MENLO TIMES

Hydrosat , providing irrigation and crop management solutions to help governments preserve water while increasing farmers’ crop yields, led by Pieter Fossel and others, has announced  the close of $60 million in new funding to accelerate growth across commercial, civil government, and defense markets led by Hartree Partners ,  Subutai Capital Partners , and  Space 4 Earth , with new investment from  Truffle Capital . The round includes follow-on investment from the Luxembourg

Skene , automating onboarding, retention, and growth, so vibe-coders can focus on building, led by Teemu Kinos, Michele Boggia, and Teppo Hudsson, has closed  a €800,000 pre-seed round led by Superhero Capital  and with participation from NVIDIA executives. AI-driven development has created a $113B execution gap, where products ship faster than they achieve activation, adoption, or retention. With 42% of startups missing the market and over half of SaaS tools going unused, co

osapiens , a leading provider of enterprise software for sustainable growth, led by Stefan Wawrzinek, Alberto Zamora, Matthias Jungblut, Jörg Bernauer, and others, announced  that it had entered into an agreement with Decarbonization Partners , a joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek, to lead a US$ 100 million Series C fundraising round, subject to regulatory approvals. Decarbonization Partners  will join existing investors  Goldman Sachs Alternatives , which led the US

Cast AI , the leading Application Performance Automation platform, led by Yuri Frayman, Leon Kuperman, Laurent Gil, and others, has introduced OMNI Compute , a unified compute control plane that automatically discovers available resources across cloud providers and regions and transparently extends existing Kubernetes clusters to consume them. The company also announced a strategic investment from Pacific Alliance Ventures (PAV) , the U.S.-based corporate venture arm of Shins

Avenue Biosciences , the protein engineering platform enhancing production yield and the quality of your end product, led by Tero-Pekka Alastalo, Katja Rosti, Veli-Pekka Jaakola, Juulia Simonen, and Anton Klavus, has secured  $5.7M in seed extension funding round co-led by Balnord  and  Tesi , with support from existing investors  Voima Ventures , Inventure ,  University of Helsinki , and Dimerent, to scale a high-throughput protein engineering technology that accelerates the

Luxury Presence , the growth platform for real estate’s top performers, led by Malte Kramer, has raised  $37 million in new capital to accelerate the launch of Presence® CRM and deepen the data and intelligence layer that feeds our platform, including $22 million in Series C equity, led for the third time by Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Partners , with participation from NextEquity Partners , GSBackers , a Stanford alumni fund, including Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff,

Biographica , developing cutting-edge deep learning and knowledge graph technology to identify and prioritise high-value targets for crop gene-editing, led by Cecily Price and Dominic Hall, PhD, has raised £7 million in a funding round led by  Faber VC , with participation from SuperSeed , Cardumen Capital , The Helm , EQT Foundation , and Sie Ventures . The round also included existing investors Chalfen Ventures , Entrepreneurs First , Nucleus Capital , Dhyan Ventures , Sara

Even Healthcare , a healthcare company based out of Bengaluru that offers comprehensive health covers for individuals and businesses, led by Mayank Banerjee, Matilde Giglio, and Alessandro Ialongo, has secured  $20 Mn (INR 180.5 Cr) in a fresh funding round from existing investors like Lachy Groom and Alpha Wave , as well as new investor Sharrp Ventures , among others. The startup plans to use the new capital to expand its hospital presence in Bengaluru following the launch o

Naxatra Labs , bringing groundbreaking axial and radial flux motor technology to the world of electric mobility, led by Abhilash Maurya , Arnav Biswas , and Piyush Verma , has raised  $3 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Rainmatter with participation from Mohit Tandon (Delhivery), Himanshu Aggarwal (Aspiring Minds), Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Paytm), Aloke Bajpai (Ixigo), Anupam Jalote (iCEM), Narayan (Ather Energy), and others. The proceeds will support product expan

AIO , an Estonian biotechnology company developing sustainable, non-animal fats and oils through innovative fermentation processes, led by Nemailla Bonturi, PhD, Petri-Jaan Lahtvee, PhD, Mary-Liis Kütt, PhD, and others, has been awarded  a €1.2 million grant from Enterprise Estonia  to advance its new project FERM-OIL. The total budget of the project is €2.3 million. Over three years, the project will scale ÄIO’s Flavoured Fat, a lipid-rich yeast ingredient with umami taste,

Trigger.dev , the open source platform for building AI agents and workflows in TypeScript, led by Matt Aitken, Eric Allam, Dan Patel, and James Ritchie, has secured  a $16M Series A led by Standard Capital , with new investment from Michael Grinich and the CTO fund. Existing investors, including  Y Combinator ,  Liquid 2 ,  Wayfinder Ventures ,  Pioneer Fund , and  Rebel Fund , also participated again in the round. Trigger.dev empowers developers to build production-grade AI

Ben , the London-based platform using AI to help global enterprises manage employee benefits, led by David Duckworth and Sebastian Fallert, has raised $27.5m (£20.8m) led by Mercia Ventures  with strong participation from existing investors Atomico , Cherry Ventures , DN Capital , and Seedcamp , along with new backing from Revolut founder Nik Storonsky’s QuantumLight Capital .  The investment comes amid rapid growth, fueled by strong adoption among enterprises previously usin

MoEngage , empowering consumer marketers with AI-powered tools to succeed in a fast-paced, competitive, digital-first, and multi-channel world, led by Raviteja Dodda, Yashwanth Kumar, Yashwanth Reddy, Narasimha Reddy, Krishna Reddy, Nalin Goel, Ajish Nair, and others, has closed  an additional $180 million as part of Series F, bringing the total round to $280 million, led by new investors ChrysCapital  and Dragon Funds , alongside Schroders Capital , with continued participat

Leona Health , the AI-powered assistant built for doctors to securely and intelligently manage patient care through WhatsApp, led by Caroline Merin, Tom Chokel, and Arela Solis, announced  its launch with backing from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), General Catalyst, Accel, and seasoned tech luminaries, including David Vélez, co-founder and CEO of Nubank, Simón Borrero, co-founder and CEO of Rappi, and Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven Clinic.  In Latin America, WhatsApp is th

Mindoo , the European platform for deploying safe and governed agentic workflows in healthcare, led by Dr. Gauthier Willemse and Bart Lens, has secured  €5 million in seed financing from 6DC , Syndicate One , and a group of strategic angel investors.  The investment advances Mindoo’s mission to deliver a scalable AI workforce that automates routine tasks for hospitals and practices, easing staff pressure while keeping teams in control. Healthcare providers face a growing gap

MD One Ventures , Europe's first Defence and National Security Venture Capital, led by Will McManners, Kelvin Au, Edward Ebbern, and others, and Randox , a global diagnostics and healthcare company from the UK and Ireland, have announced  the launch of  Randox for Builders , a security and biotech incubator and accelerator for UK and European founders and their teams. Alongside funding, founders gain immediate access to world-class scientific, R&D, and commercial expertise, g

Trendtracker , predictive intelligence that turns trends into strategy, led by Vincent Defour, Mathias Colpaert, Valentijn Destoop, and others, has secured  $7 million Series A funding round led by  Armilar , with participation from existing investor  Capricorn Partners . The investment accelerates Trendtracker’s mission to deliver an autonomous AI strategy and foresight analyst that streamlines strategic research, planning, and decision support for organizations. Pedro Ribei

Channel3 , building a database of every product on the internet, led by Alexander Schiff, George Lawrence, Evan Fenster, and Ignacio Valdez, has secured a $6M seed round led by Matrix , joined by Y Combinato r and Ludlow Ventures . Last year, the team at Studio was building an AI teacher with personalized curriculums and needed reliable product recommendations. Existing APIs provided only articles or outdated listings, and indexing the entire product web was clearly a full co

Orbital Marine Power , the future of clean, predictable power solutions, led by Andrew Scott, Chris Milne, and Oliver Wragg, has secured £7 million in investment. PXN Ventures  – the combined VC arm of Praetura Ventures and Par Equity- joined existing shareholders, including Scottish Enterprise, to invest in Orbital. The investment follows strong momentum in Canada, where Nova Scotia recently awarded Orbital and Eauclaire Tidal Ltd major new tidal energy licenses through its

Assaia , providing airports and airlines with real-time visibility of turnaround operations, led by Christiaan Hen, Max Diez, Dmitry Chugreev, Jan Willem Kappes, Louise Niven, and others, has secured  $26.6 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round, led by European investment firm Armira Growth , alongside existing investors. The new capital will help Assaia scale its AI platform globally and launch new solutions to boost airport, airline, and ground-handler efficie