Startups

Today’s best in startups, explore the ventures and innovations making waves now.

Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raises $1 billion to advance spatial intelligence and world models

Saudi Arabia's Humain invests $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI ahead of SpaceX acquisition

Taalas raises $169 million to build custom AI chips that take on Nvidia with hardwired models

Cogent Security raises $42 million as AI agents tackle vulnerability remediation bottleneck

Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raises $1 billion to advance spatial intelligence and world models

World Labs, founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has closed a $1 billion funding round backed by Nvidia, AMD, and Autodesk. The startup is advancing spatial intelligence through generative AI world models that create interactive 3D virtual environments. Autodesk's $200 million investment signals a strategic partnership to integrate world models into 3D workflows for entertainment, robotics, and design.

7 Sources

Saudi Arabia's Humain invests $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI ahead of SpaceX acquisition

Saudi Arabia's state-backed AI company Humain invested $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI during its Series E funding round, becoming a significant minority shareholder. The investment occurred just before xAI's acquisition by SpaceX, with Humain's holdings converting into SpaceX shares. This deal deepens Saudi Arabia's financial ties with Musk and advances the Kingdom's push to transform oil wealth into AI infrastructure and compute capacity.

5 Sources

Taalas raises $169 million to build custom AI chips that take on Nvidia with hardwired models

Cogent Security raises $42 million as AI agents tackle vulnerability remediation bottleneck

Blackstone backs Neysa with $1.2B as India scales AI infrastructure to meet surging demand

David Silver's Ineffable Intelligence raises $1 billion in Europe's largest seed round for AI

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Yesterday

Taalas raises $169 million to build custom AI chips that take on Nvidia with hardwired models

Toronto-based chip startup Taalas has secured $169 million in funding to develop AI chips that print portions of AI models directly onto silicon. The company claims its custom-designed processors can run AI applications faster and more cheaply than conventional approaches, positioning itself as a challenger to Nvidia's dominance in the AI chip market.

2 Sources

Adronite Raises $5M to Help Enterprises Decode Complex Codebases With AI Platform

Seattle startup Adronite secured $5 million in Series A funding led by Gatemore Capital Management to expand its AI-powered software intelligence platform. Unlike typical AI coding tools that work on individual files, Adronite ingests complete codebases—including legacy systems—to provide project-level intelligence across millions of lines of code. The platform addresses a critical challenge for large organizations struggling with sprawling, complex software systems.

2 Sources

Cogent Security raises $42 million as AI agents tackle vulnerability remediation bottleneck

Cogent Security secured $42 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital to scale its AI agents that automate vulnerability remediation. The platform reduces high-risk bug resolution time by 97% on average, addressing a critical bottleneck as software vulnerabilities jumped 162% in five years. Dozens of Fortune 1000 companies already deploy the system.

2 Sources

18 Feb 2026

David Silver's Ineffable Intelligence raises $1 billion in Europe's largest seed round for AI

Former Google DeepMind scientist David Silver is raising $1 billion for his startup Ineffable Intelligence, led by Sequoia Capital at a $4 billion valuation. The London-based company aims to build superhuman intelligence using advanced reinforcement learning techniques, with potential backing from Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft despite having no product yet.

2 Sources

Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raises $1 billion to advance spatial intelligence and world models

World Labs, founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has closed a $1 billion funding round backed by Nvidia, AMD, and Autodesk. The startup is advancing spatial intelligence through generative AI world models that create interactive 3D virtual environments. Autodesk's $200 million investment signals a strategic partnership to integrate world models into 3D workflows for entertainment, robotics, and design.

7 Sources

Saudi Arabia's Humain invests $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI ahead of SpaceX acquisition

Saudi Arabia's state-backed AI company Humain invested $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI during its Series E funding round, becoming a significant minority shareholder. The investment occurred just before xAI's acquisition by SpaceX, with Humain's holdings converting into SpaceX shares. This deal deepens Saudi Arabia's financial ties with Musk and advances the Kingdom's push to transform oil wealth into AI infrastructure and compute capacity.

5 Sources

SpaceX vets raise $50M to mass-produce American-made optical transceivers for AI data centers

Three SpaceX engineers who developed optical communications for Starlink satellites have raised $50 million in Series A funding for Mesh Optical Technologies. The Los Angeles startup aims to mass-produce American-made optical transceivers, addressing supply chain vulnerabilities as the devices dominated by Chinese manufacturers become critical for AI training clusters.

2 Sources

17 Feb 2026

Eric Trump Backs Israeli Drone Maker XTEND's $1.5B Merger to Bring AI Defense Robotics to Nasdaq

Eric Trump is investing in a $1.5 billion merger between Israeli drone maker XTEND and Florida-based JFB Construction Holdings. The deal aims to take XTEND public on Nasdaq under the ticker XTND, providing investors exposure to autonomous defense systems. The merger positions AI defense robotics as Wall Street's next major investment frontier.

2 Sources

Temporal raises $300M at $5B valuation as AI agents demand durable execution infrastructure

Temporal secured $300 million in Series D funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, doubling its valuation to $5 billion. The infrastructure startup addresses reliability challenges as AI agents move from generating responses to executing real-world tasks. With customers including OpenAI and Netflix, Temporal's platform has processed 9.1 trillion lifetime action executions.

3 Sources

German Start-Up Sitegeist Raises €4M to Deploy AI Robots for Concrete Renovation

Munich-based Sitegeist has secured €4m in pre-seed funding to deploy AI-enabled robots that automate concrete renovation. The German start-up's modular robots can remove deteriorated concrete up to ten times faster than manual labor, addressing Europe's infrastructure backlog and labor shortages across bridges, tunnels and public buildings.

2 Sources

16 Feb 2026

Blackstone backs Neysa with $1.2B as India scales AI infrastructure to meet surging demand

Blackstone leads a $1.2 billion investment in Neysa, India's AI infrastructure startup, securing a majority stake as the country pushes to expand GPU capacity. The Mumbai-based company plans to scale from 1,200 to over 20,000 GPUs, targeting enterprises and government clients. India currently has fewer than 60,000 GPUs deployed but expects to reach over 2 million in coming years.

3 Sources

13 Feb 2026

Didero Raises $30M to Automate Manufacturing Procurement with Agentic AI Agents

Didero, a startup deploying AI agents to automate procurement workflows, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Chemistry VC and Headline. The platform integrates with ERP systems to handle supplier communications, order tracking, and payment processes, targeting manufacturers and distributors managing complex global supply chains.

2 Sources

12 Feb 2026

Modal Labs pursues $2.5B valuation as AI inference infrastructure attracts investor interest

Modal Labs is negotiating a funding round at a $2.5 billion valuation with General Catalyst reportedly leading, more than doubling its $1.1 billion valuation from just five months ago. The startup's $50 million annual revenue run rate reflects surging demand for AI inference infrastructure as enterprises prioritize efficiency over training.

2 Sources

Meridian raises $17 million to build auditable AI agents for financial modeling

Meridian emerges from stealth with $17 million in seed funding to tackle AI-powered financial modeling. The startup takes a standalone IDE approach rather than integrating into Excel, aiming to make AI agents more auditable and deterministic for regulated financial institutions. The company secured $5 million in contracts in December alone.

2 Sources

11 Feb 2026

Apptronik Raises $520 Million to Scale Apollo Humanoid Robots for Industrial Deployment

Apptronik secured $520 million in new funding led by Google and Mercedes-Benz, tripling its valuation to over $5.5 billion. The Austin-based startup plans to accelerate production of its Apollo humanoid robot for manufacturing and logistics customers, with pilot programs already underway at Mercedes-Benz and GXO Logistics facilities.

6 Sources

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