startup

AI security startup Mindgard announced the completion of a $30 million Series A funding round, led by Album VC, with participation from Karma Ventures, .406 Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, IQ Capital, and Lakestar.Mindgard was founded by Dr. Peter Garraghan in 2022 and incubated at Lancaster University in the UK, with headquarters in Boston and London. The company's platform offers Shadow AI discovery, AI red team testing, and runtime AI protection capabilities, having helped disclose over 150 high-impact AI security vulnerabilities, including issues such as the Cursor IDE zero-day code execution vulnerability, Google Antigravity trusted workspace defects, and ChatGPT image generation protection failures.

AI code verification startup Blacksmith announced the completion of a $45 million Series B financing, led by Peak XV Partners, with follow-on investments from GV and Y Combinator, bringing the company's valuation to $550 million.

Swedish Stockholm AI programming startup Lovable announced the completion of a $400 million Series C funding round, bringing its post-funding valuation to $13.3 billion. This round of financing was co-led by Menlo Ventures and the EU-backed investment institution Scaleup Europe Fund (managed by EQT AB), with several venture capital firms participating, as well as new investors from Latin America and Asia, including Tencent Holdings.Lovable is dedicated to the field of AI-assisted programming and is accelerating its expansion to compete with larger rivals such as Anthropic.

According to Cointelegraph, Mauro Eldritch, the founder of cybersecurity company BCA LTD, and Heiner García, a network threat intelligence analyst at Telefónica Tech, jointly established a fake cryptocurrency startup "Ballena Azul," successfully luring suspected North Korean IT workers to work in a controlled virtual desktop environment for up to five weeks while monitoring their behavior throughout.Investigations show that the external servers used by the workers are linked to North Korean cyber operations that previously distributed malware such as InvisibleFerret, BeaverTail, and OtterCookie; the workers also heavily relied on ChatGPT for programming assistance and Google Gemini to forge identity documents. Researchers pointed out that North Korean IT workers obtained remote jobs by faking U.S. identities, with their earnings ultimately flowing into Pyongyang's weapons of mass destruction programs. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, such programs are expected to generate nearly $800 million for North Korea in 2024.

According to Bloomberg, former chief architect of Alibaba's flagship model, Lin Junyang, recently announced the establishment of a new company on the X platform, focusing on developing artificial intelligence agents for the digital and physical worlds.This comes less than six months after his unexpected departure from Alibaba. The company has received investment support from Tencent Holdings and several leading venture capital firms in China.

Global venture capital firm Accel announced that it has raised a new fund of $3.5 billion for early-stage investments worldwide. A total of four funds were raised, including a global expansion fund of $1.35 billion for larger early rounds and follow-on investments; the U.S. fund and the European and Israeli funds are each $800 million, while the Indian fund is $550 million.Accel partner Harry Nelis stated that companies are raising funds more quickly in their early stages than ever before, which presents opportunities for investors, although the scale of risk still exists. Accel has invested in AI companies such as Anthropic, Cursor, and Perplexity.

According to The Information, AI infrastructure startup Trajectory announced the completion of a $40 million financing round, with a post-money valuation of $300 million, co-invested by Sequoia Capital. The specific financing round and other investors have not been disclosed.Trajectory was founded by researchers from tech companies such as Google and Apple, and primarily helps businesses customize open-source AI models for specific business needs, as well as optimize the software toolchain that supports AI Agent operations (referred to as "Agent Harness"). As the costs of using closed-source large models continue to rise, more and more companies are looking for alternatives: on one hand, they are reducing costs by fine-tuning and customizing open-source models, and on the other hand, they are improving the Agent execution framework to enable AI models to more effectively call tools and execute tasks.This trend is driving a new wave of entrepreneurial enthusiasm around model adaptation and Agent infrastructure. Trajectory aims to address key issues faced by enterprises in deploying AI Agents, including model performance optimization, task execution reliability, and adaptation to enterprise scenarios. The company hopes to help businesses build more efficient and cost-effective AI applications by providing model customization and Agent operation infrastructure.Investors believe that as AI evolves from simple chatbots to Agents capable of autonomously executing complex tasks, a new layer of infrastructure around model optimization and Agent engineering will become an important market. In recent years, Sequoia has also continued to increase its investment in the AI infrastructure sector, including investments in AI Agents and enterprise AI applications.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. defense technology startup Neros has completed a $250 million equity financing, raising its post-money valuation to $2.5 billion, led by Sequoia Capital and the American Strategic Technology Fund, with participation from existing investors such as Thiel Capital.Neros plans to accelerate the research and development and mass production of the attack drone Archer and the interceptor drone Bandit, and promote localized manufacturing among allies. The company's current annual production capacity is about 14,000 units, with a goal to increase Archer's annual production capacity to 1 million units by 2028.This round of funding will also be used to expand the employee count from about 200 to 350 and upgrade the handheld terminals used to control the drones and the Archer AI model, enabling it to maintain target lock in GPS-denied environments and coordinate with other drones.

According to Fortune, the prediction market trading infrastructure startup River Markets announced the completion of a $8.5 million seed round financing, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, and Qube Research Technologies.The new funds will primarily be used to expand the engineering team, enhance the speed and security of the trading system, and grow institutional clients, while also developing new tools to support large-scale fund management and cross-platform trading.In recent years, prediction markets have attracted the attention of institutional investors. Industry platform data shows that institutional trading demand is rapidly increasing. For example, the prediction market platform Kalshi previously stated that its institutional trading volume grew by approximately 800% within six months. Meanwhile, market participants have begun to hedge risks through prediction markets, including establishing trading positions around real economic variables such as carbon emission allowances and GPU rental prices.

According to a report by Fortune, the cybersecurity startup Corma, established in 2025, announced the completion of a $60 million seed round financing, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Coatue.Corma is headquartered in Tel Aviv and San Francisco, and six weeks ago, it deployed its first AI model to several Fortune 100 and 500 companies across various industries (covering healthcare, financial services, energy, critical infrastructure, and retail).Unlike current cybersecurity models primarily trained by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc., for "offensive" purposes, Corma's trained model focuses on "defensive" strategies, concentrating on log and audit data analysis, identifying threats among massive events, and maintaining consistent strategies across thousands of operations. According to the company, its model has helped clients reduce threat response times by 94%.

U.S. AI data center startup Global AI announced the completion of $441 million (approximately 626 billion Korean won) in funding, led by JPMorgan Chase.Founded in 2024, Global AI positions itself as "the world's first sovereign AI hyperscale service provider," specifically designing, building, and operating dedicated AI data centers that are physically isolated (Air-gapped) from external networks for national and enterprise clients, focusing on high-security sensitive task processing scenarios.

According to The Information, citing informed sources, the AI startup Applied Compute, founded by former OpenAI researchers, is discussing a new round of financing, with a valuation expected to reach around $3 billion, more than doubling the valuation announced four months ago during the last financing round. The company is dedicated to helping businesses utilize their own data to run and customize open-source models.This financing is taking place against the backdrop of the company's recent strong revenue growth. Informed sources indicate that Applied Compute's current annualized revenue is approximately $50 million, nearly quadrupling the revenue level disclosed by its CEO Yash Patil last November. According to the sources, investor Elad Gil is negotiating to lead this round of financing, with the expected amount reaching several hundred million dollars. It is still unclear whether this valuation includes the newly injected funds. This round of financing has not yet been finalized, and specific terms may still change.

According to exclusive reports from CTech (Calcalist), Israeli AI startup Decart is in deep negotiations with an international tech giant for a sale, with a valuation of about $6 to $7 billion, and the deal could be signed next week. Founded in 2023, Decart focuses on the development of real-time video generation AI models, employing around 100 people, and has raised approximately $450 million to date. The company just completed a $300 million funding round in May, with a valuation of $4 billion. Initial negotiations were with NVIDIA, and as they were nearing an agreement, another giant intervened, prompting the founder to shift focus to the new buyer. Industry speculation suggests the new buyer could be SpaceX, but Amazon and Nebius are also reportedly interested in participating.Decart's technological advantage lies in its ability to generate videos at a cost far lower than its competitors. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has maintained regular contact with co-founder Dean Leitersdorf since experiencing the game Oasis developed based on Decart's technology in 2024. Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire (who organized Musk's post-war trip to Israel) has been investing in the company since the seed round. If the buyer is SpaceX, it will establish its first R&D center in Israel. Previously, SpaceX had acquired AI programming startup Cursor for $60 billion after its IPO, and acquiring Decart would further strengthen its position in the AI infrastructure sector.

According to the industry analysis platform Hello China Tech, as of June 2026, there are a total of 8 humanoid robot-related companies in China with valuations reaching or exceeding 20 billion yuan (approximately 2.9 billion USD), of which 5 companies have valuations primarily based on models rather than shipment volumes, with annual shipment volumes still maintaining at the hundreds level. In the second quarter, the financing amount in the humanoid robot field reached 6.95 billion USD, more than double that of the previous quarter.The report points out that the data collection costs vary significantly across different stages: the hourly wage for frontline operators is about 20 to 40 yuan, approximately 25 yuan when outsourced; the internal cost for companies involving robots is about 250 yuan; and the data price from government-supported training bases reaches 500 to 1000 yuan. However, the data produced through different collection methods (wearable devices and robot involvement) shows significant differences in quality and training effectiveness, with only about 50 hours of usable data from 100 hours of raw collection. The data measurement units used by different companies (hours, trajectories, skills, etc.) are incompatible, and there is a lack of independent auditing, leading to considerable uncertainty in valuation bases. It is believed that the industry urgently needs to establish a unified data asset measurement standard.

According to Bloomberg, former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI fund Situational Awareness has splurged $400 million this week to support a private company, which is the semiconductor manufacturing startup Source Foundry. It is reported that VC giant Sequoia Capital has also provided support for this startup. So far, representatives from Situational Awareness and Source Foundry have not responded to requests for comments, while Sequoia Capital has declined to confirm the hedge fund's investment situation.It is reported that Source Foundry is dedicated to developing a semiconductor manufacturing process that is simpler, cheaper, and faster than existing methods, aiming to bridge the widening gap between the demand for AI computing power and the capacity expansion of chip manufacturing. Analysts believe that Leopold Aschenbrenner's large-scale investment reflects the ongoing strong demand in the market for new chip manufacturing technologies, as AI developers' demand for computing power is increasing day by day. However, this investment also reveals that Situational Awareness has formed a highly concentrated risk exposure before facing significant financial pressure due to severe fluctuations in its publicly held technology positions.

According to a report by Reuters, AMD announced the acquisition of AI inference chip startup Taalas, with the transaction amount yet to be disclosed.The purpose of this acquisition is to enhance AMD's technological capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence inference chips, and it plans to integrate Taalas's technology into its Instinct GPU accelerator roadmap, further advancing the development of system-level solutions.

According to The Information, OpenAI has acquired some patent assets from the AI chip startup Rain AI, after the two parties previously negotiated the acquisition but ultimately failed to complete the deal.Rain AI is a startup focused on the development of AI chips, founded about 8 years ago, with investors including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Reports indicate that due to the failure of the acquisition plan, Rain AI has nearly ceased operations recently, and most employees have left the company.This patent acquisition shows that although some companies personally invested in by Altman may have commercial collaborations with OpenAI, this does not mean that all invested enterprises will receive direct support from OpenAI.Rain AI was previously dedicated to developing specialized chips for artificial intelligence computing, hoping to reduce the operating costs of AI models through customized hardware and enhance edge computing capabilities. As competition in AI infrastructure intensifies, chips, computing power, and energy have become core strategic resources for large AI companies.Industry insiders believe that OpenAI's acquisition of Rain AI's related patents may be aimed at absorbing its technological assets and strengthening its layout in the field of AI hardware and computing infrastructure.

According to Financewire, AI-native startup studio Inevitable AI Group (IAIG) announced the completion of a $6 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by Aleph. IAIG plans to reshape the software development model using artificial intelligence, creating and launching dozens of AI-native SaaS companies.IAIG was founded by tech entrepreneurs Nimrod Lehavi and Ofer Bar-Or, with the core philosophy that as AI technology rapidly evolves, small teams can develop, launch, and scale software products at lower costs and with higher efficiency.Since its establishment in January this year, IAIG has incubated and launched 5 companies and plans to roll out dozens of AI-native software projects by the end of this year. The company focuses on software areas with validated market demand, enhancing product efficiency, accessibility, and pricing competitiveness through AI.

According to TechCrunch, AI research startup Mirendil has reached a multi-year partnership agreement with Google Cloud to gain large-scale computing resources to support its "self-improving AI" development.Mirendil co-founder and CEO Benham Neyshabur revealed that the total value of the agreement exceeds $100 million, which is about half of the $1 billion valuation seed round financing amount completed by the company at the end of June.Under the agreement, Mirendil will receive TPU and NVIDIA GPU computing resources provided by Google Cloud, as well as managed AI training clusters, to develop AI systems capable of continuously optimizing their own capabilities.It is reported that Mirendil is dedicated to developing "recursive self-improving" AI, which means AI systems can enhance their performance through continuous iteration, self-learning, and optimization. This direction is also a research area of interest for some of the top AI laboratories currently.

According to Jinshi reports, Anthropic has signed a $10 billion computing services agreement with an artificial intelligence cloud startup.