MENLO TIMES

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

Polysense, enabling food lines to catch quality drift before it becomes waste, led by Jarne Bogaert, Yarne De Munck, and Lucas Van Dijck, has closed an oversubscribed seed round of $10.7 million led by Felix Capital, with participation from Fortino Ventures and angel investors including Syndicate One and 100IN. The Belgian technology company helps food manufacturers reduce waste by automating in-line quality control with real-time imaging and synthetic data models. Its platfo

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

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

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

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

Leyden Labs, freeing humanity from the burden of respiratory viruses, led by Koenraad Wiedhaup, Ronald Brus, and the team, has announced a €40 million investment from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Invest-NL, Gates Foundation, ClavystBio, and others. The Company welcomes Ben Verwaayen as a new Supervisory Board member. Nominated by EIC Fund and Invest-NL, Mr. Verwaayen brings decades of international leadership experience, having served in senior executive and bo

Graph Therapeutics, decoding immune dysfunction at scale, led by Gregory Vladimer, PhD, Robert Sehlke, PhD, Prof. Berend Snijder, PhD, Bojan Vilagos, PhD, and Christophe Boudesco, PhD, has announced that Daphni, the Paris-based venture capital firm, has joined Graph’s investor syndicate to accelerate its internal pipeline. Daphni invests alongside continued participation from existing investors SquareOne, Merantix Capital, and NAVEC Investment Management, with additional non-

HealthLeap, a leading AI clinical screening startup, led by Josiah Meyer and Jemima Meyer, RD(SA), announced it has launched its AI-driven clinical screening platform across Houston Methodist’s system to help address this issue earlier and more consistently among at-risk inpatients. HealthLeap is the first and only validated AI-powered malnutrition screening tool with an EHR-integrated screening layer for hospitals. Developed by clinicians for clinicians, the platform continu

Tsuga, the enterprise observability platform that runs in your cloud, led by Gabriel-James Safar, Sébastien Deprez, and the team, has announced its Series A, led by Singular, with General Catalyst also participating, both of whom backed its $10 million seed round in December 2025. They are joined by new investors DST Global and Quantumlight, with Picus and Databricks also participating. The Problem. Observability has followed the same model for decades: telemetry is ingested

Tamarind Bio, building AI infrastructure for biotech R&D, led by Deniz Kavi, Sherry Liu, and the team, is integrating NVIDIA-optimized NIM microservices into the inference layer that powers the Tamarind platform. Building the Infrastructure for Agentic Biology. Advances in AI are rapidly transforming how new molecules, drug candidates, diagnostics, and biological tools are discovered and designed. Yet computational biology workflows often remain complex, requiring researchers

Probook, the AI operating system for home services, led by George Eliadis, Ben Cervantez, and Lewis Zhang, has announced $40M from Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. Built by Operators. Probook was founded by a team with firsthand experience in the home services industry. Early experience in pressure washing, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical operations exposed the inefficiencies that service businesses face every day, inspiring the creation of a better solution. Founders

Timefold, developing vehicle routing and shift scheduling APIs for field service and workforce management, led by Maarten Vandenbroucke, Geoffrey De Smet, and the team, has raised a $13M Series A funding round led by Alstin Capital, with co-investor Kompas VC, and continued backing from existing investors Lakestar and Smartfin. Timefold provides scheduling and optimization infrastructure for field service and workforce management software. Following 4x ARR growth in 2025, th

Ralo, giving every borrower the savings the mortgage industry keeps for itself, led by Arjun Lalwani and Helly Shah, has raised a $2.9M seed round from Y Combinator, Manresa Ventures, Pack Ventures, and angels, including Charles Ferguson, the Oscar-winning director of Inside Job, and Ryan Frazier, co-founder and CEO of Arrived. Rebuilding the Mortgage Process. Ralo was created to modernize a mortgage process that remains slow, fragmented, and expensive. Borrowers often face e

Vali Health, building the future of home care operations, led by Serena Dang and Jason Wu, has emerged from stealth with $6 million in funding from Bonfire Ventures, Supernode, and Comma Capital, along with Jacquelyn Kung, an industry veteran who built two of the largest software platforms for home care. Vali’s AI agents enable home care agencies to automate workforce management and coordination, while maintaining trust and safety front and center. Modernizing Operations in H

Foundation Alloy, a foundation for the next industrial era, led by Jake Guglin, Erin McDevitt, Chris Schuh, and Tim Rupert, has announced $22 million in Series A financing to scale production on its MetalsFIRST™ platform, a fully integrated, solid-state metallurgy technology, to industrial volumes. The round was led by Voyager Ventures, with participation from Trust Ventures, Yamaha Motor Ventures, America’s Frontier Fund, Overlap Holdings, Material Impact, Engine Ventures, a

Tamarind Bio, building AI infrastructure for biotech R&D, led by Deniz Kavi, Sherry Liu, and the team, has been selected by Lilly TuneLab as a third-party technology partner to build, host, and operate the inference infrastructure layer for TuneLab2.0, which is now live. Lilly Launches Collaborative AI Drug Discovery Platform. Eli Lilly and Company has introduced Lilly TuneLab, a collaborative AI and machine learning platform designed to accelerate drug discovery across the

Sandstone, in-house counsel legal AI software, led by Nick Fleisher, Jarryd Strydom, Liam Germain, and Jessica Nguyen, has announced $30 million in Series A financing, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors. The Missing Layer In Legal AI. AI can now automate legal tasks like drafting, review, and research. But the knowledge that makes those tasks accurate- precedents, policies, workflows, and institutional know-how- often remains scatte

Cellares, the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), providing global cell therapy development and manufacturing services through an Industry 4.0 approach to the mass manufacture of living drugs, led by Fabian Gerlinghaus and Omar Kurdi, has announced that ARK Invest has joined the company’s Series D financing with a $20 million investment, bringing the total Series D to $277 million. ARK joins a high-caliber group of Cellares investors, including

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

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

Atmo, transforming indoor and outdoor air quality data into clear, actionable decisions, has released its first year-long study of air quality in New York City. The timing is pointed: in February 2026, New York City was briefly ranked among the most polluted cities in the world, after an air quality alert blanketed the metro area amid high particulate levels. But even on ordinary days, individual exposure varies dramatically depending on where a person walks, commutes, and co

Adaptive Innovations, the AI-native healthcare provider rebuilding the way care is delivered in America, starting with home health, led by Alex Wendland, Logan Stinson, Ryan Tolsma, Hunter Stinson, and the team, has raised $50 million in Series A funding led by Felicis, with significant participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Optum Ventures, Sunflower Capital, Conviction, BoxGroup, Dorm Room Fund, and Constellation, alongside prominent angels across healthcare services and

H1, an AI-driven platform that integrates fragmented healthcare data to identify and match doctors across clinical trials, medical affairs, commercialization, referrals, and patient care, led by Ariel Katz and Ian Sax, has raised a $40M investment in a round led by CVS Health Ventures. The investment follows several successful collaborations between CVS Health and H1, including an AI model that significantly improved healthcare provider directory accuracy, helping patients fi

Aizy, the Dutch AI marketing software company, led by Stefan Nuijten and the team, has acquired fellow industry player Uptmz. The acquisition creates an integrated advertising platform spanning Google, Microsoft, and Meta, combining software, AI-driven optimization, and strategic services within a unified ecosystem. Together, the combined companies now support more than 600 customers. Uptmz was originally developed within Springbok Group before becoming an independent company

WeRoad, a travel tech company on a mission to bring people together in real life, through group adventure trips and everyday social experiences powered by the WeMeet app, led by Andrea D'Amico and the team, has raised a $58 million Series C funding round led by Airbnb. The round also included the long-time investors, including H14. The total funding raised since the company was founded has now reached $100 million, which will support WeRoad’s first major expansion outside Eur

Unitify, a developer of property management software, led by Ilia Sotonin and the team, has announced plans to invest up to $10 million in the U.S.-based management firms, targeting small businesses in the property and HOA/condo management sectors. Unitify is integrating its proprietary AI platform into billing, maintenance, and resident communication systems, with the goal of improving operating margins from around 10% to over 25%. The investment includes both internal capit

Pacifico Biolabs, a mycelium fermentation protein company, led by Zac Austin, Washington Logroño, and the team, has raised €7 million in a Series A funding round backed by Stray Dog Capital, TGFS, Sprout & About Ventures, Simon Capital, FoodLabs, and a regional brewery partner. Pacifico Biolabs develops protein ingredients using mycelium fermentation technology, leveraging standard brewery fermentation tanks instead of custom-built bioreactors to reduce production costs and u

Avrea, a faster CI for github actions, led by Hannu Valtonen and Juha Valvanne, has announced its launch with $4.7 million in total Pre-Seed funding led by Earlybird. Before founding Avrea, the team spent years building and scaling technology companies under high-pressure environments, repeatedly encountering software delivery bottlenecks where slow builds, failing tests, and delayed pipelines reduced development speed and productivity. For years, these inefficiencies were tr

Blink, the leading mobile-first employee experience platform, led by Sean Nolan and the team, has raised $17 million in funding from Enlightened Hospitality Investments (EHI), the growth equity fund affiliated with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). Blink also announced a new global partnership with Shake Shack following a successful integration of its workforce management solutions. As frontline industries such as restaurants face high turnover, margin pres

Contrario, the AI-powered recruitment platform, led by founders Arya Marwaha and Aditya Sood, has announced its launch. Contrario has surpassed $6M in annualized revenue in under six months, paid out over $1M to its recruiter network, and is now used by 200+ fast-growing companies, including unicorns like Slash and Wispr Flow. The company is focused on using AI to automate repetitive parts of hiring, enabling recruiters and companies to focus more on high-value, human aspects

Fresha, a platform to book local self-care services, led by William Zeqiri, Nick Miller, and the team, has announced an $80 million primary growth investment from funds managed by KKR, a leading global investment firm. The transaction values Fresha at over $1 billion, marking a defining milestone in its mission to transform how self-care businesses operate globally. Fresha has entered a new growth chapter with an $80 million funding round led by KKR, pushing the company beyon

ClearOps, the world's leading AI-powered after-sales intelligence platform, led by William Barkawi and the team, has raised €8.6 million in a Series A funding round led by Hitachi Ventures, alongside Schoeller Group and Barkawi Group. The funding marks ClearOps’s first institutional capital raise and supports its mission to become the AI operating system for global OEM after-sales operations. ClearOps acts as an AI operating system for industrial after-sales, connecting manuf

Hardline, redefining construction communication through AI-powered call documentation that protects your business, one conversation at a time, led by Alena Tuttle, Karly Heffernan, and Kimball Hill, has announced a $2 million pre-seed round led by Mucker Capital. The funding will help accelerate product development, deepen integrations with existing construction platforms, and expand Hardline’s go-to-market efforts across commercial and residential construction. The company i

Blank Bio, RNA intelligence for precision oncology, led by Jonathan Hsu, Ruian (Ian) Shi, and Philip Fradkin, has announced the closing of a $7.2 million seed financing and a strategic collaboration with Pacific Biosciences (Nasdaq: PACB), a leading developer of high-quality, highly accurate sequencing solutions. The oversubscribed round included Define Ventures, Leonis Capital, Nova Threshold, Ripple Ventures, SignalFire, Y Combinator, and others. Proceeds will support conti

Clouted, the growth system for modern entertainment - built for artists, labels, festivals, gaming studios, startups, consumer apps, and the brands that live inside culture, led by Justin Banusing, Adriel Yong, David Viray, and the team, has announced the close of a $7M seed round led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Gold House Ventures, Weekend Fund, LINE-Yahoo's Z VC, Gondor Capital, Iterative, AppWorks, Peak XV’s Surge, and a16z Speedrun. Angel investors include G

Nourish, the country’s largest dietitian-led metabolic health clinic, led by Aidan Dewar, Stephanie Liu, and Sam Perkins, has announced its $100 million Series C, bringing total funding to $215 million. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Thrive Capital, Index Ventures, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, Maverick Ventures, Y Combinator, BoxGroup, Atomico, Daybreak, and Operator Partners. With this investment, J.P. Sanday of Menlo Ventures will join t

Stilta, Agentic AI for high-stakes patent work, led by Oskar Block, Petrus Werner, Tobias Estreen, and Oscar Adamsson, has raised $10.5 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Y Combinator and a group of founders and operators from leading AI companies, including Sana, Legora, OpenAI, Lovable, and Listen Labs. Patents are a highly underleveraged asset class in business. While over 90% of S&P 500 value is intangible, most patents are never enforc

Commure, the AI-native enterprise RCM & ambient platform, led by Tanay Tandon, Deepika Bodapati, and the team, has announced $70 million in financing at a $7 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Kirkland & Ellis. Commure uses AI and agents to streamline administrative work in health systems, targeting one of healthcare’s largest cost centers, estimated at about $1 trillion annually in

Kin Health, a free app that allows patients to remember and act upon doctors’ advice, led by Arpan Parikh, Amit Parikh, Kyle Alwyn, Doug Hirsch, Trevor Bezdek, and the team, has raised a $9 million seed round led by Maveron, with participation from Town Hall Ventures, Flex Capital, Eniac Ventures, The Family Fund, Pear VC, Watershed Ventures, Foundry Square Capital, and individual investors including GoodRx co-founders Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek, Nabeel Quryshi, Jay Desai,

LawX, an AI-powered OS for notaries and law firms, led by Dr. Norman Koschmieder, Dr. Sara Brinkmann, and Torben Rabe, has closed a seed round led by Motive Partners, raising over €7 million in capital, alongside WENVEST Capital, xdeck, and SIVentures, as well as several prominent angels from the tech and legal sectors. The legal market is undergoing structural change, with rising demand for legal services and a growing shortage of administrative staff. Around half of law fir

Multiverse, an upskilling platform for AI adoption, led by Euan Blair and the team, has raised $70 million in primary funding to drive growth across Europe. The funding was led by Schroders Capital, with participation from existing investors including General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, D1 Capital Partners, Index Ventures, Bond, and StepStone Group. The investment will accelerate Multiverse’s expansion across Europe, with a focus on helping workers adapt to AI rat

Iceotope, a data center liquid cooling solutions provider, led by Simon Jesenko and the team, has announced the close of a $26M series B funding round led by Two Seas Capital and Barclays Climate Ventures, along with participation by existing investors Edinv, ABC Impact, Northern Gritstone, and British Business Bank. Iceotope Technologies will use the funding to advance product and engineering development, expand its patent portfolio, and accelerate ecosystem partnerships to

Chromie Health, one of the world’s fastest-growing AI-powered scheduling and management platform for hospital operations, led by Douglas Ford, Scott Tisoskey, and the team, has announced a $2 million pre-seed round led by AIX Ventures along with the launch of Chromie Dispatch, the company’s flagship AI agent that instantly fills internal shift gaps via simple SMS. The funding follows strong demand, with 750 hospitals on the waitlist, and will support the development of a suit

NanoStruct, developing high-performance biosensors to increase the quality of your products, led by Henriette Maaß, Kai Leibfried, Enno Schatz, and the team, has raised a seed funding round of €2.6 million led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Bayern Kapital, and the AUXXO Female Catalyst Fund. The funding builds on previous grants from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) and the European Union. Molecular Fingerprint Instead of Days of Waiting D

Asterix Health, the modern workforce solution for primary care, led by Julian Titz, Max Thilo, and the team, has raised £2.1 million in pre-seed funding to scale its remote GP workforce model across NHS primary care. The round was led by Triple Point, with participation from D2, Entrepreneurs First, Basis Capital, DLB Ventures, and a group of notable angels. The platform already supports practices serving 250,000 patients, freeing up more than one GP session per day per pract

Animoca Brands, building, investing, and accelerating the most impactful technologies and ecosystems, turning participants into stakeholders, led by Yat Siu and the team, has announced it will invest up to US$10 million in select projects building with Minds by Animoca Brands (“Minds”), also known as Animoca Minds. Minds is a persistent AI agent platform that simplifies deployment while maintaining full control and customization for both builders and general users, enabling t

Udora (Previously Flowwow), a global gifting marketplace formerly known as Flowwow, led by Slava Bogdan, Modenova Vera, and others, has closed a $10 million private investment round and relaunched under a new brand. This marks a new phase in the company’s global strategy, focused on strengthening its presence across Europe, expanding its product catalogue, and advancing AI-driven personalisation. Founded in 2014, Udora connects customers with local florists, confectioners, an

Primogene, a biotechnology company developing bioprocesses to manufacture functional ingredients based on multi-enzyme systems, led by Dr.-Ing. Reza Mahour, Valerian Grote, and Linda Karger, has raised €4.1 million in funding to bring complex bioactive molecules to market at scale. The seed round is led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) with additional investors including Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen (TGFS), better ventures, Sächsische Beteiligungsgesellschaft (SBG), Golzer

Cleo Labs, building an automated product compliance for global brands, led by Anaelle Guez, Naomie Halioua, and Alexandre Bloch, has raised a €1.5 million funding round led by Larry Berger, with participation from Kima Ventures, Financière Saint-James, and several prominent figures from the tech ecosystem, alongside additional funding from Deel. The round will support technology development, drive European expansion, and prepare for entry into the U.S. market. A growing cha