MENLO TIMES

e-peas, powering the future with ambient energy, led by Geoffroy Gosset, Julien De Vos, and the team, has announced the successful closing of USD 22-Million in financing led by Crédit Mutuel Innovation, with the support of its Belgian branch, alongside SFPI, the Belgian federal fund. E‑peas’ growth ambition and long-term vision perfectly align with these two investors' strategic objectives. The capital raise also included the continued support of e‑peas’ historic investors, i

Paradigm, a technology investment firm led by Matt Huang and the team, has raised its fourth fund: $1.2B to back the most ambitious builders at the frontier of technology. Founded in 2018, Paradigm invests in frontier technologies spanning crypto, AI, robotics, and advanced manufacturing, combining research and product development with venture investing. The firm backs founders across stages, with investments in companies such as Zipline, SendCutSend, True Anomaly, and Nous R

Prime Intellect, making frontier AI training accessible to every company, led by Vincent Weisser and Johannes Hagemann, has raised $130M, led by Radical Ventures, with participation from NVIDIA Ventures, Intel Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, and existing investors, bringing the total funding to over $150M to build the open superintelligence stack. Reinforcement learning (RL) is reshaping how frontier AI systems are built. While pre-training concentrated advanced AI develo

Manna, the leader in autonomous drone delivery, led by Bobby Healy, Alan Hicks, and the team, launches its first full-scale metropolitan U.S. operation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, establishing the city as our central operational base in the United States. Founded in Ireland in 2018, Manna has completed nearly 380,000 deliveries globally using its autonomous drone delivery platform. The company plans to create more than 1,000 jobs in Tulsa over the next three years across aviation, op

Axle Energy, connecting EVs, batteries, and heat pumps to energy markets through a single, unified API, led by Karl Bach and Archy de Berker, has raised a $25m Series A led by Energize Capital, with continued participation from existing investors Accel, Picus Capital, and Eka. Axle has spent the past three years building a platform that enables distributed energy assets such as batteries, EVs, and heat pumps to participate in electricity markets. The company has delivered hun

Bohr Energie, a French scale-up specializing in the aggregation, optimization, and management of distributed renewable and storage assets, announced a €10 million Series A funding round led by Suma Capital through its SC Net Zero Ventures fund, dedicated to European scale-ups developing technologies for energy transition and decarbonization, with participation from Irdi Capital Investissement, GSO Capital, and Crédit Agricole. Existing investors Varsity, Founders Future, and

Venus Aerospace, revolutionizing rocket engine propulsion, led by Sassie Duggleby, Andrew Duggleby, PhD, PE, and the team, has announced the close of a $91 million Series B financing led by Mercury Fund, a Houston-based venture capital firm, with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity, Seraph Group, Trousdale Ventures, and other new and existing strategic and institutional investors. The

Expeditions, investing in the future of European security, led by Mikołaj Firlej and Stanisław Kastory, has announced the final close of its second fund at €197M. Expeditions’ Fund II is investing in the technologies and founders that are shaping the future of European defence and strengthening its sovereignty, helping to define Europe’s role in the world over the next century. Founded in 2021 by defence technology and autonomous warfare experts Dr. Mikolaj Firlej and Stanis

Norm AI, setting the norms of agentic law, led by John Nay and the team, has raised a $120 million Series C at a $1.2 billion valuation, led by Khosla Ventures, the first institutional investor in OpenAI. Blackstone, Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), Craft Ventures, Coatue, Vanguard, New York Life, TIAA, Tony James (former President, Chief Operating Officer, and Executive Vice Chairman of Blackstone), Jeff Hammes (former Chairman of Kirkland & Ellis), and Fenwick LLP also particip

Tangos, building investigation intelligence for risk and financial crime, led by Eyal Azoulay and the team, has raised a $20 million seed financing round led by Red Dot Capital Partners, with participation from Leaders Fund, Clarim Ventures, Ventureisrael, Signal Fire, Clutch Capital, and Selah Ventures, and a strategic investment by Bright Data. Founded in 2025 by serial entrepreneur Eyal Azoulay, Tangos brings together expertise across financial crime investigations, sancti

Agave, building AI financial operations for contractors, led by Tom Reno, Pooria Azimi, and John Zucchi, has announced a $15M Series A led by Accel, with continued participation from Y Combinator, bringing the total funding to over $20M. With 500+ customers, 2+ years of profitability, and nearly 3x year-over-year recurring revenue growth, Agave is scaling AI for construction financials, deeply integrated with the systems contractors use today. Construction Runs on Decades-Old

Porelio, an innovative startup developing novel materials that solve two of today’s most urgent environmental challenges: recovering critical metals for the circular economy, and removing persistent pollutants like PFAS from water, led by Dr. Rhea Machado, Javier Silva Mora, and Nikol Michailidou, has raised €2.4 million pre-seed funding round led by Faber (Portugal) with participation from Polytechnique Ventures (France), alongside Grupo Tecnológica (Spain) and better ventur

Katalyze AI, the agentic operating system for pharmaceutical companies, led by Reza Farahani, Shreyas Becker, has raised $10.5 million in seed funding led by Bonfire Ventures, along with Inovia Capital, Ripple Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and leading angel investors including Gokul Rajaram and Farzad Soleimani. Katalyze’s platform lets any scientist, engineer, or analyst in a biopharma company build teams of agents that take on real engineering, scientific, and manufacturing wo

Alqem, a German-Portuguese deep-tech start-up revolutionizing the discovery of high-impact materials through advanced AI and intelligent synthesis, led by Hanh Nguyen, Tiago Cerqueira, and Milan Allan, has raised €8 million in pre-seed funding co-led by UVC Partners and Union Square Ventures. Founded by the team behind Alexandria, one of the world's leading open materials databases, alqem is building an AI-powered materials discovery platform on two proprietary assets: a vas

Aylight, the company that developed a fundamentally new optical frequency comb laser architecture- one that delivers unprecedented wavelength stability, energy efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, led by Bahareh Marzban and Dmitry Kazakov, has raised a €4.5M pre-seed financing round, co-led by Elaia and Swisscom Ventures with participation from Verve Ventures and Plug and Play. The funding takes Aylight's laser from a research result to first prototypes, manufactured in a semi

Climentum Capital, investing in climate hard tech companies shaping a sustainable, resilient, and competitive Europe, led by General Partners Doerte Hirschberg, Dr. Jennifer Jacobs Dungs, Morten Halborg, and Stefan Maard, has announced the close of the first €60 million of Fund II, matching the full size of Fund I. The new fund will continue backing hard tech for a new Europe, investing in climate hard tech companies shaping a sustainable, resilient, and competitive industria

Wultra, building digital identity for today and the quantum era, led by Petr Dvorak, has announced a €6.8 million Series A funding round backed by lead investor Seventure Partners, followed by ARIADNEXT founders Marc Norlain and Guillaume Despagne and existing investors J&T Ventures and Elevator Ventures. The funding will accelerate the expansion of Wultra's digital identity platform, support international growth, and advance its post-quantum authentication capabilities. The

Nebex, building the exchange for the global space economy, led by Tejpaul Bhatia, Anand Subramanian, and the team, has raised a $30M seed investment led by GV (Google Ventures), with participation from other top-tier venture funds. The company also announced a banking relationship with J.P. Morgan. The funding and new banking partnership will support Nebex's expansion, enabling the platform to better connect sovereign space programs with the founders and companies developing

StirlingX, a sovereign intelligence platform turning multi-sensor data into critical insight, led by Dean Jones and the team, has announced a $20m Series A led by Ventura Capital and RCM Private Markets Master Fund managed by Rokos Capital Management US (LP). Chaired by the former Director of GCHQ, StirlingX is tackling one of modern national security's most pressing challenges: enabling the secure capture and rapid use of high-value data across complex and contested environm

OXMIQ, a GPU and AI architecture company with expertise spanning every layer of the AI stack, led by Raja Koduri and the team, has closed its $35 million Series A financing, bringing the company's total capital raised to $60 million. The round was co-led by Fundomo and Samsung Catalyst Fund, with participation from MediaTek, AM Intelligence Labs, Pegatron Venture Capital, CDIB-TEN, Darwin Ventures, and Morgan Creek Digital, among other financial and strategic investors. OXMIQ