MENLO TIMES

Universal Quantum, the company building large-scale quantum computing systems for real-world use, led by Sebastian Weidt and Winfried Hensinger, has announced it has secured over $100 million in Series A funding - marking the largest Series A ever raised by a quantum firm headquartered in the UK. The round was co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures, with participation from EDBI, Artal (advised by Invus), Integral GlobalTech, Main Sequence, Hostplus, NGS Super, IAG Capital, EdenBa

Fortastra, an orbital defense company built for scale, led by Dr. Michael Smayda, has raised $30 million in Series A led by First In, with participation from Upfront Ventures, Space Capital, Rsquared, Side Door Ventures, ATX Ventures, among others, as well as existing investors. Fortastra will use the funding to accelerate the development of its on-orbit security platforms, expand its engineering and operations teams, and strengthen its autonomy and manufacturing capabilitie

Startup Policy Forum, a vital bridge between the startup community and policymakers, led by Shweta Rajpal Kohli, Avantika Gode, and Shubhangi Poddar, has launched DeepVerse, its centre for deeptech Innovation, bringing together investors, deeptech founders, policymakers, global technology companies, and academia to support the development of India’s deeptech ecosystem. DeepVerse will focus on policy, research and collaboration across 10 deeptech sectors, from semiconductors a

Furientis, manufacturing interceptor missiles engineered from day one for high-rate production, led by Brody Franzen and Aris Simsarian, has annouced $25M seed round, led by Benchmark Capital. Designing for Production at Scale. Furientis was founded in May 2025 around a central concern: while the U.S. produces some of the world’s most advanced defense technology, production capacity remains far below the scale required by modern threats. The debate around cost asymmetry, such

Arsenal-2 Will Expand Virginia-Class Submarine Production Capacity. Anduril has announced Arsenal-2, a new software-defined shipyard backed by a $3.7 billion private investment to manufacture critical Virginia-class submarine components and assemblies. The facility is part of a broader $6.6 billion effort, including a Navy contract worth up to $2.9 billion, aimed at expanding the U.S. submarine industrial base and increasing production capacity. Arsenal-2 will manufacture lar

Buntar Aerospace, a Ukrainian defense tech startup building autonomous combat systems, led by Ivan Kaunov, Bohdan Sas, and Kateryna Bezsudna, has locked in a $16 million investment round led by Freedom Fund and a top-tier international private equity fund, joined by Gardar, Iron Wolf, and Autonomy Capital, taking the company's total funding to $30 million. Buntar Aerospace deploys the Buntar-1 reconnaissance drone alongside Buntar Copilot, software designed to support drone o

Volantis, a scalable solution to the memory bottleneck, enabling more than an order-of-magnitude increase in capacity and bandwidth, led by Tapa Ghosh and Roy Meade, has raised a Series A, led by Lachy Groom and Abstract, totalling $97M in funds raised to date, including from Sam Altman, Jeff Dean, Dylan Patel, John Doerr & others. Volantis is developing an optical interconnect technology designed to enable models with over 10 trillion parameters to run at speeds of up to 10,

Satylt, the above cloud service provider, led by Rama Afullo, Nelson Psenjen, and the team, has raised an $8 million seed round. The Kenyan-American engineer previously worked in Google’s cloud computing business and briefly joined SpaceX’s Starlink team in 2024, where he saw untapped potential for computing in space. He later co-founded Satlyt, headquartered in Sunnyvale and Nairobi, to build software that enables satellites to share large computing workloads. The company ha

Efficient Computer, the company building the world's most energy-efficient processors, led by Brandon Lucia, Graham Gobieski, and Nathan Beckmann, has announced it has entered into agreements for more than $97 million in Series B financing at a $650 million valuation, bringing its total funding raised to $173 million. The new round is led by TQ Ventures, with participation from Eclipse, Union Square Ventures, Giant Ventures, Triatomic Capital, TO Capital, TF Capital, Mana Ven

Charter Space, the AI-native economic defense company insuring the rapidly growing space economy, led by Yuk Chi Chan and Yukun Yin, has announced the close of an oversubscribed $5 million seed round, led by Crystal Venture Partners with participation from QED, Blank Ventures, Gaingels, Hustle Fund, and other leading fintech and space investors. The round brings Charter’s total funding to $8 million, following the company’s earlier $3 million pre-seed round. The new funding f

CScale, building an integrated light engine to deliver reliable optical connectivity for AI infrastructure at gigawatt scale, led by Martin Lund, Sanjai Kohli, and the team, has exited stealth, announcing $145 million in Series C funding to accelerate development and commercialization of optical interconnect for AI scale-up, the high-bandwidth, ultra-low-latency connections that let accelerators work together like a single, much larger computer. The round brings the company’s

Varda, a microgravity-enabled life sciences company that processes materials in orbit and returns them to Earth, led by Will Bruey, Delian Asparouhov, and Jon Barr, has announced a Series D fundraising round today, bringing the total amount of capital raised by the microgravity-enabled life sciences company to $598 million. The $251 million fundraise was led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Genera

SiMa.ai, scaling physical AI, led by Krishna Rangasayee and the team, announced $150 million in Series C financing, bringing the total capital raised to $500 million and valuing the company at $1.45 billion. The round was co-led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify, with participation from Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Maverick Capital, +ND Capital, Point72, and StepStone Group. AllianceBernstein, Baron Capital, J.P. Morgan, and the State

Quartermaster, connecting every vessel on the water to create a comprehensive, real-time picture of our oceans, unlocking critical data insights that underpin a prosperous global maritime ecosystem, led by Neil Sobin, Matt Beck, and Steve Ribaudo, has raised $140 million, including a $100 million Series B led by Insight Partners with new participation from Overmatch Ventures, and a $40 million venture debt facility from Stifel. First Round Capital and Quiet Capital, who co-le

Neko Health, which designs and engineers its own hardware, software, and clinical protocols in-house, powering a next-generation health scan, led by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek, has opened its doors in New York. Neko Health has opened its first U.S. clinic at 300 Lafayette Street in SoHo, following a waitlist of more than 25,000 New Yorkers. Founded by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Spotify’s Daniel Ek, Neko has already served more than 100,000 members across Sweden and the UK. Its

Basecamp Research, training frontier AI models for therapeutic design, led by Glen Gowers, PhD, Oliver Vince, PhD, and the team, has announced a $140M Series C financing to train a new generation of EDEN models and advance a pipeline of AI-designed therapeutics towards clinical development. The oversubscribed round was led by S32, with participation from Menlo Ventures' Anthology Fund, Catalio Capital Management, European Tech Collective, Firebrand River Capital, Inception Fu

Hubble Network, building a low earth orbit satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, led by Alex Haro, Ben Wild, John Kim, has raised a $200 million Series C led by Smith Point Capital, with Seraphim, Carthona Capital, Earthshot Ventures, Y Combinator, and RPM Ventures. It brings total funding to $300 million at a $1.6 billion valuation, one year after a $70 million Series B. The Hubble satellite network enables devices with Bluetooth® LE radios to c

Outpost Technologies Corporation, the reentry startup building shipping-container-sized Earth return vehicles, led by Jason Dunn, Amir Blachman, and the team, has announced a new program called Space Factories, which will offer customers a way to manufacture goods in orbit, without needing to build bespoke hardware of their own. Each Space Factory is a standardized in-space manufacturing module designed to produce products such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and advanced

Tekever, Europe’s leading provider of AI-powered autonomous systems, led by Ricardo Mendes, and the team, has announced the first close of its US$580 million Series D financing, valuing the company at US$6.4 billion. UC Investments (University of California) and Baillie Gifford led the round, which marks UC Investments’ first direct investment in Europe. Merlyn Advisors joined TEKEVER as a new strategic investor alongside continued investment from shareholders Crescent Cove,

StandardX, the UK-headquartered European deep tech company founded in 2025, led by Dr Richard Pearson, Dr Ross Allen, and the team, has raised £10m seed funding to build the world's first scalable isotope refinery to radically increase production of the rare isotopes that will enable the next century of innovation in medicine and energy. The round was led by Vsquared Ventures and East X Ventures, with additional backing from firstminute capital, UKI2S (the UK Innovation and S