🧑‍🚀 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ Fireworks AI – $250M Series C at a $4B valuation, fueling enterprise AI inference at massive scale.

2️⃣ Cartesia – $100M raise to advance ultra-realistic AI voice infrastructure for next-gen conversational agents.

3️⃣ Lanserhof Group – €95M (~$110M) strategic raise to expand its longevity resort network and health-tech operations.

⭐️ Honorable Mention - 1X Technologies – unveiled NEO, the first humanoid robot for consumers, priced at $20K or $499 per month, marking the beginning of domestic robotics adoption.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

📊 Market Movers & Milestones

• NVIDIA, the AI chip and compute leader, surpassed a $5 trillion market capitalization, becoming the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. The milestone came as Nokia announced a major strategic share purchase by NVIDIA, signaling a push to integrate advanced AI compute into telecom infrastructure and further expanding NVIDIA’s influence beyond data centers into global connectivity.

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

• Fireworks AI, a Redwood City, CA-based AI inference cloud powering production AI applications, raised $250 million in Series C funding at a $4 billion valuation.

• ConductorOne, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-native identity security platform provider, raised $79 million in Series B funding.

• Pinetree Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based biotech pioneering targeted protein degraders for drug-resistant cancers, closed a $47 million Series B financing.

• Lanserhof Group, an Austria- and Germany-based luxury longevity and wellness resort operator, raised €95 million (~$110 million) in strategic investment to expand globally and launch new health-tech products.

• Syllo, a New York City-based provider of a litigation workspace, raised $30 million in growth funding.

• Agtonomy, a South San Francisco, CA-based automation and physical-AI company for agriculture and land management, closed an $18 million Series B.

🚀 Series A

• CoreStory, a San Francisco, CA-based code intelligence company, raised $32 million in Series A funding.

• Arya Health, a New York City-based AI-agent platform automating post-acute-care admin, raised $18.2 million in Series A funding.

• WideField Security, a Sunnyvale, CA-based identity-lifecycle security platform, raised $11.3 million in Series A funding.

• Lula Commerce, a Philadelphia, PA-based AI-powered digital commerce platform for convenience retailers, raised $8 million in Series A funding.

• Homecourt, a Los Angeles, CA-based home and personal fragrance brand founded by Courteney Cox, raised $8 million in Series A funding.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

• Valthos, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-biodefense startup developing systems to detect biological threats and design countermeasures, raised $30 million in seed financing led by OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund.

• Polygraf AI, an Austin, TX-based AI-security platform for critical operations, closed a $9.5 million seed round.

• Vesence, an AI-agent platform for law firms built within Microsoft Office, raised $9 million in seed funding.

• Uptiq.ai, a McKinney, TX-based AI-infrastructure developer for financial services, raised $12 million in early funding.

• Sweatpals, an Austin, TX-based community-fitness platform, raised $12 million in early funding.

• Cylerity, a Madison, WI-based healthcare fintech, raised $4 million in equity funding.

• Flamingo, a Miami, FL-based platform for IT-service providers, launched from stealth with $2.2 million in pre-seed funding.

• iPNOTE, a San Francisco, CA-based legal-tech platform for IP management, raised $1 million in seed funding.

• Druo, a Miami, FL-based global direct-debit payments platform, raised an undisclosed seed round.

• StampMyVisa, a Bangalore, India-based AI-powered B2B visa-processing startup, raised a bridge round of Rs 4 crore (~$480K).

🤝 Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

• 1X Technologies, a Palo Alto-based robotics company, unveiled NEO, the world’s first consumer humanoid robot for homes, priced at $20K or $499/month, with deliveries beginning in 2026.

• Indico Data, a Boston, MA-based AI-automation platform for insurance operations, received a strategic investment from Aviva Ventures.

• zLinq, a Denver, CO-based telecommunications-lifecycle management firm, received growth financing from CIBC Innovation Banking.

📈 VC Funds Raised & Raising

• Maple Bridge Ventures, an Ottawa and Toronto-based firm backing immigrant founders, held the first close of its debut fund at CAD $10.2 million (≈ US$7.4 million).

• Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley VC giant, launched its latest venture fund and sixth dedicated seed fund.

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

📚 Read of the Day

🤝 U.S., Japan & South Korea Forge Tech Alliance

A new trilateral pact cements collaboration across AI, chips, and biotech, deepening cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea to counter China’s dominance in critical technologies.

The Strategy
The agreement spans semiconductor R&D, advanced packaging, AI model safety, and synthetic biology. It aims to fortify supply chains and accelerate innovation through trusted partnerships and shared standards.

The Backstory
The move follows years of alignment around CHIPS Act funding and rising geopolitical tension in the Pacific. Japan’s foundries and South Korea’s memory giants are expected to partner with U.S. fabless and AI firms, creating a tri-hub for frontier tech.

Why It Matters
This alliance reshapes the global tech stack and opens cross-border startup opportunities in semiconductors, bio-AI, and quantum. Expect increased venture flow into chip design, AI safety infrastructure, and biotech compute platforms.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

✍️ Grammarly → Superhuman: new AI writing assistant debuts – The writing-assistant giant rebrands and launches a smarter enterprise AI for editing, context search, and communication.

🤝 U.S., Japan & South Korea team up on AI, chips, and biotech – A new trilateral pact boosts R&D collaboration and supply-chain resilience across critical tech sectors.

🚕 Uber to roll out premium robotaxi fleet in San Francisco – The service enters Waymo’s home turf with higher-tier autonomous rides.

💊 Eli Lilly invests $1.2B in Puerto Rico plant – Major expansion to boost U.S. oral-medicine manufacturing and create hundreds of jobs.