MENLO TIMES

Auryx, turning ordinary earbuds into health sensors through the power of cutting-edge artificial intelligence, led by Erika Bondareva, Kayla-Jade Butkow, and Cecilia Mascolo, has raised $2M in pre-seed funding to build a platform that turns everyday devices, such as earbuds, into continuous health monitors using sound. The round is led by Celero Ventures, with participation from EWOR, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Vento, PurposeTech, and additional institutional and angel in

Elastics, building AI agents for prediction markets, led by Szymon Pawica and Mateusz Brodowicz, has raised $2 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by Frst with participation from angels from across the AI and crypto world, among them the co-founders of ElevenLabs, partners from XBTO, an a16z scout, and a co-founder of RedStone. Elastics has secured funding to democratize quantitative trading by equipping individual traders with AI-powered tools for automated resea

Sierra, helping businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI, led by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, has raised $950 million from new and existing investors, led by Tiger Global and GV, at a valuation of over $15 billion. Sierra now has more than $1 billion to invest in becoming the global standard for companies wanting to transform their customer experiences with AI. Confidence in the opportunity for Sierra and its customers has grown significantly. From ju

DeepInfra, helping you accelerate your AI with developer-friendly APIs designed for performance and cost-efficiency, led by Nikola Borisov, Georgios Papoutsis, and Yessenzhar Kanapin, has raised $107 million in Series B funding to scale DeepInfra's inference cloud and expand its global capacity, co-led by 500 Global and Georges Harik, with participation from A.Capital Ventures, Crescent Cove, Felicis, NVIDIA, Peak6, Samsung Next, Supermicro, and Upper90. Inference is becoming

Pixxel, reimagining earth observation for a new era, led by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, has announced a strategic partnership with Sarvam, led by Pratyush Kumar, to develop and build India’s first orbital data centre satellite. Under the partnership, Pixxel will design, build, launch, and operate the Pathfinder satellite, while Sarvam AI will provide the AI backbone, enabling both training and inference directly in orbit with full-stack language models running onboard

Nebius, the ultimate cloud for AI innovators, led by Arkady Volozh, and the team, has agreed to acquire Eigen AI, a leading inference and model optimization company, led by Ryan Wang, Wei-Chen Wang, Di Jin, and the team. The acquisition strengthens Nebius Token Factory by combining its optimization stack with Nebius’s global compute and AI cloud, while adding advanced inference research talent. Following the closing, Eigen AI’s inference and optimization layers will be integr

1X, building a truly abundant society through general-purpose robots capable of performing any kind of work autonomously, led by Bernt Børnich, has opened a 58,000-square-foot factory in Hayward, California. The company describes the facility as the first vertically integrated humanoid robot manufacturing operation in the United States. The facility is designed to produce 10,000 NEO robots in its first year, with consumer shipments expected before the end of 2026 and a targe

Featherless AI, enabling serverless inference via GPU orchestration and a model load-balancing system, led by Eugene Cheah and the team, has raised a $20 million Series A financing round co-led by AMD Ventures and Airbus Ventures, with participation from BMW i Ventures, Kickstart Ventures, Panache Ventures, and Wavemaker Ventures. AI is entering a new phase focused less on capability and more on control, how models are run, where they are deployed, and who governs them. Today

Encord, the data layer behind the world's leading AI, led by Eric Landau and Ulrik Stig Hansen, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by Wellington Management to scale its AI-native data infrastructure as physical AI hits an inflection point. The round also included participation from existing investors Y Combinator, CRV, N47, and Crane Venture Partners, and new investors Bright Pixel and Isomer Capital, bringing the total funding to $110 Million. In the coming years

DVC, a San Francisco–based VC focused on AI startups, led by Marina Davidova, Nick Davidov, and the team, has released its State of AI Report — a living, continuously updated analysis of the artificial intelligence landscape. According to the report, the market is mispricing AI. The State of AI report is based on a framework developed by DVC co-founders Nick Davidov and Marina Davidova over more than a decade of AI investing. It combines meta-analysis of leading industry rese

Hightouch, reinventing marketing with AI, led by Tejas Manohar, Josh Curl, and Kashish Gupta, has raised $150M at a $2.75B valuation, led by Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Amplify Partners, ICONIQ Capital, Sapphire Ventures, and TD7, the venture capital arm of The Trade Desk. While the funding marks an important milestone, the primary focus remains on building products that solve real customer problems. At its core, the plan is straightforwar

Windmill, building the context graph for your people, led by Brian Distelburger, Mark Tanner, Max Shaw, and the team, has announced a $12M fundraise led by Inspired Capital, with participation from Primary Venture Partners, Founder Collective, and Oceans Ventures. The company has grown to over 100 customers, including Kalshi, Rho, and Merge, since launching its performance reviews product in November 2025. “There’s no question that AI tools will transform how work gets done,”

Haladir, the operational AI layer for logistics, led by Jibran Hutchins, Quan Huynh, Preston Schmittou, and Joseph Tso, has raised seed round, bringing the total funding to $4.3M, led by BoxGroup and Susa Ventures, with participation from Sunflower Capital, Valkyrie Ventures, XPRESS Ventures, and various angel investors, following earlier backing from Y Combinator, SV Angel, and Josh Browder. Building Operational Superintelligence “Superintelligence” in logistics and supply c

Atech, an AI hardware startup, led by Tomas Harmer, David Stålmarck, Vladimir Baran, and the team, has raised a pre-seed round with participation from Nordic Makers, Emblem, Lovable, Sequoia Scout Fund (Sequoia), and Andreessen Horowitz Scout Fund (A16z). Atech is building a platform that makes hardware development accessible to everyone, removing one of tech’s highest knowledge barriers. The Problem Building a hardware prototype has traditionally required years of specialise

Scriptbee, an AI coworkers platform for revenue teams, led by Narayanan and Valentino, has pivoted to a platform where B2B companies can deploy agents for their revenue teams, i.e., sales, marketing, GTM, and outbound teams. What emerged from the pivot is not another tool, but a coordinated layer of AI agents operating across the entire revenue lifecycle. Scriptbee structures this into three motions: attract, nurture, and convert, each handled by autonomous agents rather than

Cleo Labs, building an automated product compliance for global brands, led by Anaelle Guez, Naomie Halioua, and Alexandre Bloch, has raised a €1.5 million funding round led by Larry Berger, with participation from Kima Ventures, Financière Saint-James, and several prominent figures from the tech ecosystem, alongside additional funding from Deel. The round will support technology development, drive European expansion, and prepare for entry into the U.S. market. A growing cha

Marloo, building AI for financial advisers, led by Hardy Michel, Shakeel Lala, and Ben Robertson, has raised a $10 M USD seed round led by Blackbird Ventures, with participation from Icehouse Ventures. Blackbird is doubling down on its pre-seed investment from six months ago, bringing the total funding to $12.7 M USD in twelve months. “Every advisory firm stands to benefit from a partner like Marloo. Early adoption is already translating into greater capacity, stronger compli

Avoca AI, re-engineering the services industry with AI, led by Apurva Shrivastava, Tyson Chen, and the team, has raised Series B at a $1 billion valuation, bringing the total raise to more than $125 million across Seed, Series A, and Series B. The company is backed by Meritech, General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins, Amplify Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and Y Combinator. The services economy is entering its software moment. Even large local service businesses still run on fra

Kemaro, building autonomous cleaning for industrial spaces, led by Martin Gadient, Armin Koller, Thomas Oberholzer, Nadja Gerber, and the team, has raised $5 million in an initial pre-closing of its Series B financing round led by Spicehaus Partner AG. The capital will support international expansion, with a focus on scaling operations in the United States and broadening the product portfolio. Founded in 2016, KEMARO has established itself as a leader in autonomous industrial

Sereact, physical AI that works where it matters the most, led by Ralf Gulde, Marc Tuscher, and the team, has raised a $110 million Series B round led by Headline, with participation from Bullhound Capital, Daphni, and Felix Capital. Existing investors Air Street Capital, Creandum (lead of Sereact's 2025 Series A), and Point Nine all returned for this round. The round supports two strategic priorities: scaling Cortex 2.0, the next generation of Sereact’s robotic brain, and ex