Startups

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

Prime Intellect raises $130M Series A to help enterprises build their own AI agents at $1B valuation

SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, quintuples worth in months as AI chip race intensifies

Gradium secures $100M seed round with Nvidia backing to advance ultra-low latency voice AI

Lovable in talks to double startup valuation to $13.2B with $300M raise from Menlo Ventures

Prime Intellect raises $130M Series A to help enterprises build their own AI agents at $1B valuation

Prime Intellect has secured $130 million in Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation to provide enterprises with tools to train AI agents. Led by Radical Ventures with backing from Nvidia Ventures, Intel Capital, and Dell Technologies Capital, the startup has reached a $100 million annualized revenue run rate with 6,000 customers including Ramp and Zapier.

2 Sources

SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, quintuples worth in months as AI chip race intensifies

AI chip company SambaNova Systems has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation, roughly five times its worth from earlier this year. The Series F funding round, led by General Atlantic, comes as investors race to back alternatives to Nvidia for AI inference workloads. JPMorgan Chase has selected SambaNova as its inference infrastructure partner, signaling growing enterprise demand for secure, on-premise AI systems.

8 Sources

Gradium secures $100M seed round with Nvidia backing to advance ultra-low latency voice AI

Lovable in talks to double startup valuation to $13.2B with $300M raise from Menlo Ventures

Mercor pursues $20 billion valuation as it acquires Deeptune to control AI training stack

Ollama raises $65M as open-source AI developer tool reaches 8.9M users across Fortune 500

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10 Jul 2026

MiniMax raises $2 billion as CEO forgoes salary until AGI amid 80% stock slump

Chinese AI company MiniMax closed a $2 billion fundraising round through discounted share placement and convertible bonds, even as its stock has lost 80% since March. CEO Yan Junjie pledged to forgo salary until the company achieves artificial general intelligence and give away 5% of his shares to employees and open-source projects.

5 Sources

Gradium secures $100M seed round with Nvidia backing to advance ultra-low latency voice AI

Paris-based Gradium has raised $100 million in seed funding, with Nvidia joining as a new investor. The AI voice startup, spun out of French AI lab Kyutai, is using the capital to expand to the Bay Area and compete with voice AI giants like ElevenLabs and Google Gemini. Since launching in December, Gradium has secured enterprise customers including Renault.

2 Sources

Mercor pursues $20 billion valuation as it acquires Deeptune to control AI training stack

AI training startup Mercor is in talks to raise funding at a $20 billion valuation, doubling its worth in just nine months. The company announced it's acquiring Deeptune to build training environments for AI agents, though questions emerge around conflict-of-interest as CEO Brendan Foody was an angel investor in the target. Despite a major data breach in March, Mercor reports its annualized revenue crossed $2 billion.

4 Sources

Lyzr AI Agent Runs Its Own $100 Million Fundraise, Drawing $400M in Investor Interest

Lyzr, an enterprise AI agents startup, used its own AI agent to run its $100 million Series B fundraising round at a $500 million valuation. The agent fielded questions from over 130 investors and drafted investment memos, drawing $400 million in interest from Silicon Valley, the Middle East, and financial institutions—without founders making traditional roadshow trips.

4 Sources

09 Jul 2026

Ollama raises $65M as open-source AI developer tool reaches 8.9M users across Fortune 500

Ollama, the popular open-source AI developer tool that simplifies running AI models locally, has secured $65 million in Series B funding led by Theory Ventures. The platform now serves 8.9 million developers monthly and is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies. Founded by former Docker Desktop creators, Ollama has grown to $88 million in total funding with just 14 employees, betting that open AI models will dominate the industry.

3 Sources

Mukesh Bansal's Nurix AI acquires Verloop to build end-to-end conversational AI platform

Mukesh Bansal-led Nurix AI has acquired conversational AI firm Verloop to strengthen its enterprise offerings across voice and chat channels. The deal adds Verloop's chat automation technology and customer base of over 20 million monthly interactions to Nurix's voice AI platform, creating a comprehensive solution for businesses in India, the Middle East, and beyond.

2 Sources

Lovable in talks to double startup valuation to $13.2B with $300M raise from Menlo Ventures

Swedish vibe-coding startup Lovable is negotiating to raise $300 million at a $13.2 billion valuation—exactly double what it achieved just six months ago. The company hit $500 million in annualized revenue in June with only 146 staff, cementing its position as one of Europe's fastest-growing AI companies. Menlo Ventures is expected to lead the round as vibe coding emerges as AI's most lucrative application.

2 Sources

08 Jul 2026

Prime Intellect raises $130M Series A to help enterprises build their own AI agents at $1B valuation

Prime Intellect has secured $130 million in Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation to provide enterprises with tools to train AI agents. Led by Radical Ventures with backing from Nvidia Ventures, Intel Capital, and Dell Technologies Capital, the startup has reached a $100 million annualized revenue run rate with 6,000 customers including Ramp and Zapier.

2 Sources

SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, quintuples worth in months as AI chip race intensifies

AI chip company SambaNova Systems has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation, roughly five times its worth from earlier this year. The Series F funding round, led by General Atlantic, comes as investors race to back alternatives to Nvidia for AI inference workloads. JPMorgan Chase has selected SambaNova as its inference infrastructure partner, signaling growing enterprise demand for secure, on-premise AI systems.

8 Sources

07 Jul 2026

Legal AI startup Norm AI raises $120M Series C, reaches $1.2 billion unicorn valuation

Norm AI has secured $120 million in Series C funding led by Khosla Ventures, propelling the legal AI startup to a $1.2 billion valuation. The New York-based company operates an AI-native law firm that deploys AI agents supervised by human attorneys, charging clients based on outcomes rather than billable hours. With clients managing over $30 trillion in assets, Norm AI is building supervisory AI agents that monitor other AI systems in regulated industries.

7 Sources

Bespoke Labs raises $40M to build training environments that make AI agents reliable

Bespoke Labs has secured $40 million from Wing VC, 8VC, and angels at Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta to build simulated environments where AI agents learn complex, real-world tasks. The startup's approach focuses on creating better training grounds rather than bigger models to help agents handle long, messy workflows that span hours or days.

2 Sources

Mowito raises $3 million to teach factory robots by demonstration, transforming manufacturing automation

Mowito, a Physical AI startup building foundation models for industrial robotic arms, has closed a $3 million pre-seed round led by Version One Ventures. The company is replacing traditional robot programming with demonstration-based learning, allowing factory robots to learn tasks by observing humans rather than requiring extensive coding for every production change.

2 Sources

06 Jul 2026

Even Realities hits $1B valuation as Meituan, Tencent back privacy-focused smart glasses

Even Realities, a Shenzhen-based smart glasses startup founded by ex-Apple engineers, has reached unicorn status with $150 million in funding led by Meituan and Tencent. The company's privacy-first approach skips cameras entirely, instead using heads-up displays controlled by a companion smart ring. With over half its users in the U.S. and frames retailing at $599, Even Realities is carving out a distinct position in a market dominated by Meta.

2 Sources

03 Jul 2026

Kling AI secures $2.8 billion funding from Tencent as Kuaishou spins off AI video unit

Kling AI has raised up to $2.8 billion in venture capital from investors including Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu, valuing the AI video generation subsidiary at $18 billion post-money. The funding round marks a major step as Kuaishou prepares to spin off its fastest-growing AI unit, which has seen annual recurring revenue surge to $500 million. The move positions Kling AI to fill the global void left by OpenAI's Sora shutdown while competing with ByteDance's Seedance in the rapidly evolving AI-powered video generation market.

5 Sources

Crusoe seeks $3 billion funding as AI computing power demand drives valuation to $30 billion

AI data center startup Crusoe is in talks to raise $3 billion in a funding round that may triple its valuation to around $30 billion, according to Bloomberg News. The company, which supplies AI computing power to Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, and Google, has contracts for nearly 5 gigawatts of computing capacity with over 40 gigawatts in its project pipeline.

2 Sources

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