MENLO TIMES

NeuralTrust, the platform for AI & agent security, led by Joan Vendrell and Victor García, has announced a $20 million seed round led by Alstin Capital, with participation from VentureFriends, Seaya, Kibo Ventures, Banc Sabadell, EA Ventures Plug and Play Fund, and Finaves, the venture capital fund of IESE Business School. NeuralTrust is also backed by public funding from the European Innovation Council and Spain's State Research Agency (AEI). The round will fund engineering,

Dawn Aerospace, building a scalable, sustainable space transportation network, with the frequency and reliability of aviation to seamlessly connect the Earth and space economies, led by Stefan Powell, Jeroen Wink, James Powell, Robert Werner, and Tobias Knop, has announced the close of its Series B funding round, raising $25 million at a $195 million post-money valuation. The round was led by US-based VC Balerion Space Ventures. Participants include Mana Ventures (US), ANA Fu

REGENT Craft, the developer and manufacturer of Seaglider vessels, led by Billy Thalheimer, Mike Klinker, and the team, has announced the completion of the world's first Seaglider Manufacturing Facility, located at 1 Seaglider Way in Quonset Business Park, North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The milestone was unveiled at the Reindustrialize conference in Detroit, where REGENT introduced a new 3D model and immersive experience that allows visitors to virtually explore the productio

NOX METALS, reindustrializing America by supplying manufacturers at warp speeds and lower prices, led by Zane Hengsperger, has raised a $11.5M Seed round led by Hyperion, with participation from Palmer Luckey, Y Combinator, Jared Friedman, RoboStrategy, Operator Collective, DTX, Alumni Ventures, and others. Reviving American Manufacturing. For decades, domestic manufacturing in the United States has steadily declined, eroding the nation’s ability to produce at scale and contr

NewCore, the security-first identity platform built for humans and AI agents, led by Zohar Alon, Amihai Neiderman, and Erez Yarkoni, has emerged from stealth and has raised $66 million from Cyberstarts, Index Ventures, and Evolution Equity Partners. It is led by a founding team of cybersecurity and enterprise-IT veterans whose prior exits include Check Point's acquisition of Dome9. Identity has emerged as the primary attack surface within modern enterprises. Many of the large

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will purchase more than 200 Extended Range Sentry Towers (XRST) from Anduril to expand autonomous situational awareness across a much larger portion of the Southwest Border. The $363 million contract builds on more than seven years of collaboration between Anduril Industries and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, during which Anduril has delivered and supported hundreds of autonomous systems. Scaling Autonomous Border Surveillance. B

Cyera, the AI security platform, led by Yotam Segev, Tamar Bar-Ilan, Yonatan Itai, and the team, has announced its Series G: $600 million at a $12 billion valuation, led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Cyberstarts and Temasek, in addition to all existing investors, including Accel, AT&T Ventures, Blackstone, Coatue, Spark Capital, among others. Building The Trust Layer For AI. Cyera was founded to help enterprises understand what sensitive data they hav

Arkadia Space, making space exploration sustainable, accessible, and innovative, led by Francho García, Sergio Soler, Ismael Gutiérrez, and Francisco Espinosa, has entered into a strategic partnership with Reflex Aerospace, desiging and developing adaptable satellites, led by Walter Ballheimer, Felix Motzki, and Dennis Moore, to integrate Arkadia’s green propulsion technology into an upcoming Reflex mission, marking an important milestone for both companies and for the Europe

Isar Aerospace, developing next-generation rockets for sustainable access to space for small and medium satellites and satellite constellations, led by Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann, and Stella Guillen, has signed a EUR 270m Series D round to expand operations worldwide and provide sovereign space capabilities for Europe, NATO, and allies. The round is backed by new investors Island Green Capital and Molten Ventures, with strong participation from existing investors HV Ca

PhysicsX, a physical AI company on a mission to accelerate innovation and overhaul what engineering and manufacturing look like today, led by Robin Tuluie, Jacomo Corbo, and Nicolas Haag, has announced an oversubscribed $300 million Series C financing at a valuation of approximately $2.4 billion. The round is led by Temasek, with participation from new investors M&G Investments and Intrepid Growth Partners, alongside existing investors including Applied Materials, Atomico, Ge

Cosine, the coding agent built for engineers with taste, led by Alistair Pullen, Sam Stenner, Yang Li, and the team, has announced the formation of a landmark industry coalition to co-design Lumen Sovereign, Britain’s first fully sovereign frontier AI model. Building Sovereign AI Infrastructure for the UK. With support from major UK institutions including BAE Systems, Babcock International Group, BT, Lloyds Banking Group, LSEG, NatWest Group, PwC, Telefónica Tech UK&I, Thales

Apoha, the frontier-tech company pioneering Liquid State Intelligence, a new data layer that reveals how matter, formulations, and materials behave, led by Shamit Shrivastava and Anshika Srivastava, emerges from stealth today with $36M in funding, led by Singular, with participation from Tim Draper’s Draper Associates and continued backing from seed investors Redalpine, Seedcamp, Wilbe and Nucleus, alongside grant funding from Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency.

AstroForge, a deep-space mining company on a mission to extract valuable metals from asteroids - starting with PGMs, or platinum group metals, led by Matt Gialich and the team, has assembled the major flight hardware of DeepSpace-2 on its integration floor for the first time. Making Deep Space Access Routine. After assembling the major flight hardware of its DeepSpace-2 spacecraft, the company is preparing for a fourth-quarter launch and the next phase of testing and refinem

Focused Energy, the world’s leading laser fusion company, led by Thomas Forner, Prof. Dr. Markus Roth, and the team, has raised $240 million in a Series A financing round. In addition to RWE, the investors include the Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation SPRIND, the European Innovation Council Fund, and the previous lead investor, Prime Movers Lab. Strategic Backing for Fusion Commercialization. The oversubscribed funding round attracted investors from Germany, Europe,

Town, building tools that make it easy for anyone to create and use software in their everyday work, led by Tony Vincent and Jean-Denis Greze, has raised a $55 million Series A led by a16z, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, First Round, Alt Capital, and Conviction. AI’s Impact Has Yet to Reach Most Daily Workflows. AI is transforming industries, reshaping products, and accelerating innovation across the economy. Yet for many people, the realities of daily work rema

Impulse Space, the in-space mobility leader, led by Tom Mueller and the team, has raised $500 million in Series D funding, co-led by 137 Ventures and BANNER VC, bringing the company’s total capital raised to over $1 billion. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, and Linse Capital. Scaling Infrastructure for In-Space Mobility. The funding will support team expansion and manufacturing growth as Impulse Space accelerates development of in-space

Vast Space, building next-gen space stations, led by Jed McCaleb, Max Haot, and the team, has announced its commitment to establish its European headquarters in Paris and an agreement with the Government of France, for two missions involving two French astronauts: the sixth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station and the Haven-1 test flight, the first crewed mission to Vast’s Haven-1 commercial space station scheduled to launch in 2027 at the Choose Franc

Invisix, a Netherlands-based semiconductor metrology company developing soft X-ray measurement systems for advanced logic and memory manufacturing, led by Christina Porter, Sietse van der Post, Roald Dogge, Hens van Ooijen, and the team, has raised an oversubscribed €20 million seed round, which includes Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures, imec.xpand, Doosan Investment Co., and a tier-1 semiconductor manufacturer. The funding will support team expansion, accelerate develop

Observable Space, a real-time observation platform powering ground and space optics, led by Dan Roelker, Rick Hedrick, Connor Poole, and the team, has raised a $90 million Series A funding round, led by Lux Capital, co-led by Upfront Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Island Green Capital, and RTX Ventures, and with participation from BRV Capital, Fathom Fund, and Venrex. The company has also announced a $94 million sole-sourced Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ

Orbital Industries, an AI-first industrial company using frontier AI to design, manufacture, and ship the physical products the world needs, led by Jonathan Godwin, James Gin-Pollock, Daniel Miodovnik, and the team, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Plural. Existing and previous investors, NVentures (NVIDIA), Radical Ventures, Compound, and Fly Ventures also participated. The funding will support scaling Orbital’s data centre products, expanding its AI and eng