Startups

Venture Capital Startups

Lightrun Raises $70M as Enterprises Bet Big on its AI-Driven Debugging Platform

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Chris McKay• April 28, 2025 • 2 min read

Lightrun secures $70M Series B to accelerate AI-driven autonomous remediation, addressing the critical need for real-time code resilience in the AI-fueled era of software development.

Venture Capital Startups

Endor Labs Raises $93M Series B to Safeguard AI-Generated Code

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Chris McKay• April 23, 2025 • 1 min read

Endor Labs has raised $93 million in a Series B funding round led by DFJ Growth to enhance its platform that secures AI-generated code, addressing the growing need for robust application security in the era of AI-driven software development.

Startups

Chatbot Arena Rebrands as LMArena, Becomes a Company

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Chris McKay• April 17, 2025 • 2 min read

Popular AI testing platform Chatbot Arena is transforming into a company called Arena Intelligence Inc. to expand its widely-used model comparison service.

Venture Capital Startups

Former YC President, Geoff Ralston, Launches Fund for "Safe AI" Startups

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Chris McKay• April 17, 2025 • 2 min read

Geoff Ralston, ex-president of Y Combinator, has launched the Safe Artificial Intelligence Fund (SAIF) to invest in early-stage startups focused on AI safety, security, and responsible deployment.

Venture Capital Startups Video AI

Capsule Secures $12M to Scale AI-Powered Video Editing for Enterprise Teams

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Chris McKay• April 16, 2025 • 2 min read

Video editing platform Capsule has raised $12 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered tools that help non-creative teams produce brand-compliant videos at scale.

OpenAI Startups

OpenAI Acqui-hires Context.ai Team to Boost Model Evaluation Efforts

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Chris McKay• April 15, 2025 • 2 min read

OpenAI has acquihired the team behind Context.ai, a GV-backed startup known for its analytics tools that help developers understand how AI models perform in the real world.

Synthesia Video AI Startups

Adobe Invests in Synthesia as the AI Video Startup Hits $100M Revenue Milestone

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Chris McKay• April 15, 2025 • 2 min read

Synthesia has received a strategic investment from Adobe after surpassing $100 million in annual recurring revenue, signaling growing enterprise demand for AI-generated video.

SSI Venture Capital Startups

Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence Raises Another $2B at $32B Valuation

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Chris McKay• April 12, 2025 • 2 min read

Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, has raised $2 billion at a $32 billion valuation—without a product on the market.

Venture Capital Startups

Ex-OpenAI CTO's Stealth Startup Targets Record-Breaking $2B Seed Round

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Chris McKay• April 10, 2025 • 2 min read

Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is reportedly seeking a $2 billion seed round that would value the nascent AI company at $10+ billion despite having no product yet.

Venture Capital Startups

Incident.io Raises $62M to Build AI Agents That Keep Systems Running

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Chris McKay• April 10, 2025 • 1 min read

London-based incident.io has raised $62 million in Series B funding to develop AI agents that can investigate and resolve software outages alongside human engineers.

Venture Capital Startups

Adaptive Security Raises $43M to Combat AI Cyber Threats

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Chris McKay• April 3, 2025 • 2 min read

New York-based Adaptive Security has raised $43 million in a Series A co-led by OpenAI’s Startup Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, marking OpenAI’s first investment in a cybersecurity firm.

Venture Capital Startups

Actively AI Lands $22.5M to Build 'GTM Superintelligence' for Sales Teams

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Chris McKay• April 2, 2025 • 2 min read

New York-based Actively AI has raised $22.5 million in funding to develop AI reasoning models that help sales teams identify high-value prospects rather than maximizing contact volume.

Startups

Qualcomm Acquires VinAI's Generative AI Division

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Chris McKay• April 1, 2025 • 2 min read

Qualcomm has acquired the generative AI division of Hanoi-based VinAI to strengthen its research and development across a range of smart devices and applications.

Venture Capital Startups

ClearGrid Raises $10M to Modernize MENA's Debt Collection with AI

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Chris McKay• March 20, 2025 • 3 min read

Dubai-based ClearGrid has secured $10 million in funding to transform debt collection in the Middle East and North Africa with an AI-powered platform that improves recovery rates while creating better experiences for borrowers.

Venture Capital Startups

Prezent Secures $20M to Enhance AI-Powered Slide Decks for Enterprise

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Chris McKay• March 19, 2025 • 1 min read

Prezent has raised $20 million to refine its AI models for slide deck creation and expand into new markets beyond its existing Fortune 2000 client base.

Apptronik Robotics Venture Capital Startups

Industrial Giants Back Apptronik's Humanoid Robot Vision with Expanded $403M Series A

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Chris McKay• March 19, 2025 • 3 min read

Apptronik has secured an additional $53 million from Mercedes-Benz, Japan Post Capital, and others, bringing their Series A round to $403 million as the humanoid robotics company prioritizes practical industrial applications before consumer markets.

Google Startups

Google Acquires Wiz for $32B in Record-Breaking Cloud Security Deal

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Chris McKay• March 19, 2025 • 1 min read

Google has agreed to acquire the cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion, aiming to enhance its cloud security capabilities and expand multicloud protection.

Video AI Startups

xAI Buys Hotshot, a Startup Working on AI-Generated Video

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Chris McKay• March 17, 2025 • 2 min read

Elon Musk’s xAI has acquired Hotshot, a startup developing AI-powered video generation models, indicating that xAI may soon add video capabilities to its Grok chatbot.

Venture Capital Startups

Cartesia Raises $64M to Advance Real-Time Voice AI with Sonic 2.0

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Chris McKay• March 11, 2025 • 2 min read

Cartesia, a real-time voice AI company, has secured $64 million in Series A funding led by Kleiner Perkins, fueling the development of Sonic 2.0, a low-latency voice model with superior voice cloning and real-time capabilities.

Venture Capital Startups

Ceramic.ai Emerges from Stealth with $12M to Accelerate AI Model Training

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Chris McKay• March 5, 2025 • 3 min read

Ceramic.ai, founded by former Google VP Anna Patterson, has exited stealth with $12 million in funding to make AI model training 2.5x faster and more cost-effective for enterprises.

Startups

CoreWeave Acquires Weights & Biases in a $1.7 Billion AI Cloud Play

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Chris McKay• March 4, 2025 • 2 min read

CoreWeave, the NVIDIA-backed AI cloud provider, has acquired Weights & Biases, a leading AI developer platform, for approximately $1.7 billion, strengthening its position in AI infrastructure and software.

Venture Capital Startups Fintech

Unique Raises $30M to Expand Its AI Agents for Financial Services

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Chris McKay• February 27, 2025 • 1 min read

Swiss AI startup Unique has raised $30 million in a Series A round to expand its AI-powered financial compliance and research agents, with a focus on the U.S. market.

Startups

Inception Labs Launches Mercury, the First Commercial Diffusion-Based Language Model

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Chris McKay• February 26, 2025 • 2 min read

Inception Labs has launched Mercury Coder, the first commercial diffusion-based large language model (dLLM), promising up to 10x faster text generation and lower computational costs than traditional autoregressive models.

Venture Capital Startups

Together AI Raises $305M to Expand Its AI Acceleration Cloud

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Chris McKay• February 20, 2025 • 1 min read

Together AI has raised $305 million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst, bringing its valuation to $3.3 billion as it scales its AI Acceleration Cloud for open-source and enterprise AI.

Venture Capital Startups Healthcare

OpenEvidence Raises $75M to Scale AI for Doctors, Hits $1B Valuation

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Chris McKay• February 19, 2025 • 2 min read

AI-powered medical assistant OpenEvidence has raised $75 million in a Sequoia-led round, pushing its valuation to over $1 billion as it expands its AI copilot for physicians.