MENLO TIMES

BLUECORE ENERGY, a maritime nuclear energy company developing compact, water-cooled nuclear power systems, led by Kofi Asante and the team, has announced the close of a $50 million seed financing to accelerate development, testing, and deployment of its floating nuclear energy systems. The financing represents a significant expansion of Bluecore Energy’s initial $10 million pre-seed round announced when the company emerged from stealth in July. The round, led by Silverton Par

The Exploration Company, a European space company scaling globally, led by Hélène Huby, announced a $450 million Series C financing, the largest-ever Series C announced by a European space company. It also marks the largest funding round ever secured by an EU-headquartered company led by a female founder and CEO. The round is co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico, and the Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, with participation from TEC’s existing European backers inclu

Stoke Space Technologies, Inc, the rocket company developing fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicles, led by Andy Lapsa, Tom Feldman, and the team, has announced that it has completed an initial closing of its billion-dollar Series E financing round. This funding brings Stoke’s total capital raised to $2.3 billion and will support the company as it prepares for its first orbital launch, expands production and launch capacity, and accelerates development of its larger Nova

Ground A, a German defence tech company, led by Dr. Tobias Brune, Daniel Hariri, Roland Spiegelhalder, and the team, has closed a pre-seed financing round of more than EUR 9 million in June, led by Vsquared Ventures with participation from Quantum Systems, as well as venture capital investors including GRIF, Robin Capital, ABACON, Leblon Capital and OVNI Capital. Also on board at Ground A are experienced entrepreneurs and investors from the European defence and software indus

Mistral, the Paris-based AI company, led by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothee Lacroix, has raised €3 billion in a Series D funding round at a post-money valuation of more than €21 billion, the largest equity fundraising round ever completed by a European technology company, three years after the company's launch. Samsung Electronics led the round, joined by co-leads Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity. Advent, funds and accounts m

By Julia Maslennikova, founder & CEO of 25/8 PR, an international agency for startups & tech companies. This is an Op-Ed on Operators' Stack, Menlo Times. A startup can create an excellent product and successfully build its media presence, yet still go unnoticed when a potential customer asks an AI for information about it. I see this as a real business problem, since people are increasingly using ChatGPT and other LLMs to search companies, compare products, and decide who t

Molten Ventures, a leading venture capital firm with a 20-year track record of investing in and developing disruptive high-growth technology companies across Europe and the UK, announced the first close of its Growth Fund at £175 million. The British Business Bank has committed £75 million as a cornerstone investor. Molten Ventures has committed the remaining £100 million of the first close and will continue to seek additional investors, with the aim of growing the Growth Fun

Pixxel, the planetary infrastructure company, led by Awais Ahmed, Kshitij Khandelwal, and the team, has announced the close of its $100 million Series C funding round, co-led by Temasek and Seraphim, with participation from new investors 360 ONE Asset, IMM Investment, and existing investors Radical Ventures, growX ventures, and others. The round brings Pixxel’s total funding to $195 million. The investment also marks the single largest funding round raised by a space technolo

Gimlet Labs, an applied research lab dedicated to building next-generation AI infrastructure, led by Zain Asgar, Michelle Nguyen, Omid Azizi, Natalie Serrino, James Bartlett, and the team, has announced $300M Series B raise, led by Andreessen Horowitz and joined by Sapphire Ventures, Menlo Ventures, 645 Ventures, Arm, Eclipse, Emergence, Factory, Hudson River Trading, M12, OnePrime Capital, Prosperity7, QuantumLight, Samsung Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Triatomic, Wing

Atira, building Multi-Agent Orchestration for Industrial Sales Processes, led by Florian Diegruber and August DuMont Schütte, has announced a $15M Seed round led by Accel, which, together with the previously unannounced pre-seed (UVC, Fortino Ventures, booom), brings total funding to $17.5M. The round includes industry leaders like Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Marc Bitzer (CEO of the Whirlpool Corporation), Dr. Markus Flik (multiple industrial boards), and Bastian Nominacher (co-f

Sirdab, simplifying commerce & logistics through technology, led by Naif Alzahri and Abdulrahman Alnamlah, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by new investor Elm, the PIF-backed digital solutions company, and existing investor BECO Capital. Other backers include Y Combinator, COTU Ventures, and D Global Ventures. Founded in 2022, Sirdab gives businesses a single platform to access, manage, and scale logistics, covering warehousing, transportation

Octave.energy, providing cutting-edge energy management and storage systems, led by Maxime Snick, Nicolas Quintin, and the team, has raised €10 million in Series A funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe and further develop its Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and Energy Management System (EMS) solutions. The round combines equity and flexible debt financing and was led by SPDG Growth, an investor in Octave.energy since its seed round, with participation from im

iPronics, a pioneer in silicon photonics-based optical circuit switching for AI infrastructure, led by Christian Dupont, Daniel Pérez-López, and the team, has announced $125 million in Series B funding co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital. NVIDIA joined the round, with participation from new and existing investors including Triatomic Capital, Bosch Ventures, Catalight Capital, European Innovation Council Fund, The Tate Family Trust, Fine Structure Ventures, Ama

Lyte, the physical AI perception company led by Alexander Shpunt, Dr. Arman Hajati, and Dr. Yuval Gerson, has announced a $165 million Series C financing led by Maverick Silicon. The round values Lyte at $1.6 billion post-money. The round included Fidelity Management & Research Company, which led Lyte's Series B, along with Atreides Management, Key1 Capital, Ora Global (formerly Exor Ventures), and additional existing and new investors. Total capital raised since the company'

HiddenLayer, the most comprehensive security platform for AI, led by Chris Sestito, Tanner Burns, James Ballard, and the team, has announced a $100 million Series B funding round led by Delta-v Capital, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund, and Booz Allen Ventures. The company will use the funding to expand its enterprise platform, including Agentic Runtime Security and Agent Harness Security, a new solution designed to se

Conveo, a qualitative research platform that conducts in-depth, AI-moderated interviews, led by Dieter De Mesmaeker and Hendrik Van Hove, has announced a $50 million Series A funding round from DST Global Partners, Balderton Capital, Visionaries, 6 Degrees Capital, and Y Combinator. The round brings total funding to $55.8 million and will drive its U.S. expansion as Conveo evolves from a research tool into infrastructure the entire enterprise runs on. More than 400 enterprise

Wonderful, building applied AI for the enterprise, led by Bar Winkler, Roey Lalazar, and the team, has announced the closing of a $550 million Series C funding round at a $5B valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Salesforce and existing investors Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures, 9Yards, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Since its Series B in March 2026, Wonderful has expanded to 35+ markets, grown to 650 employees, and evolved its platform

HyImpulse, a leading European launch services company developing and providing suborbital and orbital launch capabilities based on a proprietary propulsion technology, led by Dr. Christian Schmierer, Dr. Mario Kobald, Konstantin Tomilin, and Ulrich Fischer, has announced a Series A Extension financing of more than €50 million in equity, co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital Partners, with participation from new investors, including North Ventures, BW-Capital, Bayern Kapital

Empirik, making agents system-aware, led by Kartik Chandrayana, Sudheer Dhurjati, and Avon Puri, has emerged out of stealth with $21 million in funding from Sequoia, S32, Canapi & Alumni Ventures. Software Is Becoming Autonomous. Infrastructure Is Still Manual. Coding agents are already writing, refactoring, and shipping software at machine speed, driving an explosion in infrastructure changes, from deployments and permissions to configuration updates and shifting dependenci

Air, the context firewall for AI agents, founded by Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, has announced that it is coming out of stealth. AI With Seatbelts. AI agents are becoming a fundamental part of enterprise knowledge work, with coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex seeing rapid adoption. Yet enterprises remain cautious about deploying them without stronger controls. Organizations face risks from employees using AI through personal accounts, untrusted agent harnesse