MENLO TIMES

Aavuus, a Finnish deep-tech company building infrastructure for a new era of orbital safety, led by Joonas Jokela, Jouni Peltoniemi, and Brian Dunne, has secured a pre-seed investment from Maki.vc. Improving Space Traffic Awareness. Aavuus is building a global network of ground-based laser tracking stations designed to provide significantly more precise orbital data than today's commercial tracking systems. The company is targeting a growing challenge in Low Earth Orbit: the

Invisible-Light Labs, a TU Wien spin-off developing infrared analysis technology for nanoscale materials, led by Dr. Josiane P. Lafleur, MBA, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Silvan Schmid, Dr. Hajrudin Bešić, M.Sc., and Dr. Niklas Luhmann, M.Sc., has closed a €1.5 million pre-seed round co-led by XISTA Science Ventures and aws Gründungsfonds, with participation from Fund F. Accelerating Commercialization And Product Expansion. The funding will support the global commercialization of the com

ERC System, closing Europe's critical capability gap in the sky, led by Dr. David Löbl, Dr. Christopher Schropp, and Maximilian Oligschläger, has announced the launch of “Victor”, a dual-use heavy-lift cargo UAS designed for critical missions in fields such as defense, commercial logistics, and disaster response. Unveiled publicly at the ILA Berlin 2026, Victor is designed to address a key military logistics challenge by providing a scalable, deployable solution for...

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

ICEYE, building actionable intelligence for resilience, readiness & response, led by Rafal Modrzewski, Pekka Laurila, and Eric Jensen, has raised EUR 450 million (USD 520 million) in a primary Series F funding round led by General Atlantic, at a valuation of over EUR 10 billion (USD 12 billion). Additional investors include Solidium, Tesi, Varma, Ilmarinen, Lifeline Ventures, as well as Nokia from Finland, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and TCV. Together with a secondary p

Skyfora, building hyper-local weather intelligence, led by Fredrik Borgström, Kim Kaisti, Jostein Mælan, Marja Mattila, and Christoffer von Schantz, has raised €6.5 million. The round includes equity participation from Eviny Ventures, Ugly Duckling Ventures, Lumo Labs, and the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, alongside non-dilutive funding from Business Finland. Rising Demand For Weather Intelligence. The funding comes as demand for high-resolution weather data continu

Pitchdrive, backing the boldest founders and build alongside them from day one, led by Boris Bogaert, Koen Christiaens, Wim Derkinderen, Jonas Dhaenens, Lorenz Bogaert, and the team, has announced the closing of its fourth fund at €60 million, strengthening its commitment to the Co-founder Capital model. Fund IV is fully privately backed, with no government or institutional money, unusual for a European fund of this size. Strong Investor Demand. The fund attracted significant

Sakana AI, building frontier AI in Japan, led by David Ha, Llion Jones, and Ren Ito, has announced the formal establishment of the Sakana AI RSI Lab, a dedicated research group within Sakana AI, tasked with redesigning the AI development process itself with AI. Building The Next Generation Of Self-Improving AI. Sakana AI believes the future of AI will be driven not by ever-larger monolithic models, but by adaptive systems capable of continuously improving themselves. Drawing

Juno Propulsion, building the next-generation rocket propulsion with rotating detonation combustion, led by Alexis Harroun and Ari Martinez, has announced the successful close of a $1.4 million pre-seed financing round led by SOSV, with participation from Hypernova Fund, Leslie Ventures, Activate, Collaborative Fund, Safar Partners, and Cape Fear Ventures. The funding will accelerate development and flight qualification of Project IRIS, Juno’s rotating detonation combustion (

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

Neworbit, engineering earth's lowest orbiting satellites, led by Anatolii Papulov and Ruslan Rakhimov, has raised $18.5 million in an oversubscribed Series A, led by Voyager and joined by angel investors including David Kirk (former Chief Scientist at NVIDIA) and Lawrence Leuschner (co-founder and former CEO of TIER Mobility), the family office Custos, and continued backing from Atlantic.vc, Lifeline Ventures, LGF, and Illusian. Commercial aircraft fly at around 10 kilometers

Companion.energy, the platform for power pioneers navigating the energy transition, led by Thomas Vyncke and Jonas Verstraeten, has announced the close of a €7.8 million seed round led by Realyze Ventures (Germany) and Pi Labs (United Kingdom), with participation from Asterion Ventures (France) and existing investors. Rapid Growth Driven by Enterprise Energy Management. Over the past year, the company increased both revenue and its customer base tenfold, surpassing €1 million

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.

Muon Space, designing, building, and operating satellite constellations optimized for your mission, led by Jonny Dyer(CEO and Co-Founder), Paul Day(VP Production and Co-Founder), Dan McCleese(Chief Scientist and Co-Founder), Reuben Rohrschneider(Chief Mission Architect and Co-Founder), and Pascal Stang(CTO and Co-Founder), has unveiled Condor-Ultra, its newest spacecraft platform developed for high-power, networked constellations of hundreds to thousands of satellites. Built

Helion, a Washington-based fusion energy company, led by Dr. David Kirtley(Founder & CEO), Chris Pihl(Co-Founder & CTO), and Dr. George Votroubek(Co-Founder & Principal Scientist), has announced a $465 million Series G investment round, bringing the total invested to date in Helion to $1.5 billion and valuing the company at $15.5 billion post-money. The raise was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from additional new investors, including Alta Park Capital, Anti Fund, B

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

IMU Biosciences, decoding the immune system with unprecedented resolution and scale to transform how we understand, diagnose, and treat disease, led by Adam Laing, Mario Cantero, John Baker, and Thomas Hayday, has successfully brought its Series A to over $53 million (£40 million) in an oversubscribed financing round, co-led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures, and supported by The British Business Bank, and Meltwind alongside existing investors. Building a Comprehensive Map o

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,

Coralogix, an AI-native platform and a data lake built for observability, led by Ariel Assaraf, Yoni Farin, and the team, has raised $200 million in Series F funding, co-led by Advent, CPPIB, and Greenfield, with participation from Brighton Park Capital, bringing total funding in Coralogix to $550M. Investors See Observability Becoming a Strategic Intelligence Layer. According to Alek Ferro, the rise of AI is transforming observability from a technical monitoring function int