MENLO TIMES

6 Degrees Capital , an early-stage investor backing companies at Seed & Series A, with substantial follow-on capital available for later rounds, led by Filip Coen, Maxime Vanderstichele, Lucas Stoops, Wouter Volckaert, Thomas Olszewski, Thibault D'hondt, and others, has closed  a €154 million fund, with the fund backing enterprise software, AI and fintech startups at seed and Series A stages. Fund III marks 6DC’s third fund since its launch in 2023. The vehicle will write ini

Future Energy Ventures , supporting ready-to-scale start-ups active in Europe, Israel, or the USA whose mission is to accelerate the energy transition and decarbonize society, led by Jan Lozek, Veronique Hördemann, Patrick Elftmann, Ohad Mamann, and others, has announced  the closing of Future Energy Ventures Fund II with a volume of €205 million, along with a dedicated capital fund for Italy of €30 million. With this milestone, FEV becomes the largest European advisor for...

Procure AI , the world’s first AI native Procurement Automation Platform, led by Konstantin von Büren, Yves Bauer, and Francesco Peroni, has secured  $13 million in seed funding led by Headline , with participation from C4 Ventures  and Futury Capital , as well as other notable angel investors from within the procurement industry. Procurement teams are under pressure to do more with less. Operational complexity affects 47% of B2B buyers, while 90% of companies cite limited he

Helio AI , an AI-powered recruiting platform with ATS and a gamified personality test, led by Iako Jikia , Nini Mosiashvili , Natia Kukhilava , and Sulkhan Sakhvadze , has secured a $1M seed round led by SABAH.fund , joined by  DOMiNO Ventures , Axiom, Tetrad VC , and Angel investor Bas Godska. The new funding will support global expansion of Helio’s AI Recruiting Agent, enhance product capabilities, and transform hiring processes in fast-growing markets. Helio AI pairs an in

Baobab Ventures , empowering early-stage, deep-tech founders to reach momentum, led by Carles Reina, has launched a $15 million solo GP fund to back pre-seed and seed stage founders building startups across AI, robotics, and defence. The fund has already backed companies like Murphy , Theker , Altan , and Omnia . The Fund is backed by institutional LPs Cendana Capital, Isomer Capital, RSJ Investments, Emergence Ventures, and Cyber Fund. Partners from Concept Ventures, Credo V

Kovant , an enterprise-grade AI agent executing operations autonomously, led by Ali Sarrafi, Dror Asaf, and Somil Gupta, has raised €1.5 million pre-seed capital led by Stockholm-based VC firm  J12 Ventures , with participation from  Ampli ,  Greens Ventures , and angel investors from tech veterans to industry leaders, including  Sara Öhrvall , board member at Axfood, Investor AB,  Verisure, and an angel investor, who will also be joining the Kovant board, and  Emmanuel Marti

Cerrion , a Switzerland-based AI video agent platform enabling real-time detection and resolution of production line disruptions, led by Karim Saleh and Dr. Nikolay Kobyshev, has raised  $18 million in Series A led by Creandum , with participation from existing investors Y Combinator , Goat Capital , 10x Founders  and Session VC , alongside prominent angels including Harry Stebbings (20VC), Oskar Hjertonsson, Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face) and Garret Langley (Flock Safety). Facto

PowerUP , developing and producing high-quality and sustainable energy generation products, led by Ivar Kruusenberg, Marit Riis, Kush Chadha, and Henri Kaar, has secured  a €10 million Series A funding round co-led by dual-use venture firms Mercaton and  ScaleWolf  and joined by Estonia’s SmartCap Green Fund  (funded by the European Union’s Next Generation EU), with strong participation from existing investors. The core of PowerUP’s strategy is a dual-use mission: providing r

Momentic , an automated testing platform built to help teams scale coverage, eliminate flaky tests, and ship with confidence, led by Wei-Wei Wu and Jeff An, has secured  a $15 million Series A led by Standard Capital , with participation from Dropbox Ventures  and existing investors Y Combinator , FCVC , Transpose Platform , and Karman Ventures . For years, automated testing has been promoted as the end of manual QA, with each new framework promising “write once, run forever”

Maritime Fusion , building a first-of-a-kind fusion reactor for marine and off-grid applications, led by Justin Cohen and Jason Kaufmann, has secured  $4.5 million in seed funding led by Trucks VC , with participation from Paul Graham, Aera VC , Alumni Ventures , Y Combinator , and others. The HTS magnet lab in San Francisco is now operational, enabling rapid testing of prototype cables and magnets. A recent bench test carried 5 kA through the SHIELD HTS cable using liquid ni

Sortera , the market-leading aluminum sorting company with an upcycling platform powered by artificial intelligence, data analytics, and advanced sensors, led by Michael Siemer, Curt Sacks, Benjamin Pope, Dr. Nalin Kumar, and others, announced  the close of $45 million in funding led by accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates  and VXI Capital , with participation from Yamaha Motor Ventures  and Overlay Capital , with an additional equipment funding from Trinity Capital .

Point One Navigation , a leader in high-precision location technology, led by Aaron Nathan, Mike Kurdziel, Karen Leineweber, and Ryan Dougherty, has announced  a $35 million Series C oversubscribed funding round led by  Khosla Ventures , with participation from existing investors including IA Ventures , UP Partners , and Alumni Ventures .  The capital will drive infrastructure expansion, accelerate software innovation, and advance OEM integration, while also enabling team gro

PolyModels Hub , optimizing pharma process in one place, led by Antonio Benedetti, Harry Christodoulou, PhD, and Antonio Yankey, has secured  £7 million in a Series A round led by  Molten Ventures , with participation from  Marathon Venture Capital , to accelerate the digital transformation of biopharma process development. The technology to truly automate AR didn’t exist until recently. Stuut now executes AR end-to-end, from outreach to payment collection, using AI that main

Stuut AI , an AI coworker that autonomously handles collections, cash application, payments, and deductions across SMS, email, and voice, led by Tarek Alaruri, Miraj Mohsin, and Ben Winter, has secured $29.5M in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz , with participation from Activant Capital , Khosla Ventures , 1984.vc , Page One Ventures , Vesey Ventures , Carya Venture Partners , and Valley Ventures. Companies lose up to 5% of EBITDA to manual AR tasks. Traditional so

Suno , building a revolutionary creative platform powered by the world's best music model, led by Mikey Shulman, Martin Camacho, and Georg Kucsko, has secured  $250M Series C at a $2.45B post-money valuation, led by Menlo Ventures , with participation from NVentures  (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Hallwood Media , Lightspeed , and Matrix.  Music has always been humanity’s most powerful form of expression, yet creating it has often been inaccessible. Suno is changing that: ov

Jiga , an AI-native platform transforming the entire sourcing workflow, led by Adar Hay, Assaf Geuz, and Yonatan Wolowelsky, has closed a $12M Series A led by Aleph , with participation from Symbol  and Y Combinator . The team has spent years solving sourcing challenges, streamlining RFQ workflows, standardizing drawings, and enabling direct manufacturer communication, to ensure custom parts procurement no longer slows innovation in rockets, robots, satellites, and other cutt

Maxima , maxizing every company’s long-term financial performance by making their financial data accurate, accessible, and actionable through real-time accounting, led by Yogi Goel, Akshaya Srivatsa, and Jack Liao, has announced $41 million in Seed and Series A funding, led by Redpoint , Kleiner Perkins , and Audacious Ventures . The accounting function is under unprecedented strain: record-high restatements, record-low talent inflow, and rising complexity across standards an

Automat , simplifying business process automation, led by Gautam Bose and Lucas Ochoa, has raised  a $15.5M Series A led by  Felicis , with participation from  Initialized ,  Khosla Ventures , and  Y Combinator , with follow-on from K5 Global  and Input Capital , bringing the total capital raised to $19.25M. Automat delivers a simple way to build AI agents that operate computers like humans, offering a modern alternative to legacy RPA tools. Operators can demonstrate workflow

Doppel , defending your brand and people from social engineering attacks, led by Kevin Tian , Rahul Madduluri, Mike Ferrari, Bobby Ford, and others, has secured $70M Series C, led by returning investors Bessemer Venture Partners  alongside Andreessen Horowitz , South Park Commons , Script Capital , 9Yards Capital , Sozo Ventures , and Strategic Cyber Ventures . In addition, new investors include George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Aurum Partners, the invest

Condukt , the next-generation compliance platform for financial services, led by Paulo Guichard and Bhasker Rao, has secured  US$10 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners  and MMC Ventures , with participation from Cocoa Ventures . The funding will accelerate Condukt’s mission to reinvent KYB and make compliance a driver of growth. Launched in 2023, Condukt already powers compliance for leading fintechs like Wise, Tide, Mollie, Rakuten, Shift4, Flatpay, and myP