In this issue, founders can see which deals are getting funded, by whom, and for how much. This week was a big one, with 42 deals totalling just under $2 billion in funding. Founders, keep your heads up, there is lots of capital looking to fund companies.
First, we’ll take a closer look at the top two deals, then review the rest.
Deal of The Week – Mercor
Mercor is our deal of the week. The company raised $350M USD in a Series C led by Felicis, with Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures participating. The round values Mercor at 10 billion dollars, a fivefold step up from its Series B earlier this year.
Mercor supplies expert in the loop training to top AI labs. Its marketplace recruits doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, and other domain specialists to evaluate model outputs and codify workflows that models can learn. Management says the network now tops 30,000 contractors and payouts exceed 1.5 million dollars per day, a signal that this is real operating scale rather than a concept. Clients cited in recent coverage include OpenAI and Anthropic.
The founding story is scrappy. Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha started Mercor in January 2023, bootstrapping from dorm rooms at Harvard and Georgetown to seven figures of annual recurring revenue before outside capital. All three became Thiel Fellows that year, moved the company to San Francisco, and kept a lean team that Felicis says is profitable. The product began as AI driven recruiting, then shifted focus to placing vetted experts on AI training work as demand from labs accelerated.
This round funds three priorities the company lays out publicly, a larger expert network, better matching, and faster delivery. It extends a rapid financing arc that includes a 30 million dollar Series A in 2024 backed by Benchmark and notable angels, and a 100 million dollar Series B led by Felicis in February 2025. A recent legal dispute with Scale AI is an overhang to watch, but it also reflects how central high quality human data has become in this market.
Deal of the Week – Runner Up – Firework AI
Runner up deal of the week: Fireworks AI raised $250M USD in Series C led by Lightspeed Venture Partners; Index Ventures; Evantic, the second largest disclosed round this week, behind Mercor at $350M USD, bringing the company’s valuation to $4B USD.
Fireworks AI runs an inference cloud for enterprises. The platform serves, tunes, and deploys open models at speed, with support for NVIDIA NIM. Founded in 2022 by CEO Lin Qiao with cofounders Benny Chen and Chenyu Zhao, the company is based in Redwood City, United States. Customers cited publicly include Samsung, Uber, DoorDash, Notion, Shopify, and Upwork. Recent disclosures note more than 10,000 customers, over 10 trillion tokens processed per day, and annualized revenue above $280M.
Prior rounds included backing from Benchmark and Sequoia. The new capital will expand research in tuning and inference alignment, broaden the toolchain for evaluation and reinforcement learning, and scale compute three to four times. A watch item is competitive pressure from large cloud providers and other inference players.
The Other Deals This Week
1) Onfire www.onfire.ai
Onfire delivers a vertical AI revenue intelligence platform for sales teams that sell to technical buyers. The company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It raised $20M USD Seed financing, led by Grove Ventures and TLV Partners.
The platform serves BDRs, sales leaders, and marketers selling developer focused software, unifying proprietary signals from developer communities and the public web with CRM and product data, and an agent helps generate outreach, target accounts, and execute plays. A resolvable Account Intelligence Graph deanonymizes signals to focus on technical buyers, creating higher quality pipeline for developer centric sellers.
Source: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/r1son0naee
2) Agtonomy www.agtonomy.com
Agtonomy builds agricultural robotics and physical AI that automate tractors, implements, and field tasks. The company is based in San Francisco, United States. It raised $18M USD Series B financing, led by DBL Partners. The company supplies software and tele guidance services that connect self driving tractors with smart tools to execute mowing, spraying, and hauling for specialty crops. By partnering with OEMs and delivering a task ecosystem rather than building tractors itself, Agtonomy focuses on deployment scale and interoperability in off road environments.
3) ConductorOne www.conductorone.com
ConductorOne provides cybersecurity centered on identity security, governing access, permissions, and entitlements. The company is based in San Francisco, United States. It raised $79M USD Series B financing, led by Greycroft. The platform is an AI native identity security system that unifies access governance across human and non human identities, automating access reviews, just in time access, and shadow app discovery on a unified identity graph. Its differentiation is bringing IGA, IAM, and PAM together with AI agents in one system to reduce risk and operational load.
4) Cylerity www.cylerity.com
Cylerity combines healthcare and fintech to accelerate provider revenue by advancing cash against predicted insurance claim payments. The company is based in Madison, United States. It raised $4M USD Seed financing, led by HealthX Ventures. The service values insurance claims with AI, predicts timing and amount, and connects to banks, clearinghouses, and electronic medical record systems to underwrite receivables. By turning claims into an underwritable asset class, Cylerity helps funds arrive within about a day while preserving auditability for lenders and providers.
5) Formalize www.formalize.com
Formalize builds regulatory technology and GRC software to manage policies, controls, audits, and compliance reporting. The company is based in Copenhagen, Denmark. It raised $35M USD Series B financing, led by Acton Capital and BlackFin Tech. The platform helps teams manage policies, controls, audits, and whistleblowing in one system with a focus on European requirements. Rapid adoption across the EU and a product designed for evolving regional rules make it a fit for companies facing complex regulatory change.
Source: https://tech.eu/2025/10/28/formalize-raises-eur30m-to-advance-compliance-solutions-across-europe/
6) Forum AI www.byforum.com
Forum AI evaluates AI systems with expert in the loop methods, producing benchmarks and assessments for high stakes use. The company is based in New York, United States. It raised $3M USD Seed financing, led by Lerer Hippeau. The company delivers expert evaluation reports, custom benchmarks, and curated datasets that reflect human judgment on subjective and complex topics. Putting domain experts in the loop improves model quality and governance for customers that need defensible assessments.
Source: https://www.axios.com/2025/10/28/campbell-brown-forum-ai
7) Grasp www.grasp-ai.com
Grasp supplies AI for finance teams to automate company and market research and accelerate diligence. The company is based in Stockholm, Sweden. It raised $7M USD Series A financing, led by Octopus Ventures. The platform serves investment banks, private equity firms, and consultants with multi agent workflows that build target lists and draft materials. A domain specific AI analyst accelerates research and slide creation, giving deal teams faster coverage with consistent structure.
Source: https://tech.eu/2025/10/28/grasp-raises-7m-series-a-to-fuel-international-expansion/
8) Lula Commerce www.lulacommerce.com
Lula Commerce offers retail technology that powers digital ordering, marketplace integration, and delivery for convenience stores. The company is based in Philadelphia, United States. It raised $8M USD Series A financing, led by SEMCAP AI. The product supports first party ordering, marketplace integrations, and AI operators, digitizing menus, enriching product data, and managing marketplace listings and delivery. A specialization in convenience retail and tools like Lula Direct create a vertical advantage for independent retailers and chains.
9) Socratix AI www.getsocratix.ai
Socratix AI delivers AI agents that investigate fraud and risk alerts, gather evidence, and recommend actions. The company is based in San Francisco, United States. It raised $4.1M USD Seed financing, led by Pear VC. The agents plug into existing tools to reduce manual reviews and false positives by reasoning through alerts like an analyst. Agents as a service with explainable outputs give risk teams speed while preserving decision context.
10) Spacial www.spacial.io
Spacial provides construction technology that automates engineering and generates permit ready plans. The company is based in Palo Alto, United States. It raised $10M USD Seed financing, led by TLV Partners. The software converts 2D drawings into compliant 3D plans and checks for conflicts before submission. Full stack automation from design to permit delivery reduces rework and delays for builders and architects.
11) Sublime Security www.sublime.security
Sublime Security delivers cybersecurity focused on email security to detect and block targeted attacks across mail platforms. The company is based in Washington, United States. It raised $150M USD Series C financing, led by Georgian. The agentic platform deploys specialized AI agents and is programmable and cloud based for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Autonomous, multi agent detection and response reduce manual triage while improving coverage of advanced attacks.
12) Syllo www.syllo.ai
Syllo offers legal technology that applies AI to litigation workflows from discovery through case analysis. The company is based in New York, United States. It raised $30M USD Growth financing, led by Venrock and Two Seas Capital. The AI powered litigation workspace automates first level document review and standard case workflows, augmenting lawyers and paralegals across discovery, investigations, and depositions. An agentic, unified workspace that top firms integrate into core practice helps standardize processes while preserving firm specific strategy.
13) Whatnot www.whatnot.com
Whatnot runs an e commerce marketplace built around live shopping events with real time video auctions. The company is based in Los Angeles, United States. It raised $225M USD Series F financing, led by DST Global and CapitalG. The service integrates payments, shipping, and moderation so sellers can run shows without context switching. As the largest live shopping platform in the U.S., Whatnot pairs community driven shows with fast auction mechanics to increase conversion.
Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/ecommerce-unicorn-whatnot-raises-seriesf/
14) Wild Moose www.wildmoose.ai
Wild Moose builds an AI site reliability engineering copilot that automates incident investigations and root cause analysis. The company is based in New York, United States. It raised $7M USD Seed financing, led by iAngels. The product gathers logs, metrics, traces, code changes, and history, correlates anomalies, identifies likely root causes, and recommends next best actions directly in Slack or Teams. A first responder workflow produces explainable results in under a minute across fragmented observability stacks, helping SRE and platform teams resolve incidents faster.
15) Sweatpals www.sweatpals.com
Sweatpals runs an in person fitness and wellness events platform that helps communities discover, host, and manage group activities. The company is based in Austin, United States. It raised $12M USD Seed financing, led by Patron, a16z Speedrun, and HartBeat Ventures. Members discover local classes, hikes, and meetups, while hosts use built in tools for ticketing, messaging, and growth. A focus on in person social connection enables recurring communities and monetization for independent organizers.
16) Polygraf AI www.polygraf.ai
Polygraf AI delivers enterprise AI security to monitor AI usage, detect anomalies, and protect against prompt injection and leakage. The company is based in Austin, United States. It raised $9.5M USD Seed financing, led by Allegis Capital. The platform enforces identity and policy, monitors prompts and outputs, and detects threats such as prompt injection, data exfiltration, and abuse. Purpose built telemetry for AI systems provides visibility and automated controls beyond traditional application security.
17) Curve Biosciences www.curvebio.com
Curve Biosciences develops biotechnology driven diagnostics for earlier and more accurate disease detection and monitoring. The company is based in San Mateo, United States. It raised $40M USD, led by Luma Group. The company is building a Whole-Body Intelligence platform that links tissue level biology to blood tests for chronic disease monitoring, with a Whole-Body Atlas that trains AI models on verified tissue data and reads signals in blood to assess organ health. This tissue anchored approach aims to deliver earlier and more accurate monitoring beyond oncology for ongoing disease management.
18) CyberRidge www.cyber-ridge.com
CyberRidge provides cybersecurity using photonic layer encryption to protect fiber optic data with near zero latency. The company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It raised $26M USD Seed financing, led by Awz (seed) and Arkin Capital (extension). The hardware makes fiber optic data appear as unrecordable noise in transit and protects subsea and terrestrial cables with a plug and play layer. The approach is post quantum ready and complements traditional encryption by securing data at the physical layer without adding delay.
19) Tessaract www.tessaract.io
Tessaract provides legal technology for practice management that unifies cases, billing, finance, and collaboration. The company is based in Altrincham, United Kingdom. It raised $6.1M USD, led by Mercia Ventures. The cloud native platform for small and mid sized law firms reduces lockup and improves cash flow by bringing case work and finances into a single system. Flexible workflows and a modern UK focused product differentiate it for local practices.
Source: https://www.mercia.co.uk/mercia-ventures-backs-legal-tech-founder-cherilyn-tan-with-4-6m/
20) Arya Health www.aryahealth.ai
Arya Health provides an automation platform for home health and post acute providers to manage scheduling, compliance, staffing, and billing. The company is based in New York, United States. It raised $18.2M USD Series A financing, led by ACME Capital. The software automates provider scheduling, credentialing, compliance tracking, payroll, and communications through configurable workflows and digital agents. The result is lower administrative overhead across distributed clinical workforces while maintaining regulatory documentation at every step.
21) CustoMED www.customed.ai
CustoMED develops an AI and 3D printing platform that creates patient specific surgical guides and implants for orthopedic procedures. The company is based in Ramat Gan, Israel. It raised $6M USD Seed financing. Lead investors are Undefined. The software segments images, plans procedures, and generates custom guides and implants for rapid 3D printing, compressing design and manufacturing timelines from weeks to days while enabling consistent, reproducible workflows.
22) Marleybones www.marleybones.com
Marleybones provides premium pantry fresh dog meals, supplements, and treats with recyclable packaging for convenient, healthy feeding. The company is based in London, United Kingdom. It raised $3.1M USD, led by TAW Ventures. Meals are slow cooked and packaged in recyclable cartons for shelf stability, with additional treats and vet developed supplements. The combination of fresh quality nutrition and ambient storage reduces waste and simplifies daily routines for owners.
Source: https://tech.eu/2025/10/29/marleybones-snaps-up-ps25m-to-scale-pantry-fresh-dog-meals/
23) Fruitist www.fruitist.com
Fruitist provides branded superfruit snacks and fresh berries for retail, e commerce, and sports partnerships across North America. The company is based in Los Angeles, United States. It raised $150M USD, led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The company sources and packs premium blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries with integrated cold chain and merchandising programs for retailers and foodservice. Jumbo grade fruit, national retail coverage, and sports partnerships extend the brand directly to fans and drive placement.
24) Frontline Wildfire Defense www.frontlinewildfire.com
Frontline Wildfire Defense builds proactive wildfire defense systems that combine sensors, water and foam delivery, data, and remote operation for properties. The company is based in San Francisco, United States. It raised $48M USD Series A financing, led by Norwest Venture Partners. Networked sprinklers, foam and water delivery, sensors, and incident data allow remote activation and continuous property protection. An end to end, self reliant system designed to operate when municipal infrastructure and connectivity are compromised differentiates it for high risk regions.
25) Recess www.takearecess.com
Recess develops non alcoholic beverages and sparkling waters designed for relaxation, clarity, and mood, sold online and in retail. The company is based in New York, United States. It raised $30M USD Series B financing, led by CAVU Consumer Partners. The company offers flavored seltzers and mocktails with functional ingredients, distributed through retail and direct to consumer channels. A lifestyle brand that pairs balanced formulations with approachable flavors and broad on shelf visibility supports category growth.
26) Reflectiz www.reflectiz.com
Reflectiz offers AI driven website security to monitor third party scripts, detect client side risks, and prevent attacks such as Magecart. The company is based in Boston, United States. It raised $22M USD Series B financing, led by Fulcrum Equity Partners. The platform inventories web assets, detects risky changes, and flags vulnerabilities like skimmers and form jacking across complex sites. AI driven detection surfaces supply chain risks without requiring code changes or blocking critical components.
27) Kaizen www.kaizenlabs.co
Kaizen develops modern, user centric software for United States public services, replacing legacy systems across resident facing workflows. The company is based in New York, United States. It raised $21M USD Series A financing, led by New Enterprise Associates. The platform standardizes common workflows across areas like recreation, transit, DMVs, and libraries, integrating payments, identity, and messaging. An AI native, reusable framework replaces fragmented systems and improves user experience at scale for agencies and residents.
28) Emerald AI www.emeraldai.co
Emerald AI builds AI powered energy management for data centers to forecast load, optimize cooling, and monetize grid services. The company is based in Washington, United States. It raised $18M USD Seed extension financing, led by Lowercarbon Capital. The platform delivers energy intelligence for data center operators and grid stakeholders, forecasting demand and orchestrating participation in demand response and ancillary services. Treating data centers as flexible grid assets uses AI to unlock new revenue while improving reliability.
Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/emerald-ai-raises-a-further-18-million-in-funding/
29) Human Health www.human.health
Human Health offers a precision health platform for patients to track conditions, capture outcomes, and generate clinician ready reports. The company is based in London, United Kingdom. It raised $5.1M USD Seed financing, led by LocalGlobe. Users capture histories, log daily actions, and create clinician ready reports, and de identified data can contribute to research. A patient first operating system turns real world experience into actionable insights across conditions for both patients and clinicians.
Source: https://tech.eu/2025/10/30/human-health-secured-eur47m-to-expand-its-patient-first-precision-health/
30) Legora www.legora.com
Legora develops a collaborative AI platform that helps lawyers draft, review, and manage case documents securely. The company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Legora raised $150M USD in Series C funding, and the lead investor is Bessemer Venture Partners. The platform centralizes matter knowledge, assists with drafting and review, answers procedural questions, and preserves permission history for legal teams. Legal specific models, audit controls, and integrations with common practice tools emphasize confidentiality, provenance, and accuracy for professional workflows.
Source: https://legora.com/blog/series-c
31) EnduroSat www.endurosat.com
EnduroSat provides satellites as a service, offering modular satellite platforms, payload integration, and mission operations for constellations. The company is headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria. EnduroSat raised $104M USD. Lead investors are Undefined. Its modular ESPA class platforms, integrated payload services, and operations enable rapid deployments without customers building full space infrastructure, and a standardized, mass produced bus with vertically integrated services reduces cost and timelines.
Source: https://www.endurosat.com/news/endurosat-raises-104m
32) Archy www.archy.com
Archy provides an AI enabled practice management platform that automates front office, clinical, and revenue workflows for dental practices. The company is headquartered in San Jose, United States. Archy raised $20M USD in Series B funding, and the lead investor is TCV. The system automates scheduling, patient communication, claims, payments, charting, and reporting for front desk and clinical teams. A single cloud platform with embedded assistants connects daily operations with revenue cycle workflows and reduces manual work across multi location groups.
Source: https://www.tcv.com/insights/why-tcv-led-archy/
33) Indomo www.indomotx.com
Indomo develops an at home microneedle injection system that delivers intralesional corticosteroids for inflammatory acne. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Indomo raised $25M USD. Lead investors are Undefined. Its ClearPen program pairs a microneedle device with a low dose corticosteroid intended to replicate in office intralesional injections under prescription use, and a metered delivery design targets each lesion for consistent dosing without clinic visits.
Source: https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=345826
34) PACT www.pact.earth
PACT develops collagen based biomaterials to replace plastic coatings in textiles for fashion, interiors, footwear, and automotive. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom. PACT raised $20M USD in Series A funding, and the lead investors are Forbion and HV Capital. Its Oval material is a roll to roll, plastic free coating made from surplus cosmetic grade collagen that runs on existing lines. Traceable inputs and scalable production aim for tactile quality and environmental performance while offering a practical retrofit path for brands.
35) The Mobile-First Company www.themobilefirstcompany.com
The Mobile-First Company builds an AI native mobile app suite for small teams to handle calls, invoicing, and expenses. The company is headquartered in Miami, United States. The company raised $12M USD in Seed funding, and the lead investors are Base10 Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The suite combines an AI phone system with invoicing and expense tools so owners manage workflows from a phone, with integrated data linking conversations to back office tasks. A phone first design reduces tool sprawl for service businesses that run operations on mobile devices.
Source: https://www.themobilefirstcompany.com/seed-round
36) SalarySe www.salaryse.com
SalarySe provides a salary linked financial platform offering UPI credit, salary advances, fixed deposits, and rewards for employees. The company is headquartered in Gurugram, India. SalarySe raised $11.3M USD in Series A funding, and the lead investor is Flourish Ventures. Users access early wage options, deposits, budgeting, and UPI based credit through integrations with partner banks and HR systems. By tying products to income and payroll, the platform targets faster, responsible access with lower friction, and employer programs support adoption across workforces.
37) Bevel www.bevel.health
Bevel provides an AI health companion app that unifies wearable and habit data into personalized guidance for everyday wellness. The company is headquartered in New York, United States. Bevel raised $10M USD in Series A funding, and the lead investor is General Catalyst. The app consolidates data from many devices and daily logs to produce insights, reminders, and shareable reports that adapt to routines. A device agnostic, software first approach supports multiple wearables while keeping recommendations in a single application for consistent guidance.
38) CUE Labs www.cuelang.org
CUE Labs develops an enterprise configuration control plane built on the open source CUE language to manage complex systems. The company is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. CUE Labs raised $10M USD, and the lead investors are Sequoia Capital and OSS Capital. The platform defines, validates, and enforces configuration across services and environments to provide one source of truth. A typed schema and validation pipeline reduce drift and errors compared with ad hoc files and custom scripts, helping operators govern many services.
39) Human Health www.human.health
Human Health runs a precision health platform that helps patients track symptoms, treatments, and outcomes for chronic conditions. The company is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Human Health raised $5.5M USD, and the lead investor is LocalGlobe. Users record history, symptoms, and daily events, generate doctor ready summaries, and receive insights that surface patterns in care. Its patient centered data model and Human Evidence program link real world experience with research to inform more personalized care.
40) VeroSkills www.veroskills.com
VeroSkills provides an AI powered hiring platform that matches blue collar employers with pre screened, authorized candidates in days. The company is headquartered in Birmingham, United States. VeroSkills raised $5.3M USD, and the lead investors are Yonder Ventures, Circadian Ventures, and Motivate Ventures. The system pre screens candidates at scale, verifies work authorization, supports interviews across many languages, and matches people to jobs to enable 48 hour placements. A focus on overlooked talent networks and automated screening aims to improve retention and speed while lowering staffing costs for employers in manufacturing, logistics, and services.