MENLO TIMES

Indico Capital Partners , supporting the best, most unique, and scalable high-tech and sustainable companies, led by Stephan de Moraes, Ricardo Torgal, Cristina Fonseca, Rui Rodrigues, Sofia Egídio, André Almeida Santos, and others, launched  its 6th fund, Indico VC Fund III, with a capital target of €125 million,   a pivotal moment for the firm and the entire Southern European VC ecosystem.  The fund has successfully secured a major anchor commitment of €30 million from The

Besimple AI , building the data layer for AI, led by Yi Zhong and Bill Wang, has secured  $3M in a seed round from Y Combinator , Surgepoint Capital , Porterfield Ventures, Amino Capital , WELIGHT Capital , Multimodal Ventures , Script Capital , and several amazing angel investors. The concept originated from challenges encountered at Meta, where training advanced AI models demanded vast amounts of high-quality data, an increasingly difficult resource to obtain. After years o

Yoodli , the company on a mission to help people communicate with confidence, led by Varun Puri, Padmashree Koneti, Esha Joshi, Derek Sessions, Andy Larson, Betsy McKibbin, and others, has secured  a $40M Series B fundraise, led by  WestBridge Capital  with participation from Neotribe  and  Madrona . This funding marks Yoodli’s rapid progression to Series B, arriving just months after its Series A announcement in May and bringing total capital raised to nearly $60 million. Th

CoinMENA , Headquartered in the Kingdom of Bahrain and licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) as a crypto asset service provider (category-3), led by Talal Tabbaa, Dina Sam'an, and Yazan Barghuthi, has officially joined  forces with Paribu , Türkiye’s leading digital asset platform and one of the few to receive authorization from the Turkish Capital Markets Board (CMB), in a transaction valued at up to USD 240 million. This strategic acquisition unites two regional lea

Multifactor , redefining zero-trust so you can protect your accounts with confidence, led by Vivek Nair, Ph.D. and Colin Roberts, Ph.D., has secured $15M seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners , with participation from amazing funds like Y Combinator , Taurus Ventures , Honeystone Ventures , Flex Capital , Pioneer Fund , Ritual Capital , Liquid2 Ventures  and leading operators across security, AI and enterprise software including Mohan Warrior & Padma Warrior, Gokul Rajaram

Nexus Venture Partners , backing extraordinary founders at seed and Series A, helping them build product-first companies that redefine their categories, led by Abhishek Sharma, Anand Datta, Anup Gupta, Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Pratik Poddar, Suvir Sujan, and others, has   announced  the closing of Nexus Ventures VIII, a $700 million fund to back exceptional founders building AI, enterprise software, consumer and fintech startups at inception, seed, and Series A stages in the US

The Flywheel , the Thessaloniki(Greece)-based Venture Studio, led by Kostas Fetfatsidis and Dimitrios Kourtesis, will start  its first cohort in Q1 2026 with five paid Founder-in-Residence placements and up to €300k in funding, to build Europe’s next industrial AI champions. A new venture studio, The Flywheel, offers professionals with deep industry or technical expertise a structured path to creating industrial AI companies in Europe. Based in Thessaloniki, the studio co-fou

Curvestone AI , the platform for regulated firms to automate complex tasks with code‑simple AI flows, led by Dawid Kotur and Sebastian Kotur, has secured $4 million in seed funding, led by  MTech Capital  with participation from  Boost Capital Partners ,  D2 Fund , and  Portfolio Ventures . The funding round will advance Curvestone AI’s mission to make AI automation truly dependable for financial services, legal, and insurance teams. Most AI tools excel at isolated tasks but

Alinia AI , the company on a mission to make the deployment of Generative AI safer, led by Ariadna Font Llitjós and Carlos Muñoz Ferrandis, has secured  a $7.5 million seed round led by  Mouro Capital , with participation from  Raise Seed For Good ,  Speedinvest , and  Precursor Ventures . Development of the enterprise-grade Guardrails API and AI Compliance Platform is set to accelerate, enabling regulated organizations to deploy generative AI with embedded real-time auditing

Verkada , an American leader in cloud-based physical security, led by Filip Kaliszan, Hans Robertson, James Ren, and Benjamin Bercovitz, has secured  an investment from Alphabet's independent growth fund, CapitalG ,  valuing the company at $5.8 billion, a $1.3 billion increase from Series E earlier this year. More than 2 million devices from Verkada are now deployed across 171 countries, unifying video security, access control, sensors, intercoms, and alarms on a single platf

Autolane , developing hardware & software infrastructure for autonomous commerce, led by   Ben Seidl and Andy Seidl, has secured  $7.4 million in funding co-led by Draper Associates  and Hyperplane , with participation from LAUNCH and Feld Ventures . The funding will accelerate Autolane’s expansion across retail, restaurant, and commercial properties. Supporting autonomous ride-hailing and delivery vehicles, its infrastructure has demonstrated up to 50% reductions in curbside

Donna , eliminating the admin burden for field sales, led by Nicolas Christiaen, Jonas Deprez, Xander Berkein, and others, has secured $4.8 M seed round, led by Frontline Ventures , with participation from existing funds: Pitchdrive , Fortino Capital , WeLoveFounders , Syndicate One , New School , Everywhere Ventures , and a group of seasoned angel investors. The funding will be used to deepen Donna’s product leadership and scale go-to-market operations across Europe and the

Orq.ai , the all-in-one platform to build reliable LLM apps, led by Sohrab Hosseini  and Anthony Diaz , has secured raised €5 million in seed funding, led by  Seed + Speed Ventures  and  Galion exe , with continued support from  Curiosity VC ,  Spacetime ,  XO Ventures ,  xdeck ventures ,  Waves Capital , and  GoldenEggCheck , bringing the total funding to €7.3 million since the company’s founding in 2022. Strategic advisors joining include industry leaders such as Sam Bourto

Female Founders Fund , investing in the exponential power of exceptional female talent, led by Anu Duggal, Julie Cerick, Zabreen Khan, and Layla Alexander, has raised  its fourth fund at $29 million, raised between November 2023 and this month. It brings Female Founders Fund’s total capital under management to $140 million across five funds, including a $14 million opportunity fund. LPs in the newest fund include firms headed by notable women: Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ve

PermitFlow , the leading AI pre-construction platform built for construction and trades, led by Francis Thumpasery and Samuel Lam, has secured  a $54 million Series B funding round, led by  Accel  with participation from  Kleiner Perkins ,  Felicis ,  Initialized Capital ,  Altos Ventures ,  Y Combinator , and other existing investors. Since its 2021 launch, PermitFlow has scaled its construction platform and AI agents to manage over $20 billion in construction value nationwi

Moonshot Space , an Israeli startup building an affordable, on-demand delivery system for space infrastructure, led by Hilla Haddad Chmelnik, Fred Simon, and Shahar Bahiri, has emerged  from stealth with $12 million in funding to continue the development of a launch system, powered by electromagnetism. Moonshot plans to offer A&D primes its technology as a hypersonic test platform, while progressively developing capabilities to provide orbital launch services for companies se

Antares , building purpose-designed modular power for defense-critical assets, led by Jordan Bramble  and  Julia DeWahl , has secured $96 million in Series B led by Shine Capital  with participation from Alt Capital , Caffeinated , 53 Stations , Industrious Ventures , and others. The capital provides the momentum and discipline needed to achieve a milestone not seen in the United States for decades: the ability to design, build, and test nuclear reactors within a few years ra

Titan OS , a technology company headquartered in Barcelona, specializes in developing software and solutions to unleash the full potential of Connected TV, led by Jacinto Roca, Tim Edwards, Daan Van Baars, Jim Collins, and others, has secured  €50 million in Series A funding, led by Highland Europe , with participation from Mangrove Capital Partners  and other investors. Founded in 2023 by entrepreneur Jacinto Roca, previously the founder of Wuaki.tv , later acquired by Rakut

Expedition Growth Capital , a growth equity firm empowering bootstrapped
software founders, led by Oliver Thomas, Will Sheldon, Steve Twomey, David Olsson, and others, has raised  its third fund of $375 million, continuing its focus on partnering with rapidly growing companies from across Europe that have built high-quality products and customer bases, without venture capital. Since launching in late 2020, Expedition has assembled a portfolio of 17 bootstrapped software leade

Bitstack , helping users invest and save in bitcoin, led by Kabir Sethi & Alexandre Roubaud, has secured  a $15 million Series A funding round led by 13books Capital  and including existing investors AG2R LA MONDIALE, Plug and Play Ventures , Serena, Stillmark , and Y Combinator . Eurozone prices have climbed 23.4% since 2020, eroding purchasing power, according to the ECB. With its capped supply of 21 million, Bitcoin is gaining traction; nearly 4 million people in France no