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17 Apr 2026

DeepSeek valuation doubles to $20 billion as Tencent and Alibaba join funding talks

DeepSeek is raising funds for the first time, with Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba in discussions to invest at a valuation exceeding $20 billion. The funding aims to retain AI talent through stock options as the startup faces poaching from rivals. This marks a sharp increase from initial talks targeting a $10 billion valuation.

7 Sources

Manycore shares surge 140% in Hong Kong IPO as Chinese AI firm bets on spatial intelligence

Manycore Tech raised $160 million in an oversubscribed Hong Kong IPO, with shares rallying 140% on debut. The Hangzhou-based Chinese AI firm is pivoting from its real estate software roots to spatial intelligence, targeting robotics and world models. Co-founder Victor Huang, a former Nvidia engineer, believes robotics will define the era as the company leverages 500 million 3D assets to train AI for the physical world.

3 Sources

Upscale AI targets $2 billion valuation in third funding round since September launch

AI infrastructure startup Upscale AI is negotiating a new funding round that would value the company at $2 billion, just seven months after emerging from stealth. The Santa Clara-based company aims to raise $180-200 million despite not yet releasing a product, betting on custom chips and full-stack infrastructure solutions to transform how AI data centers operate.

2 Sources

Solidroad Secures $25M Series A to Automate Quality Assurance for Customer Support with AI

Dublin and San Francisco-based Solidroad has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Hedosophia to automate quality assurance for customer support teams. The AI-powered platform reviews 100% of customer interactions versus the industry standard of 1-3%, serving clients like Ryanair, Crypto.com, and Oura while delivering up to 90% reduction in manual review time.

3 Sources

American Express acquires Sam Altman-backed Hyper to deploy AI agents for expense management

American Express announced it will acquire Hyper, an AI-focused expense management startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The deal, expected to close in Q2 2026, positions AmEx to deploy autonomous AI agents that categorize expenses, file reports, and handle compliance checks automatically, marking a shift from traditional expense software to agentic finance.

6 Sources

Antioch raises $8.5 million to build simulation tools that accelerate physical AI development

Antioch, a New York-based startup, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding at a $60 million valuation to develop simulation tools for physical AI. The company aims to close the sim-to-real gap by providing cloud-based simulation software that allows robot developers to test AI-enabled robots in virtual environments before deploying them in the real world.

2 Sources

16 Apr 2026

Spektr Raises $20M Series A to Deploy AI Agents Across Financial Compliance Operations

Copenhagen-based Spektr has secured $20 million in Series A funding led by NEA to scale its AI-powered compliance platform. The fintech compliance startup deploys specialized AI agents that automate KYC and KYB work, transforming manual processes that take hours into automated tasks completed in minutes. With customers including Santander Leasing and Pleo, Spektr plans to expand its engineering team and open offices in London and New York.

4 Sources

AI Startup Hilbert Secures $28M Series A to Transform How Companies Act on Customer Data

Hilbert AI has raised $28 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz to help consumer brands automate business decisions. The platform uses AI agents to analyze complex customer datasets and suggest actionable steps, promising to complete analytics projects in weeks instead of months. Major customers include Walmart and FreshDirect.

2 Sources

15 Apr 2026

Accel raises $5 billion fund for AI investments after Anthropic and Cursor valuations soar

Venture capital firm Accel has raised $5 billion in new capital to back late-stage AI startups, following massive returns from its Anthropic stake (invested at $183B, now near $800B) and Cursor (backed at $9.9B, now around $50B). The raise includes a $4 billion Leaders Fund V targeting 20-25 investments at $200 million average cheque size.

4 Sources

Artemis Raises $70M to Fight AI-Powered Attacks With AI-Native Security Platform

Six-month-old cybersecurity startup Artemis emerged from stealth with $70 million in combined seed and Series A funding to combat AI-powered attacks that move at machine speed. Founded by former AWS and Abnormal Security leaders, the company offers an AI-native protection platform that replaces traditional rule-based systems with adaptive, automated threat response.

4 Sources

Chipmakers AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm invest $60M in Wayve's self-driving tech platform

UK autonomous driving startup Wayve raised $60 million from semiconductor giants AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm, extending its Series D funding round to $1.2 billion. The strategic investment gives Wayve access to virtually every automotive compute platform, supporting its hardware-agnostic AI Driver that works across different chips and vehicles without location-specific engineering.

3 Sources

14 Apr 2026

Synera raises $40M to deploy agentic AI agents that autonomously execute engineering workflows

Bremen-based Synera has secured $40 million in Series B funding led by Revaia to expand its agentic AI platform that deploys autonomous AI agents across engineering workflows. The platform integrates with over 75 existing tools and is already deployed at NASA, BMW, Airbus, and Volvo Trucks, executing complex engineering tasks without human intervention at each step.

2 Sources

Helical raises $10M to turn bio foundation models into production drug discovery systems

London-based AI pharma startup Helical has secured $10 million in seed funding to build the infrastructure that turns biological foundation models into reproducible drug discovery workflows. Already in production with multiple top-20 pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, the company aims to compress discovery timelines from years to weeks by bridging the gap between computational predictions and scientific decision-making.

2 Sources

10 Apr 2026

Cohere and Aleph Alpha in advanced AI merger talks with backing from German government

Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere and German AI firm Aleph Alpha are negotiating a potential merger that could reshape the global AI landscape. The advanced merger talks, which began early this year, have Berlin's support, with Germany pledging to become a key customer of the combined entity as part of its push to compete with dominant AI players.

3 Sources

Alibaba bets $290 million on ShengShu's world model AI to move beyond text-based chatbots

Alibaba Cloud led a $290 million investment in ShengShu Technology, the Chinese AI startup behind video generator Vidu. The funding signals a strategic shift from large language models to world models that process visual, audio, and tactile data. ShengShu plans to build a general world model bridging digital and physical environments for applications in robotics and autonomous driving.

6 Sources

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