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17 Sept 2026

Arcee AI Reaches $1B+ Valuation After Building Frontier Open-Weight Models for Just $20M

San Francisco-based Arcee AI has raised Series B funding of at least $150M, pushing its valuation past $1 billion. Led by Vista Equity Partners, Cambium Capital and Emergence Capital, the round backs the company's Trinity family of open-weight AI models—built for approximately $20M—as it aims to close the gap with Chinese AI developers in open-source technology.

2 Sources

16 Sept 2026

Ex-Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka's Hang Ten Systems Secures $53M, Totaling $85M in Just Four Months

Vishal Sikka's four-month-old AI startup Hang Ten Systems raised $53 million in a second seed round led by Temasek's Xora Innovation, just five weeks after closing its initial $32 million raise. The enterprise AI firm is helping companies with over $10 billion in revenue build mission-critical software at near-zero marginal cost using agentic code generation.

3 Sources

CADDi Secures $114M Series D Funding at $1.2B Valuation to Scale Manufacturing AI Platform

Tokyo and Chicago-based CADDi has raised $114 million in Series D funding at a $1.2 billion valuation, more than doubling from $470 million in March 2025. The AI startup specializing in manufacturing software plans to expand its manufacturing AI data platform across North America while developing proprietary AI models for engineering drawings and CAD files.

3 Sources

ByteDance Spins Off AI Drug Discovery Unit Anew Labs, Secures $290M at $1.5B Valuation

ByteDance has completed a $290 million fundraising round for Anew Labs, its newly independent AI drug discovery unit, achieving a $1.5 billion valuation. The ByteDance spin-off attracted leading investors including HSG, IDG Capital, and Hillhouse Investment, while ByteDance retains 56% ownership of the Shanghai-based company.

2 Sources

Activate Raises $105 Million Maiden Fund to Back AI Startups from Idea Stage

Aakrit Vaish's AI-focused venture capital firm Activate has closed its maiden fund at $105 million, just months after launch. The fund comprises an $85 million early-stage vehicle and $20 million in growth-stage allocation, closing 125% above target. With backing from Vinod Khosla and General Catalyst, Activate has already made 10 investments in AI-native startups.

2 Sources

Quick Commerce Startup Firi Raises $3 Million to Expand AI-Driven Beauty and Personal Care Platform

Gurugram-based Firi has raised $3 million in seed funding led by 360 One Asset, with participation from Better Capital and CRED founder Kunal Shah. The beauty and personal care quick commerce startup plans to expand into makeup and fragrances while adding more dark stores in Gurugram. Founded by former Uber India executives, Firi uses AI to curate products from over 50 million reviews.

2 Sources

AIUC Raises $40 Million to Certify AI Agents Against Safety Risks

A startup founded by early Anthropic hire Rune Kvist and former METR COO Rajiv Dattani has raised $40 million to expand its AI agent certification service. AIUC now plans to audit frontier AI models using its AIUC-1 standard, addressing enterprise concerns about rogue AI agents through third-party testing and validation.

2 Sources

Euclyd Secures $231 Million Series A with Samsung Backing to Build Energy-Efficient AI Chips

Netherlands-based startup Euclyd raised over $230 million in Series A funding led by Samsung Electronics, Somerset Capital Partners, and Scaleup Europe Fund. The company is developing craftwerk, an AI-specific chip designed to reduce energy consumption for AI inference workloads and tackle the memory wall challenge in the AI hardware ecosystem.

2 Sources

15 Sept 2026

Factory's AI coding agent platform triples valuation to $5 billion with $200M funding round

Factory, which builds autonomous AI coding agents for enterprises, raised $200 million at a $5 billion valuation—more than triple its April price. Backed by Blackstone, Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital, the AI startup competes in the rapidly growing AI-assisted coding market where hundreds of thousands of developers now use its platform.

6 Sources

Profound Secures $180M Series D at $1.8B Valuation, Doubling Worth in 7 Months

Marketing technology startup Profound raised $180M in Series D funding at a $1.8 billion valuation, nearly doubling its worth since February. The enterprise marketing platform helps brands optimize visibility in AI-driven search results across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

3 Sources

Evvy Raises $40M to Transform Women's Health Research with Vaginal Microbiome Data

Women's health startup Evvy secured $40 million in Series B funding led by Catalio Capital Management to expand its AI-powered vaginal microbiome testing platform. The company serves over 100,000 patients and is now entering fertility research, aiming to address the critical data gap in precision medicine for women.

2 Sources

Italian Cybersecurity Startup Exein Reaches Unicorn Status with $270M Funding for Physical AI Security

Rome-based Exein has raised $270 million at a $1.7 billion valuation to secure AI-powered robots, self-driving cars, and connected devices. The cybersecurity startup protects over 2 billion devices and plans to launch a foundational model for Physical AI security in 2027 as machine-speed attacks surge.

4 Sources

Buildots Secures $130M to Scale AI Construction Platform Amid Data Center Boom

Israeli AI startup Buildots raised $130 million in late-stage funding, bringing total capital to $297 million since 2018. The company's computer vision platform converts construction site video into digital representations, helping over 100 firms reduce project delays by 15% through early issue detection.

2 Sources

Flam Secures $40M Series B to Scale AI Infrastructure for Interactive Content Creation

San Francisco-based Flam raised $40 million in Series B funding led by QED Investors to advance its AI infrastructure platform for interactive content. The startup, which counts Google among its 100+ enterprise customers, is approaching $100 million in annual recurring revenue with its AI-generated interactive videos, 3D experiences, and hyper-realistic conversational avatars.

2 Sources

14 Sept 2026

Temporal Raises $550M at $12.55B Valuation as AI Agents Drive Explosive Growth in Software Reliability

Bellevue-based Temporal has raised $550 million in a Series E funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, more than doubling its valuation to $12.55 billion in just seven months. The open-source software platform's annualized revenue has surpassed $250 million, tripling year-over-year as major tech companies including OpenAI and Nvidia rely on its durable execution engine to keep AI agents and complex workflows running reliably.

6 Sources

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