MENLO TIMES

Kraken Technology, a British-founded maritime defence company led by Mal Crease and the team, has announced the closure of its Series B funding round led by DTCP and supported by other British and European backers, including the British Business Bank, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Rheinmetall, Inocea Group, as well as Venture Capital (VC) firms HICO, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest and Hakluyt Capital. Early investors in the company such as NIF, the UK’s

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

QuantumDiamonds, the world's first commercially available quantum sensing system for semiconductor inspection, led by Dr. Fleming Bruckmaier and Kevin Berghoff, has announced the close of a €91 million funding round to scale production of its quantum-based semiconductor inspection technology. The financing combines an €15 million equity round led by World Fund with €76 million in non-dilutive funding approved at the EU level under the European Chips Act. The non-dilutive fund

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

SambaNova, the fastest AI inference platform, led by Rodrigo Liang, Kunle Olukotun, Christopher Re, and Lip-Bu Tan, has announced it has completed the first close of $1 billion in strategic financing as part of a Series F round, valuing the company at $11 billion post-money. This latest financing round was led by General Atlantic, a leading global investor, with significant investment from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and Capital Group. New and existing

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

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

Proxima Fusion, building stellarators to power the future, led by Francesco Sciortino, Lucio Milanese, Jorrit Lion, Jonathan Schilling, and Martin Kubie, has raised a €411 million ($468 million) financing round, bringing the company’s valuation to €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) and establishing Proxima as the best-funded fusion company in Europe. The round was led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE and Google as strategic investors. KfW Capital, SPRIND and Burda Princ

TaiSan, building next-gen sodium batteries for micromobility, led by Sanzhar Taizhan and the team, has raised £4.65M co-led by Eos Advisory, and the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II through fund manager Mercia Ventures, with participation from AFI Ventures, EverQuest Capital Partners, Adeline Arts & Science, Techmind, angel François Badelon, and existing investors InnoEnergy, TSP Ventures, Exergon, and Heartfelt. Of the total raised, £700,000 came from Innovate UK, which pr

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

CurifyLabs, powering a new generation of personalized therapies, led by Charlotta Topelius, Niklas Sandler, and the team, has announced the closing of a $14 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Sandwater and HealthCap, with participation from Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment Ltd.) and existing investors, including Lifeline Ventures. US customers and employees also participated in the round. The funding will support CurifyLabs' expansion in the U.S., streng

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

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

Quantum Systems, building the unmanned future, led by Florian Seibel, Sven Kruck, and Dave Sharpin, has announced the signing of its $1.2 billion Series D financing round, valuing the company at ~ $8 billion on a post-money basis. The round was co-led by Blackstone, Noteus, Airbus and Advent, and supported by a high-calibre syndicate of crossover and long-term institutional investors including BOND, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Wellington Management, A.P. Moller H

Etched, building frontier inference clusters led by Gavin Uberti, Robert Wachen, Chris Zhu, and the team, has emerged out of stealth with $1B+ in customer contracts and $800M raised. The Series B was led by Stripes, with participation from Ribbit Capital, Radical Ventures, Positive Sum, Primary, & Argo. Frontier Inference Infrastructure. The company builds hardware systems for frontier inference clusters, co-designing chips, racks, software, and manufacturing methods to optim

Realta Fusion, decarbonizing industrial heat and power with compact, scalable, modular – CoSMo fusion™ – energy systems, led by Kieran Furlong, MBA, Cary Forest, PhD., Jay Anderson, PhD., Ben Lindley, PhD., Oliver Schmitz, PhD., and the team, in collaboration with partners at the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated direct energy conversion (DEC) on the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM) prototype fusion device. This is the first time a commercial fusion company

Rocket Lab Corporation (Nasdaq: RKLB) (“Rocket Lab”), a global leader in launch and space systems and Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IRDM) (“Iridium”), a leading provider of global voice, data, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellite services, announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Rocket Lab will acquire Iridium. Rocket Lab will acquire all the outstanding shares of Iridium common stock for $54 per share in a cash and stock

64x Bio, enabling next-generation medicines, Lexi Rovner, PhD, George Church, PhD, David Thompson, PhD, Pamela Silver, PhD, Jeffrey Way, PhD, and the team, has announced the launch of LV Apex Suite, a new product line designed to support high-performance lentiviral vector manufacturing. Platform Expansion. The product launch marks 64x Bio's expansion into lentiviral vector production, extending the capabilities of its VectorSelect platform beyond adeno-associated virus (AAV)

Six Robotics, an Oslo-based company developing swarm autonomy as a force multiplier, led by Christian Fredrik Eggesbø, Mathias Nedrebø, Cecilie Hammer, Ole Jørgen Seeland, Oscar Heyden, and Kristine Angeltvedt, has raised a €12 million equity financing round led by DTCP, with participation from EIFO (Export and Investment Fund of Denmark) and Scale Capital, alongside other private investors. The funding will accelerate product development, expand customer deployments across E

GATE Space, the Austrian space company, led by Moritz Novak, Fabian Duschel, and the team, has won €6.3 million in funding through the European Commission’s EIC Accelerator program. The financing consists of a combination of research and development grants and equity investment implemented by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and is considered one of Europe’s most competitive technology funding instruments. Funding Utilization. GATE Space was the only company from the space,

1) Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. 2) Advanced Space LLC 3) Aerojet Rocketdyne of DE, Inc. 4) Apech Labs LLC 5) Astrobotic Technology, Inc. 6) Axiom Space, LLC 7) Blue Origin, LLC 8) Busek Co. Inc. 9) Canopy Aerospace Inc. 10) Chase Supply Inc. 11) Dcubed USA LLC 12) Elementum 3D, Inc. 13) Enduralock, LLC 14) General Galactic Technologies Corporation 15) Hebi Robotics, Inc. 16) Hyperion Transport Systems Inc. 17) Kall Morris Incorporated 18) Lockheed Martin Inc. 19) Lunar

ElevationSpace, creating a new path back from space to earth, led by Ryohei Kobayashi and the team, has raised a total of US $40 million in its Series B round through a third-party allotment of shares. Through the largest funding round in the company’s history, the close of the funding round brings the total amount raised since its founding to US $63.5 million, demonstrating the growing attention and confidence in the space transportation and low-Earth orbit (LEO) utilization

OpenAI and Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) have unveiled Jalapeño, OpenAI’s first Intelligence Processor: an accelerator architected around OpenAI’s vision for the future of LLM inference, and the first AI accelerator in a multi-generation compute platform the companies are building together to make advanced AI faster, more reliable, and more accessible to more people. Building the AI Stack In-House. OpenAI has taken delivery of its first custom AI chip, Jalapeño, from partners Broad

STARK, delivering the defence systems that Europe and NATO need now, led by Uwe Horstmann and the team, has announced a €500 million financing round to accelerate defence research, development, and manufacturing across Europe. The financing brings together investors from across the defence, technology, and institutional finance sectors, including Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, the NATO Innovation Fund, Project A, Air Street Capital, 201 Ventures, Advent, and Döpfner Capital.

Northwood Space, taking space missions further faster, led by Bridgit Mendler, Griffin Cleverly, Shaurya Luthra, and the team, has introduced high-throughput infrastructure for modern space missions - Prism. Expanding Space Data Infrastructure. Space communications infrastructure was built for an era when satellite traffic was limited, mission requirements were narrow, and data volumes were relatively small. Today's space economy operates under very different conditions. Grow

Sophia Space, building orbital compute and data centers, led by Rob DeMillo, Dr. Leon Alkalai, Brian Monnin, and Jim Chase, announced a strategic collaboration with satellite bus manufacturer Apex, while finalizing the closing of a $7 million financing round, bringing its total funding to $22 million, in a pair of moves designed to carry orbital edge computing from concept to operational reality. The round was led by EverGreen, the NVIDIA Alumni Investment Network, alongside

Groq, building fast, low-cost inference, has announced $650 million in new growth capital to accelerate the expansion of its AI inference cloud. The round was led by Disruptive and Infinitum, with participation from investors who elected to reinvest in the company. Groq’s current growth phase gained momentum following a licensing agreement with NVIDIA in late 2025 and the subsequent introduction of NVIDIA’s LPX platform, which incorporates Groq’s inference technology. These d

Nearfield Instruments, a semiconductor metrology equipment company developing and delivering ground-breaking process control metrology solutions for the worldwide advanced semiconductor I.C. manufacturing industry, led by Roland van Vliet and Hamed Sadeghian, has announced the successful closure of a $380 million Series D funding round led by new investor Fidelity Management & Research Company, along with Temasek, Walden Catalyst Ventures, Innovation Industries, M&G Investmen

Comand AI, building an AI-native command for defense and security operations, led by Loïc Mougeolle, Marie I., Quentin Le Pape, and Paul Mustière, has announced a €32 million Series A funding round at Eurosatory, led by Blossom Capital, with strategic investment from Saab, and with Expeditions renewing its participation in the company. The round will support the expansion of Comand AI’s AI-native command-and-control platform, Prevail, across NATO markets and into new operatio

Odyssey, an AI lab pioneering general world models, led by Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, has announced its $310 million Series B at a $1.45 billion valuation, led by Natural Capital, with participation from Amazon, GV, AMD Ventures, EQT, IQT, and others. They join existing investors including Jeff Dean, Elad Gil, Qasar Younis, Kyle Vogt, Garry Tan, alongside researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, MSL, Recursive, and Thinking Machines. Building the Foundation for World Models. Mo

Dawn Aerospace, building a scalable, sustainable space transportation network, with the frequency and reliability of aviation to seamlessly connect the Earth and space economies, led by Stefan Powell, Jeroen Wink, James Powell, Robert Werner, and Tobias Knop, has announced the close of its Series B funding round, raising $25 million at a $195 million post-money valuation. The round was led by US-based VC Balerion Space Ventures. Participants include Mana Ventures (US), ANA Fu

Katalyst Space, developing next-gen satellite and mission designs that break through the long cycle times, rigid architectures, and inflexibility in mission planning that dominate the space industry, led by Ghonhee Lee, Gavin Petit, and the team, has raised $12 million, led by Geodesic Capital, with significant participation from Fortitude Ventures and other investors to develop Katalyst’s NEXUS robotic spacecraft and expand satellite servicing to multi-orbit, multi-mission o

REGENT Craft, the developer and manufacturer of Seaglider vessels, led by Billy Thalheimer, Mike Klinker, and the team, has announced the completion of the world's first Seaglider Manufacturing Facility, located at 1 Seaglider Way in Quonset Business Park, North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The milestone was unveiled at the Reindustrialize conference in Detroit, where REGENT introduced a new 3D model and immersive experience that allows visitors to virtually explore the productio

NOX METALS, reindustrializing America by supplying manufacturers at warp speeds and lower prices, led by Zane Hengsperger, has raised a $11.5M Seed round led by Hyperion, with participation from Palmer Luckey, Y Combinator, Jared Friedman, RoboStrategy, Operator Collective, DTX, Alumni Ventures, and others. Reviving American Manufacturing. For decades, domestic manufacturing in the United States has steadily declined, eroding the nation’s ability to produce at scale and contr

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will purchase more than 200 Extended Range Sentry Towers (XRST) from Anduril to expand autonomous situational awareness across a much larger portion of the Southwest Border. The $363 million contract builds on more than seven years of collaboration between Anduril Industries and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, during which Anduril has delivered and supported hundreds of autonomous systems. Scaling Autonomous Border Surveillance. B

Arkadia Space, making space exploration sustainable, accessible, and innovative, led by Francho García, Sergio Soler, Ismael Gutiérrez, and Francisco Espinosa, has entered into a strategic partnership with Reflex Aerospace, desiging and developing adaptable satellites, led by Walter Ballheimer, Felix Motzki, and Dennis Moore, to integrate Arkadia’s green propulsion technology into an upcoming Reflex mission, marking an important milestone for both companies and for the Europe

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

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

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,