Crunchbase News AI - Latest News and Information
Technology Pulse
EMAIL DIGESTS
Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
EMAIL DIGESTS
Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
The week’s top U.S. funding rounds featured a $1.75 billion Series D for autonomous‑vessel startup Saronic, pushing its valuation to $9.25 billion. Wearable fitness leader Whoop secured $575 million at a $10.1 billion valuation, while nuclear‑energy pioneer Valar Atomics raised $450 million, valuing it at $2 billion. Energy storage firm EnerVenue added $300 million, and AI‑cybersecurity company Tenex.AI closed a $250 million Series B. The diverse deals highlight robust capital flow into defense, health tech, clean energy, and AI infrastructure.
The article warns that the rush to automate every task with agentic AI creates hidden operational, economic, and environmental risks. It illustrates how a simple voice command relies on multiple cloud services, turning a trivial action into a potential point...
Miravoice, a California startup, announced a $6.3 million seed round led by Unusual Ventures, with participation from Neo, 25madison and angels from Ramp, PubMatic, Atlassian and Google. The company’s AI‑powered voice interviewer can run long‑form phone surveys—over 120 questions and 40 minutes—across...
Anvil Robotics, an eight‑month‑old San Francisco startup, announced a $5.5 million seed round led by Matter Venture Partners. The company offers a modular, open‑source robotics platform—dubbed “Legos for robots”—that lets physical AI teams assemble custom robots for $1,900 to $10,000 and...
Venture capital investment exploded in Q1 2026, reaching a record $300 billion across 6,000 startups, driven largely by AI and frontier labs. AI‑focused companies alone captured $242 billion, 80% of the total, with OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Waymo accounting for $188 billion of that...
Trayd, a New York‑based construction‑tech startup, closed a $10 million Series A led by White Star Capital, bringing its total financing to $17 million. The SaaS platform automates payroll, HR, compliance and labor‑cost tracking for specialty trade contractors, shrinking a 14‑hour manual process...
Candex has extended its Series C round to $40 million, bringing total funding above $120 million, with HSBC joining as an investor. The New York fintech acts as a master vendor, allowing large enterprises to pay one‑off or irregular suppliers without separate onboarding,...
U.S. startup acquisitions priced under $300 million generated roughly $8.7 billion in 2023, still well below the peaks seen a decade ago. The total value of $100‑$300 million deals remains lower than historic levels, while a single mega‑deal like Google’s $32 billion purchase dwarfs...
February set a venture‑funding record, yet a slice of capital flowed to lesser‑known startups. Dutch Vitestro secured $70 million Series B to commercialize autonomous phlebotomy robots, aiming for U.S. regulatory clearance and hospital rollout. London‑based Isembard raised $50 million Series A to launch a...
The conversation around agentic AI is moving from speculative ambition to concrete outcomes as 2026 approaches. Snowflake's Startup 2026 report, based on interviews with eight AI‑focused VCs, shows investors now value agents that are embedded in specific, data‑rich workflows and...
Rebar, a New York‑based AI operating system for commercial HVAC suppliers, closed a $14 million Series A round led by Prudence. The startup’s computer‑vision models parse construction blueprints to generate bills of materials and quotes up to 70 percent faster than traditional methods....
A mid‑size SaaS vendor’s top customer is now considering using AI coding tools to build a needed workflow rather than waiting for a traditional feature release. This reflects a broader industry shift where AI‑generated code can deliver narrow, customized functionality...
Denki, a YC‑backed AI startup founded by two brothers, raised $4.1 million to automate financial audits for public companies. The funding, led by Base10 Partners and Shine Capital, comes as fintech AI investment surged 27 % in 2025. Denki’s platform replaces manual,...
Active venture investors concentrated capital on a handful of mega‑deals in February, with generative‑AI heavyweights dominating the landscape. OpenAI secured a record‑breaking $110 billion round, the largest startup financing ever, while overall deal count remained flat. Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz and...
Seed‑stage investors are betting on the convergence of artificial intelligence and biosecurity, with two startups raising sizable early rounds. Valthos closed a $30 million seed round and Red Queen Bio secured $15 million, both counting OpenAI among investors. A nonprofit, SecureBio, also...
