MENLO TIMES

Pixxel, the planetary infrastructure company, led by Awais Ahmed, Kshitij Khandelwal, and the team, has announced the close of its $100 million Series C funding round, co-led by Temasek and Seraphim, with participation from new investors 360 ONE Asset, IMM Investment, and existing investors Radical Ventures, growX ventures, and others. The round brings Pixxel’s total funding to $195 million. The investment also marks the single largest funding round raised by a space technolo

iPronics, a pioneer in silicon photonics-based optical circuit switching for AI infrastructure, led by Christian Dupont, Daniel Pérez-López, and the team, has announced $125 million in Series B funding co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital. NVIDIA joined the round, with participation from new and existing investors including Triatomic Capital, Bosch Ventures, Catalight Capital, European Innovation Council Fund, The Tate Family Trust, Fine Structure Ventures, Ama

Lyte, the physical AI perception company led by Alexander Shpunt, Dr. Arman Hajati, and Dr. Yuval Gerson, has announced a $165 million Series C financing led by Maverick Silicon. The round values Lyte at $1.6 billion post-money. The round included Fidelity Management & Research Company, which led Lyte's Series B, along with Atreides Management, Key1 Capital, Ora Global (formerly Exor Ventures), and additional existing and new investors. Total capital raised since the company'

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, 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

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, 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, 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

PLD Space, an international space transportation company, led by Ezequiel Sánchez, Raúl Torres, and Raúl Verdú, has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the European Launcher Challenge (ELC), a strategic initiative aimed at strengthening Europe’s autonomous, competitive, and resilient access to space. ESA’s selection of PLD Space represents a significant endorsement of the company’s technology roadmap, execution capabilities, and role within Europe’s future

REGENT Craft, the developer and manufacturer of Seaglider™ vessels, led by Billy Thalheimer and Mike Klinker, has raised $240 million, an equal mix of equity and debt, in a Series B funding round co-led by Mare Liberum and AE Ventures, with debt capital provided by Erebor Bank, marking a major milestone in REGENT's growth as it transitions from early-stage development toward full-scale manufacturing. The funding comes as REGENT approaches several major milestones, including

LeoLabs, the leading provider of persistent Orbital Intelligence, led by Tony Frazier, Daniel Ceperley, Dr. Edward Lu, and John Buonocore, has announced it has been awarded a $20.68 million Prototype Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) to support the U.S. Space Force (USSF). Under the award, LeoLabs will deliver a modified LeoLabs Scout system, providing the company the opportunity to demonstrate its proven radar technology for a new defense mission set. As threats become faste

Adaptyv Bio, the automated lab for agentic biology, led by Julian Englert and Daniel Nakhaee-Zadeh, has raised a $40M Series A from Highland Europe, Ace Ventures, byFounders, and Y Combinator. Adaptyv is building high-throughput wet-lab infrastructure to enable AI-driven biological research. The company’s work with Anthropic demonstrated a workflow in which Claude designed proteins, sent them to an automated lab, received experimental results, and iterated based on the data.

Muon Space, the Mission Foundry, designing, building, and operating high-performance satellite constellations for National Security, civil, and commercial customers, led by Jonny Dyer, Paul Day, Dan McCleese, Reuben Rohrschneider, and Pascal Stang, has announced the close of a $250 million Series C financing in a heavily oversubscribed round. The round was led by Eclipse Capital, with participation from Galvanize, Google, Salesforce Ventures, Wellington Management, I Squared

Cosmic Robotics, doing autonomous construction on Earth and beyond, led by James Emerick and Lewis Jones, has put up a roadmap to build a city on Mars. Cosmic Robotics’ mission is to enable the construction of a city on Mars. The company was founded in 2024 with the view that while rockets could enable human and cargo transport to Mars by the mid-2030s, several technologies still need to mature for a sustained human presence. One major challenge is providing the labor needed

Callosum, building the infrastructure where heterogeneous chips & intelligence co-evolve to solve the world's hardest problem, led by Jascha Achterberg, Danyal Akarca, and the team, has announced a $100M seed round to redefine how humanity computes for AI’s next chapter. The round is led by Atomico with significant participation from Plural, DCVC, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund, alongside other world-class investors and angels. AI is entering a “Cambrian explosion” of models an

ALSO, introducing transcendent mobility, led by Chris Yu and the team, has closed a $150 million Series D financing round, led by Prysm Capital, with participation from Eclipse Capital, Greenoaks, and MVP Ventures. The funding reflects confidence in the company’s product, technology roadmap, execution, and partnerships with operators including Amazon and DoorDash. The new capital will accelerate development of its autonomous vehicle platform across multiple form factors for t

Castelion, restoring America’s ability to field advanced weapons at speed and scale, led by Bryon Hargis, Sean Pitt, and Andrew Kreitz, has announced a $1 billion Series C fundraise to accelerate the scaled production of Blackbeard, Castelion’s first low-cost, mass-producible hypersonic strike missile, while expanding the company’s product portfolio to longer-range strike weapons and defensive systems. The Series C round is a combination of $800 million in equity financing an

SweGaN, which manufactures high-quality, custom-made epitaxial wafers and materials based on robust GaN technology for manufacturers of leading components and devices for satellite, communications, and defense organizations, led by Jr-Tai Chen, has announced the closing of a USD 14 million Series B round. The round was led by Swedish investor Thisbe AB, Danish venture capital firm North Ventures, and existing shareholders, underscoring continued investor confidence in SweGaN’

Terra Industries, protecting Africa’sCritical Infrastructure, led by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, has raised an additional $18 million. The strategic funding closes its seed round at $52 million. Existing investors 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital, and SV Angel participated, alongside new investor Norleo Space Investments and angel investor Grant Gordon. Terra will use the funding to open its first international office in London, expand manufacturing c

By Philipp Herrmann, Co-founder of BRYCK and Managing Director of BRYCK Startup Alliance. This is an Op-Ed on Operators' Stack, Menlo Times. Europe has never lacked the raw material for DeepTech. It has world-class universities, deep engineering benches, and a research output that rivals the world's best. What it has lacked is the machinery to turn scientific breakthroughs into companies that can compete on a global stage. That gap between scientific excellence and commercial