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Etched Doubles Valuation to $21 Billion in a Month After Jane Street Tests AI Inference Hardware

Smack Technologies Raises $61M as Pentagon Urgency Fuels AI Battlefield Tools Boom

Velaura AI Secures $110M Series A Funding, Achieves $1 Billion Valuation with Power-Efficient Chips

SoftBank Backs Gravis Robotics With $200M Series A for AI-Powered Construction Automation

Etched Doubles Valuation to $21 Billion in a Month After Jane Street Tests AI Inference Hardware

AI chip startup Etched raised $700 million at a $21 billion valuation, doubling its worth in just one month after Jane Street tested its frontier inference clusters. The AI hardware company has now raised $1.9 billion total and secured over $1 billion in customer contracts with its specialized Low Voltage Inference and Cluster Scale Memory technologies.

4 Sources

Smack Technologies Raises $61M as Pentagon Urgency Fuels AI Battlefield Tools Boom

Smack Technologies secured $61M in Series B funding as Pentagon demand for AI battlefield tools accelerates. The defense software startup is scaling production of Omega, its fires-planning software, and developing Alpha, a forearm-mounted display for troops. The raise reflects a broader shift as military branches seek faster AI vendors after the Anthropic supply-chain rupture.

2 Sources

Velaura AI Secures $110M Series A Funding, Achieves $1 Billion Valuation with Power-Efficient Chips

SoftBank Backs Gravis Robotics With $200M Series A for AI-Powered Construction Automation

Wispr Secures $280M Series B at $2B Valuation, Unveils Canto Model to Fix Dictation Errors

Higgsfield raises $400M Series B, valuation quadruples to $5.4B in 8 months with $700M revenue

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Yesterday

Etched Doubles Valuation to $21 Billion in a Month After Jane Street Tests AI Inference Hardware

AI chip startup Etched raised $700 million at a $21 billion valuation, doubling its worth in just one month after Jane Street tested its frontier inference clusters. The AI hardware company has now raised $1.9 billion total and secured over $1 billion in customer contracts with its specialized Low Voltage Inference and Cluster Scale Memory technologies.

4 Sources

Velaura AI Secures $110M Series A Funding, Achieves $1 Billion Valuation with Power-Efficient Chips

Chip designer Velaura AI raised $110 million in Series A funding led by Seligman Ventures, pushing its valuation past $1 billion. The startup's Titan Core platform promises 2-4x improvements in performance per watt for AI data centers, addressing the industry's mounting power consumption challenges.

5 Sources

Smack Technologies Raises $61M as Pentagon Urgency Fuels AI Battlefield Tools Boom

Smack Technologies secured $61M in Series B funding as Pentagon demand for AI battlefield tools accelerates. The defense software startup is scaling production of Omega, its fires-planning software, and developing Alpha, a forearm-mounted display for troops. The raise reflects a broader shift as military branches seek faster AI vendors after the Anthropic supply-chain rupture.

2 Sources

17 Aug 2026

Groq Raises $350 Million at $3.5 Billion Valuation as Nvidia Joins Funding Round

Groq has secured $350 million in Series A funding led by Disruptive, with Nvidia joining the round. The AI infrastructure company is valued at $3.5 billion, down from $6.9 billion last September. This marks Groq's continued pivot from AI chip maker to neocloud provider following Nvidia's $20 billion licensing deal that took its founder and key talent.

3 Sources

Higgsfield raises $400M Series B, valuation quadruples to $5.4B in 8 months with $700M revenue

AI video platform Higgsfield announced a $400 million Series B funding round at a $5.4 billion valuation, four times its worth from January. The company's annualized revenue surged from $20 million to $700 million in a year, driven by enterprise adoption as 390 Fortune 500 companies now use its AI-powered video generation platform for marketing content.

8 Sources

SoftBank Backs Gravis Robotics With $200M Series A for AI-Powered Construction Automation

Swiss startup Gravis Robotics raised a $200 million Series A led by SoftBank, marking the largest funding round in construction robotics history. The ETH Zurich spinout develops AI-driven software that transforms excavators into autonomous machines, claiming up to 30% productivity gains over manual operation.

5 Sources

Wispr Secures $280M Series B at $2B Valuation, Unveils Canto Model to Fix Dictation Errors

AI speech recognition startup Wispr raised $280 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation, led by Menlo Ventures. The company unveiled its proprietary AI model Canto, designed to reduce transcription error rates from over 30% to between 5-10% in challenging conditions with background noise and accents.

7 Sources

13 Aug 2026

Databricks Raises $5 Billion at $190 Billion Valuation as AI Demand Surges to $15 Billion Interest

Databricks closed a $5 billion strategic funding round led by Coatue at a $190 billion valuation, marking its second $5 billion raise in six months. The data and AI company surpassed $7 billion in annualized revenue with over 80% year-over-year growth as investor demand for AI infrastructure intensifies.

10 Sources

Legal AI Start-Up Legora Targets $10bn Valuation Just Months After Previous Funding Round

Swedish legal AI start-up Legora is pursuing a new funding round at over $10bn valuation, nearly double the $5.6bn it achieved in April. The company's annual recurring revenue jumped 50% to $150mn in Q2 2024, while customer count grew 25% to 1,500 firms including Linklaters and Deloitte.

2 Sources

HSBC Investment Backs Model ML AI Platform as Financial Services Embrace Model-Agnostic Solutions

HSBC Asset Management invested in Model ML through its venture capital strategy to support the AI modeling firm's expansion. Model ML has raised over $100 million in less than two years, offering a model-agnostic approach that automates research, due diligence, and financial analysis for banks and asset managers.

2 Sources

Lovable Secures $400M Series C Funding, Doubles Valuation to $13.3B in Eight Months

Swedish AI coding startup Lovable raised $400 million in Series C funding at a $13.3 billion valuation, doubling from December's $6.6 billion. The vibe-coding platform enables non-technical users to build full-stack web applications using plain English, with Fortune 500 companies including NVIDIA and Adidas among its enterprise clients.

5 Sources

12 Aug 2026

Thrive Holdings Raises $2 Billion to Scale AI Integration Across Enterprise Sectors

Josh Kushner's Thrive Holdings secured $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation from SoftBank, D1 Capital Partners, and Altimeter Capital to expand its AI-focused private equity model. The firm buys traditional businesses like accounting and IT firms, embedding OpenAI engineers to rebuild workflows with AI-driven platforms that have cut tax prep times by 30% and accelerated help desk resolution by 36 times.

3 Sources

Blacksmith Secures $45M Series B at $550M Valuation as AI Code Validation Demand Surges

AI code-testing startup Blacksmith raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Peak XV Partners, reaching a $550 million valuation. The round comes as demand for AI code validation tools accelerates, with the company now serving over 5,000 customers and experiencing 5-10% weekly job growth since early 2026.

3 Sources

Team8 Raises $365 Million to Back AI-Native Companies as Enterprise Security Concerns Mount

Israeli venture fund Team8 has closed $365 million to invest in AI-native companies building cybersecurity and infrastructure solutions. The fundraising comes as 97% of enterprises adopt AI agents while security confidence remains critically low at 2.32 out of 5, highlighting urgent gaps in governance and visibility.

2 Sources

Skan AI Raises $63M Series C to Build AI Agents by Watching How Employees Actually Work

Process intelligence company Skan AI secured $63 million in Series C funding co-led by Cathay Innovation and Dell Technologies Capital. The platform records and analyzes employee workflows through desktop observation, then builds AI agents that replicate the work. Seven of the ten largest US banks already use the system.

3 Sources

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