Startup Watch
Nebius buys Inferize for up to $150M to cut cold starts
Nebius paid a reported $100-150 million for Inferize, a 17-person startup founded in January that cuts GPU idle time when AI models start up.
Startup Watch - Page 3
New startups, launches, and funding - the companies building what's next.
Startup Watch
Varda raises $251M to make medicines in orbit
Varda raised $251M at a $1.6B valuation to process drugs in orbit. It has flown six reentry missions since 2023 and plans more than a dozen through 2028.
Startup Watch
Supabase raises $150M and buys Turso for agent databases
Supabase raised $150M four months after a $500M Series F and is buying Turso, whose SQLite tech lets one server run millions of small databases.
Startup Watch
Flow Engineering raises $50M Series B at a $750M valuation
Flow Engineering, whose AI agents check CAD and requirements for hardware teams, raised $50M at a $750M valuation a year after its $23M Series A.
Startup Watch
EliseAI raises $350M at $4B for housing and health AI
EliseAI raised $350 million at a $4 billion valuation, nearly double its 2025 price, as its AI runs leasing work for one in six U.S. apartments.
Startup Watch
Armadin raises $255.5M for AI attack agents at $2.5B
Kevin Mandia's Armadin raised $255.5 million at a valuation above $2.5 billion to sell AI agent swarms that attack company networks before criminals do.
Startup Watch
AMD buys Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2 billion
AMD agreed to buy World Labs, Fei-Fei Li's 3D world-model startup, in an $8.2 billion all-stock deal. Li becomes AMD's chief scientist under Lisa Su.
Startup Watch
Photon raises $4.5M to put AI agents in iMessage
Photon raised a $4.5 million seed round co-led by Gradient and A* for Spectrum, its toolkit that puts AI agents in iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS and more.
Startup Watch
ElevenLabs doubles its valuation to $22B in a $300M tender
ElevenLabs is now valued at $22 billion after a $300 million employee share sale, double its February price, as voice agents hit 15 million calls a week.
Startup Watch
Wabi 2.0 turns its app builder into an AI messenger
Wabi, backed by $20 million in a16z-led funding, relaunched its AI app builder on September 29, 2026, as an invite-only agent messenger.
Startup Watch
Mistral raises €3B at €21B, led by Samsung
Mistral raised €3 billion at a €21 billion valuation, nearly double its last round. It plans 1 GW of European compute by 2030 and will host rivals' open weights.
Startup Watch
Crusoe reportedly raises $3B at a $30B valuation
Crusoe has reportedly raised $3 billion at a $30 billion valuation, three times its October 2025 mark, after signing a $13 billion cloud deal with Jane Street.
Startup Watch
AfterQuery hits $3.2B, reportedly YC's fastest unicorn yet
AfterQuery is reportedly valued at $3.2 billion, up from $300 million in April. It sells the professional reasoning data that labs use to train AI agents.
Startup Watch
a16z lifts its fifth Growth fund to $8.5B and adds an AI hardware fund
Andreessen Horowitz said on August 31, 2026 that it added $1.75 billion to its fifth Growth fund, taking it to $8.5 billion. A separate $1.1B fund targets AI hardware.
Startup Watch
DeepSeek nears a $7.4B raise at a $74B valuation before a 2027 IPO
Reports dated August 28 and 29, 2026 say DeepSeek is close to raising about $7.4 billion, or 50 billion yuan, at a $74 billion valuation. The money buys compute.
Startup Watch
Clipto raises $15M at a $250M valuation for on-device AI search
Clipto said on August 31, 2026 that it raised $15 million at a $250 million valuation. Its search index runs on the user's own machine instead of the cloud.
Startup Watch
Instinct raises $250M at $2.5B for an agent that acts for you
Index Ventures and Benchmark led a $250 million Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation. Security researchers are raising alarms about the assistant's permissions.
Startup Watch
CivilGrid raises $26M to map what is buried under US streets
Spark Capital led a $26 million Series A for CivilGrid, which merges utility, environmental and geotechnical records into one map. US crews hit 200,000 lines a year.
Startup Watch
Rillet hits a $1B valuation two years after leaving stealth
AI-native ERP startup Rillet raised a $100M Series C led by ICONIQ at a $1B valuation - its third round in 14 months, closed in under 48 hours, with 600+ customers.
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