🧑‍🚀 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ SoftBank Group – $6.5B acquisition of Ampere Computing, bringing Arm-based data center chips in-house as the group positions for the next phase of AI infrastructure demand.

2️⃣ Nvidia – $2B strategic equity investment in Synopsys, deepening a multi-year partnership around AI-powered chip design tools and locking in more of the semiconductor value chain.

3️⃣ Black Forest Labs – $300M Series B at a $3.25B valuation, giving its FLUX visual intelligence models fresh firepower in the race to own premium image generation and editing.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

• Black Forest Labs, a Freiburg, Germany-based visual intelligence company behind the FLUX image-generation models, raised $300M in Series B funding at a $3.25B valuation. AMP and Salesforce Ventures led, joined by a16z, Nvidia, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird, General Catalyst, and others.

• Harmonic, a Palo Alto, CA-based AI lab developing mathematical superintelligence, raised $120M in Series C funding at a $1.45B valuation. Ribbit Capital led alongside Sequoia, KP, Emerson Collective.

• Sokin, a London, UK-based cross-border treasury and payments platform, raised $50M in Series B funding. Prysm Capital led with Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and angels including former PayPal execs.

• Overstory, an Amsterdam-based vegetation intelligence platform for utilities, raised $43M in Series B funding led by Blume Equity.

• Xposure Music, a Montreal-based tech-driven financing platform for independent artists, raised $42.5M across debt and equity.

• Perelel, an LA-based OB/GYN-formulated women’s health supplement brand, raised $27M in growth funding led by Prelude Growth Partners.

• Gravis Robotics, a Zurich-based earthmoving autonomy platform, raised $23M in funding led by IQ Capital and Zacua Ventures.

• Evidium, a San Francisco-based healthcare AI company, raised $22M in funding co-led by Health2047 and WGG Partners.

• Clover Security, a Tel Aviv-based product security company, raised $36M across Seed + Series A rounds led by Notable Capital and Team8.

• Zetagen Therapeutics, a NYC-based clinical-stage biopharma company, raised $12M+ in Series B1 funding.

• EcoG, a Munich-based B2B EV charging company, raised €16M in funding.

• Vijil, a Menlo Park-based AI agent company, raised $17M in funding.

• Codenotary, a Houston-based AI cybersecurity and software supply-chain trust company, raised $16.5M.

• Protego Biopharma, a San Diego-based clinical-stage biotech, raised $130M in Series B funding.

• Robotera, a Beijing-based embodied intelligence company, raised RMB 1B in Series A+ funding.

• MiCare Path, a Memphis-based virtual care company, raised an undisclosed growth round.

• Lighthouse Learning Group, a Mumbai-based education services provider, raised an undisclosed growth round from KKR and PSP Investments.

🚀 Series A

• Clover Security, Tel Aviv — $36M across Seed + A (consumer security angle).

• Evidium, San Francisco — $22M Series A (added above; appears once).

• Find Your Grind, Los Angeles — $5M Series A for Gen Z career and lifestyle discovery, led by Echo Investment Capital.

• Augmentt, Ottawa — CAD $18M Series A for MSP Microsoft 365 security.

• Enerin, Norway — €15M Series A for high-temperature industrial heat pumps.

• Rencore, Munich — $15M Series A extension for cloud governance tools.

• Onlayer, Türkiye — $8.2M Series A for regtech and merchant management.

• Mznil, Saudi Arabia — $11.7M Series A for labor housing proptech.

• HelloBoss, Tokyo — Undisclosed Series A for AI-powered recruitment.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

• CoPlane, San Francisco — $14M Seed for AI-native back-office automation.

• Procure AI, London — $13M Seed for automated procurement workflows.

• Bhub, São Paulo — $10M Seed for AI-driven accounting for entrepreneurs.

• Onton, San Francisco — $7.5M Seed for AI product search and discovery.

• Lumia, Boston — $7M+ funding for smart biometric earrings.

• Crux, McLean — $6.5M Pre-Seed for pharma benefits platform.

• Strataphy, Saudi Arabia — $6M Seed for cooling AI & industrial infra.

• Juo, Warsaw — $4.6M Seed for product subscription management.

• SubImage, San Francisco — $4.2M Seed for cloud security graph infra.

• Marble Imaging, Bremen — €5.3M Seed for big-data EO.

• Adcities, Madrid — €3M+ Seed for adtech.

• Anyformat, Madrid — €3.3M Seed for document AI.

• Social Links, Netherlands — $3M funding for AI risk solutions.

• TISC, San Francisco — $2.1M Pre-Seed for intelligent retrieval.

• Gosta Labs, Helsinki — €7.5M Seed for healthtech.

• Ranketta, Czech Republic — €1M Pre-Seed for AI visibility analytics.

• SENO, China — $700K Pre-Seed for thin-film delivery systems.

• LabelBlind Solutions, Mumbai — $500K Seed for AI food labelling.

• The Home Equity Partners, Toronto — undisclosed financing.

• Indicio, Seattle — undisclosed funding from NEC X.

🤝 Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

• SoftBank Group acquired Ampere Computing for $6.5B.

• Paxos acquired Fordefi, an institutional crypto custody platform.

• Gloo (Nasdaq: GLOO) acquired XRI Global, a multilingual voice AI company.

• Xoriant acquired TestDevLab, a software quality engineering firm.

• Cegid acquired Shine, a Copenhagen-based SMB fintech.

• Synopsys received a $2B strategic investment from Nvidia as part of an expanded AI tools partnership.

• OpenAI took an equity stake in Thrive Holdings as part of a strategic capital alignment.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

• Sterling Investment Partners V — $1.6B for business services & distribution.

• Jolt Capital Fund V — €600M (~$650M) first close toward €1.1B target.

• Future Energy Ventures Fund II — €235M for energy-tech.

• India Global Forum Fund — $250M for Indian consumer & industrial brands.

• VL Fund (Victor Lazarte) — $200M debut AI-focused venture fund.

• Chui Ventures Fund I — $17.3M for pan-African seed investing.

Founders: Want to be featured on @tradedvc? → traded.co/submit/vc

🦃 Thanksgiving Power Players

• 🦃 Butterball controls roughly 1 in every 3–4 turkeys sold in the U.S., making it the dominant supplier during holiday demand.

• 🛒 Walmart & Kroger lead pre-Thanksgiving grocery traffic, with Walmart often hitting its annual peak this week, while Costco spikes on bulk frozen turkey runs.

• 🤖 Afresh, an AI-powered grocery optimization startup, feeds demand forecasting and real-time inventory data into major retailers, shaping availability and pricing during peak Instacart weeks.

🍗 Product Spotlight: What Everyone’s Buying

• 🔪 HexClad, the hybrid stainless-steel + nonstick cookware brand, is now among Amazon’s top five best-selling cookware sets heading into Thanksgiving. Viral turkey-searing videos and Gordon Ramsay’s partnership (he calls the hybrid tech “absolute perfection”) have turned HexClad into the season’s go-to premium upgrade for home cooks.

📚 Read of the Day

🧊 The Startup Keeping America’s Frozen Turkeys Moving
Inside the cold chain moving tens of millions of birds before Thanksgiving

Opening:
Americans eat 46M turkeys on Thanksgiving, most spending weeks in a tightly choreographed frozen supply chain run by Lineage Logistics, the world’s largest cold storage operator. With the turkey flock at a 40-year low and wholesale prices up 40%, cold chain reliability is strategic.

The Product Pitch:

• Operates 480+ temp-controlled facilities across 19+ countries, connecting farms, processors, and retailers.

• Sensors track every load; software reroutes shipments instantly to avoid storms, labor shortages, or spoilage events.

The Backstory:
Founded in 2008, Lineage expanded through 100+ acquisitions, built the Lineage Link cloud platform, and raised $1.9B during the pandemic before going public. Alongside Americold, it controls most third-party U.S. cold storage capacity.

Why It Matters:

• Pricing power: freezer fees have surged from $20 → $50 per pallet in peak season.

• Beyond Thanksgiving: ~90% of Thanksgiving turkeys are frozen, and the same infrastructure underpins pharma, produce, seafood, and global food security.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

🤖 OpenAI leak confirms ads are coming to ChatGPT — Internal builds show sponsored answer slots and carousel-style ad formats coming to ChatGPT.

🚗 Tesla launches “Tesla Ride” real-world demos for FSD + Grok AI — 45-minute supervised sessions give riders hands-on experience with FSD Supervised and Grok-powered in-car intelligence.

🛍️ Black Friday hits record $11.8B in U.S. online spend — Up ~9% YoY, driven by AI recommendation engines and retailer-native agents.