative AI with embedded real-time auditing

Verkada , an American leader in cloud-based physical security, led by Filip Kaliszan, Hans Robertson, James Ren, and Benjamin Bercovitz, has secured an investment from Alphabet's independent growth fund, CapitalG , valuing the company at $5.8 billion, a $1.3 billion increase from Series E earlier this year. More than 2 million devices from Verkada are now deployed across 171 countries, unifying video security, access control, sensors, intercoms, and alarms on a single platf

Lumia , an AI Security and Governance platform helping enterprises safely adopt AI and autonomous agents, led by Omri Iluz and Bobi Gilburd, has secured $18 million seed round led by Team8 with support from New Era . As part of the announcement, the company is appointing Admiral Michael Rogers, former Director of the NSA and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, to its Advisory Board. Enterprise use of AI agents is rising quickly, with Gartner expecting 40% of enterprise applica

Autolane , developing hardware & software infrastructure for autonomous commerce, led by Ben Seidl and Andy Seidl, has secured $7.4 million in funding co-led by Draper Associates and Hyperplane , with participation from LAUNCH and Feld Ventures . The funding will accelerate Autolane’s expansion across retail, restaurant, and commercial properties. Supporting autonomous ride-hailing and delivery vehicles, its infrastructure has demonstrated up to 50% reductions in curbside

Donna , eliminating the admin burden for field sales, led by Nicolas Christiaen, Jonas Deprez, Xander Berkein, and others, has secured $4.8 M seed round, led by Frontline Ventures , with participation from existing funds: Pitchdrive , Fortino Capital , WeLoveFounders , Syndicate One , New School , Everywhere Ventures , and a group of seasoned angel investors. The funding will be used to deepen Donna’s product leadership and scale go-to-market operations across Europe and the

Orq.ai , the all-in-one platform to build reliable LLM apps, led by Sohrab Hosseini and Anthony Diaz , has secured raised €5 million in seed funding, led by Seed + Speed Ventures and Galion exe , with continued support from Curiosity VC , Spacetime , XO Ventures , xdeck ventures , Waves Capital , and GoldenEggCheck , bringing the total funding to €7.3 million since the company’s founding in 2022. Strategic advisors joining include industry leaders such as Sam Bourto

Ricursive Intelligence , the first frontier AI lab addressing the most fundamental constraint in AI progress: chip development timelines that can’t keep up with algorithmic advancement, led by Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini, announced its launch and a $35 million seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital( Stephanie Zhan ), along with other investors, including Modern Capital( Suhail Nimji , Jennifer Campbell ), 49Palms( Madhavan Ramanujam , Joshua Bloom ), and Striker ( M

PermitFlow , the leading AI pre-construction platform built for construction and trades, led by Francis Thumpasery and Samuel Lam, has secured a $54 million Series B funding round, led by Accel with participation from Kleiner Perkins , Felicis , Initialized Capital , Altos Ventures , Y Combinator , and other existing investors. Since its 2021 launch, PermitFlow has scaled its construction platform and AI agents to manage over $20 billion in construction value nationwi

Gradium , building the technological backbone, models, and infrastructure to support all voice applications, led by Olivier Teboul, Alexandre Défossez, Neil Zeghidour, and Laurent Mazaré, has announced its launch with a $70 million seed funding round led by FirstMark Capital and Eurazeo with participation from DST Global Partners , Eric Schmidt, Xavier Niel, Rodolphe Saadé, Korelya Capital, Amplify Partners, Liquid2, Drysdale Ventures, and angels including Yann LeCun, Olivi

Synopsys , the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products, led by Sassine Ghazi, Shelagh Glaser, Ravi Subramanian, Shankar Krishnamoorthy, and others, announced an expanded, strategic partnership to revolutionize design and engineering across industries. R&D teams across sectors, from semiconductors to aerospace, automotive, and industrial, face growing workflow complexity, rising development costs, and

Complir , bringing clarity and speed to product compliance, led by Tine Kühnel , Gustav Bang , Marc Kaa Brejner , and Rasmus Lind , has secured €1.7 million in pre-seed funding led by Vendep Capital , with participation from Likeminded , Plug and Play , Xpress , JHJ Seed Capital, and business angels including Kraen Østergaard Nielsen, Per Thau, and Neil S. W. Murray. Retailers now face a landscape where cross-border selling is both a commercial and compliance challenge. Ever

Raindrop , Sentry for AI Agents, led by Zubin Singh Koticha , Alexis Gauba , and Ben Hylak , has secured $15M in seed funding from Lightspeed and leading AI companies, including Figma Ventures, Vercel Ventures , founders of Replit (Amjad Masad and Michele Catasta), Cognition (Walden Yan), Framer (Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk), Speak (Andrew Hsu), Notion (Akshay Kothari), and YC . Over the past two years, the landscape has shifted from simple chatbots to agent systems capable

Nevis , the first unified AI platform built for wealth management, led by Mark Swan, Philipp Burda, and Ivan Chalov, has secured $35 million in Series A from Sequoia Capital , ICONIQ , and Ribbit Capital , bringing the total funding to $40 million in under a year. Nevis enables advisors to complete operational work end to end, covering meeting preparation, client follow-ups, account openings, and ongoing service. The goal is straightforward: remove administrative burden so a

Minitap , an AI-powered mobile development platform, led by Nicolas Dehandschoewercker and Luc Mahoux-Nakamura, has secured $4.1 million in seed funding from Moxxie Ventures , Mercuri , EWOR , Tekton Ventures , Amigos Venture Capital , and six unicorn founders - Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face), Stefan Glanzer & Michael Breidenbrucker ( Last.fm ), Paul Muller (Adjust), Petter Made (SumUp), Daniel Krauss, Jochen Engert & André Schwämmlein (FlixBus), and Saturnin Pugnet (Worldcoin).

Black Forest Labs , building state-of-the-art technology that advances how the world is seen and understood, led by Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann, Sumith Kulal, Axel Sauer, Patrick Esser, and Tim Dockhorn, has announced Series B funding of $300M at a $3.25B post-money valuation from a16z , NVIDIA , Northzone , Creandum , Earlybird VC , BroadLight Capital , and General Catalyst , and welcoming Salesforce Ventures and Anjney Midha (AMP), as co-leads, alongside Temasek , Bai

Procure AI , the world’s first AI native Procurement Automation Platform, led by Konstantin von Büren, Yves Bauer, and Francesco Peroni, has secured $13 million in seed funding led by Headline , with participation from C4 Ventures and Futury Capital , as well as other notable angel investors from within the procurement industry. Procurement teams are under pressure to do more with less. Operational complexity affects 47% of B2B buyers, while 90% of companies cite limited he

Helio AI , an AI-powered recruiting platform with ATS and a gamified personality test, led by Iako Jikia , Nini Mosiashvili , Natia Kukhilava , and Sulkhan Sakhvadze , has secured a $1M seed round led by SABAH.fund , joined by DOMiNO Ventures , Axiom, Tetrad VC , and Angel investor Bas Godska. The new funding will support global expansion of Helio’s AI Recruiting Agent, enhance product capabilities, and transform hiring processes in fast-growing markets. Helio AI pairs an in

Kovant , an enterprise-grade AI agent executing operations autonomously, led by Ali Sarrafi, Dror Asaf, and Somil Gupta, has raised €1.5 million pre-seed capital led by Stockholm-based VC firm J12 Ventures , with participation from Ampli , Greens Ventures , and angel investors from tech veterans to industry leaders, including Sara Öhrvall , board member at Axfood, Investor AB, Verisure, and an angel investor, who will also be joining the Kovant board, and Emmanuel Marti

Gosta Labs , an AI Operating System reducing administrative work and bringing clarity to complex clinical data, led by Lauri Sippola, Henri Viertolahti, Lionel Hadjadjeba, and others, has secured an oversubscribed €7.5 million seed round led by Voima Ventures , with participation from COR Group, the Aho family , and both existing and new investors, including Reaktor and a group of notable angel investors. Cancer care is becoming increasingly complex, with more than 35 million

Cerrion , a Switzerland-based AI video agent platform enabling real-time detection and resolution of production line disruptions, led by Karim Saleh and Dr. Nikolay Kobyshev, has raised $18 million in Series A led by Creandum , with participation from existing investors Y Combinator , Goat Capital , 10x Founders and Session VC , alongside prominent angels including Harry Stebbings (20VC), Oskar Hjertonsson, Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face) and Garret Langley (Flock Safety). Facto