Sifted reports that Gravis Robotics has secured a $200 million investment from SoftBank, giving the robotics company a reported $1 billion valuation. The deal points to a discrete late-stage financing event tied to investor interest in robotics and AI-enabled automation.
Databricks has raised $5 billion in a new financing round at a reported $190 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch. CEO Ali Ghodsi said the company had initially planned to raise $1 billion, but investor demand reached roughly $15 billion, leading Databricks to settle on a larger round. The report underscores continued investor appetite for large-scale AI and data infrastructure companies.
TechCrunch reports that AI coding startup Cognition is already in discussions to raise another financing round at a reported $40 billion valuation. The talks would follow the company's reported $1 billion raise just a few months earlier, implying a sharp step-up in valuation if completed.
TechCrunch reports that Thrive Holdings has raised $2 billion in new funding at a reported $12 billion valuation. The investor group reportedly includes SoftBank, D1 Capital Partners, and Altimeter Capital, and the company is described as focused on bringing AI into enterprise settings.
Sifted reports that Index Ventures is in discussions to lead a $500 million financing round for a new AI lab founded by former DeepMind researcher Jack Parker-Holder. The article describes the funding as under discussion rather than announced or closed, pointing to unusually large early investor interest in a new frontier-model startup.
ClearJet, an Austin-based startup that uses AI to match shippers with unused cargo capacity on commercial flights, has raised a $25 million Series B round, according to Crunchbase News. The round was led by Edison Partners and is aimed at expanding the company's logistics technology platform for air freight.
Skan AI announced a $63 million Series C round co-led by Cathay Innovation and Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from Citi Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, State Farm Ventures, and Wipro Ventures. The company also said it is generally releasing Skan AI Blueprint and Skan AI Agents alongside its existing Skan AI Intelligence platform, which it positions as software for observing, modeling, and automating enterprise workflows.
Sifted reports that AI app-building startup Lovable has raised a €400 million Series C round with backing from the European Scaleup Fund. The financing adds concrete details to earlier reporting that Lovable had completed a new round at a $13 billion valuation.
River AI, a two-month-old startup founded by xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin, has raised a $1.1 billion funding round led by General Catalyst, according to TechCrunch. The company is described as pursuing personal AI agents, making the financing an unusually large early-stage bet on an agent-focused startup and a prominent former xAI executive.
Nvidia and a group of large financial firms including Apollo, Blackstone, and BlackRock have struck an AI financing deal aimed at supporting as much as $500 billion in investment. Based on the report, the partnership is structured to mobilize large-scale capital for AI-related infrastructure and deployment rather than fund a single startup financing round.
Discovered Materials has raised $9 million, according to TechCrunch, to use AI to identify novel materials that could improve chip efficiency and cooling. The startup is focused on materials discovery for semiconductors, an area that could matter as AI workloads intensify demand for faster and more energy-efficient hardware.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Lumilens has raised $700 million in new funding at a $5.5 billion valuation. The company makes optical hardware designed to move data between AI servers faster by replacing or reducing conventional wired interconnects inside data centers.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Earendil, a Chinese AI biotechnology company, has encountered a regulatory hurdle as it pursues a Hong Kong initial public offering. According to the report, Chinese regulators raised concerns about the company's red-chip holding structure after it recently submitted its IPO application.
Sifted reports that HappyRobot has secured new backing from Andreessen Horowitz at a reported $1.2 billion valuation. The article points to a discrete financing event for the AI company, although the provided excerpt does not specify the round size, stage, or full investor syndicate.
Zurich-based Exclaim Robotics has publicly launched after operating in stealth and announced a $4.95 million financing round. The reported raise gives the startup early capital to build its robotics and AI business following its market debut.
Crunchbase reported that Safe Superintelligence secured a $5 billion financing, making it the largest funding round covered in its weekly roundup. The article says Nvidia backed the deal, while noting that Commonwealth Fusion Systems also raised $1 billion in a separate transaction.
Fish Audio has raised a $52 million seed round to build AI voice models for creators and enterprises, according to TechCrunch. The startup says it has surpassed 8 million users across its open-source and hosted offerings since launching last year and is generating $21 million in annual recurring revenue.
ServiceNow has made a $40 million strategic investment in Indian banking software company BusinessNext, according to TechCrunch. The deal is framed as a way to deepen ServiceNow's push into financial services and help BusinessNext expand its AI-powered banking software internationally.
Glow has emerged from stealth and is positioning itself around endpoint security risks created by growing enterprise use of AI agents and developer tools, according to TechCrunch. The report says the company is valued at $1.2 billion, signaling strong investor confidence in security products tailored to AI-era enterprise workflows.
Natural, a one-year-old startup, has raised $30 million to develop payments infrastructure designed for autonomous AI transactions, according to TechCrunch. The company is positioning itself as a financial layer for AI agents and as a potential challenger to existing payments platforms such as Stripe for agent-driven commerce.
