SignalFires: Weekly Signals, Startups & Deals To Watch Alert

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech Companies to Watch: Startup news and deals from the last week

• Big Movers: The Big tech movers, shakers and partnerships this week

• Making Waves: Companies making a buzz in the Tech world

• Open Deals: Startups raising capital this week

• In The Money: Significant raises last week and why they matter

• Exit Watching: Mergers & Acquisitions and IPOs

• The Funding Buzz: VC & PE Activity To Watch

BIG MOVERS

Big tech moves, movers and trends to watch this week

Visa and Mastercard — Launching AI-powered shopping services to integrate payments with personalized recommendations. They are respectively collaborating with AI startups like OpenAI as well as tech giants like Microsoft and IBM.

Apple — Tim Cook announced that tariffs will add $900M to Q3 costs. It will source more products from India, Vietnam rather than price hikes to reduce tariff impacts.

Microsoft — Saw a stock surge after releasing Q1 earnings report, indicating solid financial health and boosting investor confidence.

Meta — The tech giant also reported a Q1 earnings beat but faced challenges in its Reality Labs division, with a significant $4.2B operating loss and revenue dropping to $412 million. Its new Llama API claims 18x faster inference speeds than rivals.

IBM — Plans to invest $150B in the U.S. over the next five years, focusing on quantum computer production and local manufacturing.

Waymo & Toyota — Collaborating to develop self-driving technology for personal vehicles, enhancing driver assistance and autonomy.

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MAKING WAVES

Startups, trends and signals to watch in the USA this week

Figure AI — The robotics startup is in discussions with UPS to help it utilize advanced humanoid robotics to revolutionize its logistics and deliveries.

Worldcoin —Sam Altman’s World has launched in the US, offering a universal ID system and cryptocurrency through eye-scanning. It partnered with Visa for a debit card and Tinder for ID. 12 million users globally already.

Aurora Innovation — Launched a commercial self-driving truck service in Texas, marking the first deployment of driverless heavy-duty trucks for public use in the U.S.

LinkedIn — The professional networking platform is now sharing advertising revenue with content creators to bolster its video content, boost engagement.

[OPEN DEALS] RAISING DOLLARS:

Startups, firms or funds raising capital this week

Glean — The Palo Alto knowledge management platform is in advanced talks for a Wellington Management-led round at a $7B valuation, over 70x ARR. It leverages edge computing to compete with Microsoft etc.

Acrisure — The fintech is in talks for a $2B round led by Bain Capital involving preferred equity, potentially allowing previous investors to redeem stakes. Its ARR hit $4.8B, indicating strong growth and investor interest.

Mach Industries — The defense tech startup known for vertical liftoff vehicles and founded by a 21-year-old, is raising $100M at a $470M valuation. It secured an Army contract for a precision cruise missile.

[Open Fund] Marathon — Founded by Coatue, NEA, TCV, and Google alumni, the new VC firm targets a $400M fund to invest in early-stage fintech and software.

IN THE MONEY

Companies that raised money in the past week and why they matter

Massive Deals

True Anomaly — The autonomous spacecraft company raised $260M in a Series C to boost production capabilities focused on defense and national security.

Persona — The ID verification startup, based in the US, raised $200M in Series D funding at $2B amid growing investment in ID & access management, driven by AI.

Apex — The Satellite bus manufacturing startup raised $200M to scale production with a focus on defense and national security.

Cast AI — The AI workload optimization company raised a $108M Series C round, nearing a unicorn valuation. It serves 2,100+ firms including BMW and Akamai.

LlamaIndex — The AI solutions company received undisclosed minority equity investments from Databricks and KPMG to enhance its products used by clients like Cemex and Carlyle Group.

Large Deals

Supio — The NYC-based AI legal analysis startup raised $60M to expand its work on automating data collection for personal injury law. Its ARR quadrupled and its client base is surging amid AI adoption.

Doppel — The NYC-based wearable tech company raised $35M in a Series B round at $205M led by Bessemer to enhance its growth in personalized health technology.

Smaller Deals

Artisan — The startup that develops AI agents to automate repetitive tasks raised $25M in a Series A round led by Glade Brook Capital.

P-1 AI — Co-founded by ex-Airbus and DeepMind alumni, this startup secured $23M to advance Archie, an AI agent for cognitive automation in engineering design.

Cheehoo — The AI animation startup, founded by Hollywood executives, raised $10M from Greycroft to streamline production and branch into consumer products.

Variant — YC-backed design app startup secured $5.9M to enhance vibe coding and design processes with AI enabling iteration and progress via branching edits.

Goodfire — Anthropic invested $1M in the startup focused on enhancing AI model transparency, marking its first external investment as part of a broader $50M funding strategy to improve AI understanding.

EXIT WATCHING

Mergers & Acquisitions and IPOs

Ripple — The blockchain company, attempted to acquire Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, for $4B-$5B. Despite its rejection, Ripple remains interested.

Palo Alto Networks — Cybersecurity leader Palo Alto Networks acquired Protect AI for over $500M to enhance their cybersecurity offerings with tools for protecting AI models and an upgraded security-optimized browser.

Fivetran — Fivetran, a data integration company, has acquired Census, enhancing its data movement capabilities for end-to-end solutions. Boris Jabes, CEO of Census, joins Fivetran to lead data activation strategies.

EToro — The Israeli online trading platform is considering launching a U.S. IPO as early as this week after postponing due to market volatility linked to tariffs.

THE FUNDING BUZZ

VC & PE Activity To Watch

Ara Partners — The Houston private equity firm raised an $800M fund to invest in decarbonizing emissions in industrial sectors, exceeding its initial $500M goal.

Smith Point Capital — The firm closed its inaugural fund with over $360M in commitments. It focuses on enterprise software, offering an operator-led investment approach to support intelligent enterprises.

Uncork Capital — Uncork Capital raised $300M, with $225M for a seed fund and $75M for a growth fund both focused on B2B SaaS, developer tools, and consumer software.

South Park Commons — The VC firm raised $275M to support pre-seed and seed startups, focusing on highly technical founders at the ideation stage.

Symphonic Capital — Launched a $13.5M fund to back digital health and fintech startups serving overlooked communities, with notable past investments in Lovu and Rocket Doctor.

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FOR INVESTORS
Open Deals
Investors– request an intro to startups - invest@techbuzz.ai.

Before we restart our placements of raising startups, we’re sharing an open call to send in your own company. Just shoot us an email with a deck and we may feature you in this bulletin.

For detailed pitch materials, please email invest@techbuzz.ai with your deck.
🔥 — hot deal!
⏰ — leaving soon.

FOR EMPLOYERS
Job Candidates

Employers– request an intro to candidates - jobs@techbuzz.ai