Sail raises $80M to make AI agents cheaper to run
Sail raises $80M to make AI agents cheaper to run

Sail Research has raised $80m to make AI agents cheaper to run. The startup, founded by ex-Apple and ex-NVIDIA engineers, says it can serve the tokens agents burn through at up to 10 times lower cost. AI agents are hungry. Leave one running for hours a…

Coval raises $28M to stress-test AI voice agents
Coval raises $28M to stress-test AI voice agents

Coval has raised $28m to test AI voice agents before they reach real callers. Its founder built the same kind of safety checks for Waymo’s self-driving cars, and thinks voice needs them just as badly. An AI voice agent can sound flawless in a demo and …

Taktile raises $110M to automate banking’s riskiest calls
Taktile raises $110M to automate banking’s riskiest calls

Taktile has raised $110m in a Series C led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The startup wants banks and insurers to hand their riskiest decisions to AI agents, the calls that cost millions when they go wrong. Banks and insurers spend billions on people t…

Scaled Cognition raises $100M to build AI that won’t hallucinate
Scaled Cognition raises $100M to build AI that won’t hallucinate

Scaled Cognition has raised $100M led by Khosla Ventures to build AI that does not hallucinate. The startup says its model will not give a wrong answer, a bold claim in a field built on probability. Scaled Cognition, a Mountain View AI lab, has raised …

Airwallex raises $320M at an $11bn valuation
Airwallex raises $320M at an $11bn valuation

Airwallex has raised $320M at an $11bn valuation, up from $8bn in December. The payments company is now pivoting to “autonomous finance” and AI agents that transact on your behalf. Airwallex, the global payments platform, has raised $320m in a Series H…

Alan raises €480M led by Prosus at a €5.5bn valuation
Alan raises €480M led by Prosus at a €5.5bn valuation

French insurtech Alan has raised €480M led by Prosus at a €5.5bn valuation, just months after its last round. The Paris company is betting that AI-driven prevention can reshape health insurance. Alan, the French health insurance company, has raised €48…

TensorX and Solstice line up $1bn to finance Europe’s sovereign AI buildout
TensorX and Solstice line up $1bn to finance Europe’s sovereign AI buildout

The partnership will fund EU AI hardware and data centres, and launch aiUSX, a yield asset that puts companies’ idle AI cash to work as infrastructure lending. Building sovereign AI in Europe takes chips, and chips take capital. TensorX and Solstice sa…

Berlin’s Almetra raises €16.3M to turn factory video into live data
Berlin’s Almetra raises €16.3M to turn factory video into live data

The Berlin startup points cameras at production lines, converts the footage into live data, and says it has lifted output at Bosch and ABB plants. Now it wants the US. Berlin startup that films what happens on a factory floor and turns it into live pro…

Tombot raises $7m to bring its robotic dog Jennie to market
Tombot raises $7m to bring its robotic dog Jennie to market

Tombot, a Los Angeles-area company that makes a robotic dog for people who cannot keep a real one, has closed a $7m Series A3 financing round to move its flagship product from development into manufacturing. The company said on June 24 that the round d…

Runpod hits $1bn valuation as the AI compute crunch bites
Runpod hits $1bn valuation as the AI compute crunch bites

Runpod has raised $100M and reached a $1bn valuation, a tenfold jump in under two years. The cloud startup rents out AI computing power, and it says it turned down buyout offers worth more than $500M. The great AI compute crunch is minting a new kind o…