The AI boom has created a two-speed startup economy. Companies building on generative AI are raising at historically unprecedented valuations, while startups that last raised capital before ChatGPT launched in November 2022 are watching their worth collapse. According to PitchBook valuation estimates, more than 220 companies that once held billion-dollar valuations have now fallen below that threshold, […]
Parloa, the Berlin-founded AI agent management platform, has announced a wave of strategic partnerships with SAP, Microsoft, OpenAI, Five9, and Epic as it deploys the $350 million it raised in its January 2026 Series D round. The company, which builds AI agents for enterprise customer service, has also surpassed $50 million in annual recurring revenue with […]
The year-old Dutch startup is folding in a seven-year-old performance-marketing platform, betting that customers want AI, automation and human specialists in one place. Most startups spend their first year trying to survive. Aizy has spent its first year buying a company older than itself. The Breda-based AI-marketing firm announced that it has acquired Uptmz, a […]
The London-and-San-Francisco startup, formerly Orbital Materials, has closed $50M led by Plural for PFAS-free cooling fluid and modular high-density compute infrastructure. Orbital Industries, the London-and-San-Francisco AI-materials startup formerly known as Orbital Materials, has raised $50m in a Series B led by Plural with participation from Nvidia’s NVentures, Radical Ventures, Compound and Fly Ventures. The funding […]
A new report on the French tech ecosystem by Alexandre Dewez, a partner at venture firm 20VC, paints a picture of a startup scene that is growing more dependent on a handful of AI companies while the rest of the market stalls. French startups raised €6.7 billion across 411 funding rounds in 2025, a 5% decline in […]
Cognition AI has raised more than $1 billion in new funding at a $26 billion valuation, more than doubling its worth since a September round that valued the company at $10.2 billion. The round was co-led by Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and 8VC, with participation from Ribbit Capital, Atreides Management, and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. […]
Stord, a logistics technology company that helps retailers manage inventory, checkout, and fulfillment, has raised $250 million in a Series F round that values the company at $3 billion. The round was led by Strike Capital with participation from Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Franklin Templeton, Baillie Gifford, G Squared, and Bond. The funding doubles Stord’s valuation […]
SPARQ, a UAE-based startup building what it calls an AI-native game engine, has opened an $8.5m seed round with early participation from the a16z Scout Fund, the vehicle Andreessen Horowitz uses to back early-stage deals through external scouts. The cheque size from the scout fund was not disclosed; typical a16z scout deals run between $10,000 and […]
The Helsinki startup, founded by Aiven’s Hannu Valtonen and Nosto’s Juha Valvanne, is betting that AI-generated code will overwhelm existing build pipelines. Helsinki startup Avrea emerged from stealth on Tuesday with $4.7m in pre-seed funding led by Earlybird, pitching itself as a faster, AI-aware alternative to GitHub Actions for engineering teams that have started generating code faster than […]
Paris-based Lucis, a preventive-health platform that pairs blood biomarker testing with an AI-driven companion app, has raised a $20m Series A led by Singular, with participation from General Catalyst, Y Combinator and angel investors including Céline Lazorthes of Resilience, Manu Lecomte, and backers of the running-coach app Runna. The round arrives four months after the company’s $8.5m seed in […]
