financing

According to Business Insider, AI infrastructure company Fireworks AI is in the preliminary negotiation stage for a new round of financing, with a target valuation of $30 billion to $40 billion, representing a potential increase of up to 10 times from its $4 billion valuation during the C round financing in October 2025. Related negotiations are still in the early stages, and the target valuation may change; the company declined to comment, and the report did not disclose the scale of this round of financing.Fireworks AI was founded in 2022 by engineers from the PyTorch team, an open-source AI framework under Meta, providing services for enterprises to customize and deploy open-source models based on their own data. The company announced in July 2026 that it had completed a $1.505 billion D round financing, reaching a valuation of $17.5 billion, and stated that its annualized revenue had surpassed $1 billion, with the daily processing volume of tokens increasing from 150 trillion during the previous round of financing to over 400 trillion.

According to TheEnergyMag, AI cloud service provider Nebius Group N.V. has secured a $3.5 billion Senior Secured Financing Facility from Citibank, which will be used to support its global AI cloud computing expansion.

According to Forbes, the American satellite startup Xona Space Systems has completed a $250 million Series D funding round, with the company's valuation reaching $2.45 billion.This round of financing was led by Future Ventures, an organization co-founded by early SpaceX investor and former board member Steve Jurvetson, which invested $78.5 million in this round.

According to Bloomberg, AI startup Emulate, founded by alumni of Google DeepMind, has been established for only three months and currently has no official website or products. However, venture capital firms are eager to get involved, driving its valuation to several billion dollars.The report states that due to intense competition, investors are willing to buy in at continuously rising prices during the same round of financing, leading to different valuations for the same company within the same round of financing.

The Zurich-based robotics startup Enact Intelligence announced the completion of a $30 million Pre-seed funding round, with investors including Redalpine, Notion Capital, and Firstminute Capital. This is the largest Pre-seed funding round in Switzerland's history. Yann LeCun and Mistral co-founder Arthur Mensch also participated in the support.The company was co-founded by former employees of 1X and Physical Intelligence, aiming to address one of the biggest bottlenecks in the robotics field.

The software build and testing platform Blacksmith announced the completion of a $66 million Series C financing round, led by Sequoia Capital, with a valuation reaching $1 billion, officially entering the unicorn ranks.The company focuses on continuous integration (CI) and AI-generated code verification, with annual recurring revenue growing 17 times, and has executed over 90 million automated code checks cumulatively. Two months ago, the company completed a $45 million Series B financing round, with a valuation of $550 million, bringing the total financing amount to $125 million.

According to TechCrunch, the AI laboratory Flapping Airplanes, established for about a year, announced the completion of a $1 billion Series A funding round, co-led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, GV, and others, increasing its valuation to $45 billion, three times higher than the $15 billion valuation nine months ago.The company is dedicated to improving the data efficiency of AI model training and developing a GPU framework that can simultaneously perform tasks such as training and inference to reduce the costs of AI development and operation.

According to Bloomberg, DeepSeek raised approximately 100 billion yuan (about 15 billion USD) in its latest round of financing, making it one of the largest financings in China. Insiders said that the company, headquartered in Hangzhou, raised its financing target at least twice during negotiations with investors, first increasing it from 50 billion to 80 billion, and finally reaching the aforementioned amount.CATL and Tencent are among the largest investors in this round. This financing will be used to support DeepSeek's competition globally with American AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

According to Tech in Asia, Swedish legal AI software company Legora announced the completion of a $550 million Series E funding round, led by Atreides Management, with a post-money valuation of $8.8 billion, up from a previous valuation of $5.6 billion.The funds will be used for business expansion in the United States and Asia-Pacific, as well as product development. Legora has had an office in Singapore since May 2026, and the team is expected to grow to 20 people by the end of 2026. The company stated that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) has surpassed $200 million.

The stock trading platform Aries announced the completion of a $7 million seed round financing, led by Thomas Peterffy, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Collision, John Paulson, and 638 users.Aries stated that the company is building a stock trading platform and has launched Aries Infinite. According to its introduction, Aries Infinite is an infinitely scalable trading canvas where users can build components one by one or generate trading interfaces by asking AI questions.

The decentralized data network project Dataline, aimed at AI intelligences, announced the completion of a $10.6 million seed round financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.The project also plans to conduct a public token sale through Uniswap's auction platform, with specific details expected to be announced next week, and aims to launch the token by the end of this year.

According to official news, Tether announced that it will lead the Pre-Seed round financing of the Bolivian fintech company Peso, with the specific amount undisclosed.Peso provides global USDT accounts for Latin American users, allowing them to save, spend, invest, and make cross-border remittances through the same app. Peso has integrated USDT payments on the Bolivian digital service platform Yango, enabling users to order takeout directly with USDT; in addition, Peso also offers offline payment services and virtual accounts opened in the user's name, connecting USDT with the Bolivian banking system through QR codes and ACH channels, facilitating the conversion between stablecoins and local fiat currency.This round of funding will be used to expand Peso's local fiat deposit and withdrawal channels in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, and to advance its merchant payment network and virtual account infrastructure construction.

According to BBX data, yesterday the traditional European banking system and global digital asset giants disclosed the latest developments in retail crypto financial channels and cutting-edge computing power investments, with the core information as follows:The German Savings Bank officially opens crypto trading to retail customers, initially supporting BTC, ETH, SOL, and other cryptocurrencies: The German Savings Bank Association (DSGV) announced that starting from October 19, the first batch of participating customers from the German Savings Banks (Sparkassen) can directly buy and sell cryptocurrencies through the existing bank mobile application. Each savings bank will independently decide the specific launch time, and it is expected that 30 to 40 new savings banks will be added each month thereafter, aiming for comprehensive coverage of most interested banks in Germany by the first half of 2027.Supported cryptocurrencies and fees: The initially supported cryptocurrencies include BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, and POL. Each transaction order incurs a fixed fee of approximately $1.11 (0.99 euros);Underlying technology and compliance framework: This service is provided by DekaBank, a professional securities service provider under the savings bank group, with the underlying crypto assets being jointly compliant custodied by DekaBank and Boerse Stuttgart;Prudent business principles: DSGV clearly states that this service is only available to customers who have the willingness to make independent decisions, and the savings banks themselves do not provide any investment advice, nor will they conduct extensive active promotion across the network, and will prominently indicate the high volatility and potential total loss risks of crypto assets at the product level.Tether Capital invests in AI chip unicorn Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion Series E financing: Tether Capital, the investment arm of the global stablecoin giant, officially announced its investment in the well-known AI chip and computing architecture company Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion Series E financing. This oversubscribed financing has significantly boosted Tenstorrent's post-investment valuation to $6.2 billion. Tether's official statement indicated that this strategic investment deeply aligns with Tether's overall landscape in artificial intelligence software, robotics, and decentralized payment fields, and is highly compatible with its QVAC platform, which focuses on local AI operation on terminal devices, effectively extending its investment reach into underlying processors and cutting-edge computing hardware systems.

According to Bloomberg, the French AI business planning software company Pigment announced the completion of a $250 million financing round, with a valuation of $2.3 billion. This round of financing was led by Scaleup Europe Fund, with participation from Nvidia, World Innovation Lab, Iconiq, IVP, and Meritech Capital.CEO Eléonore Crespo stated that the company plans to bring in Asian investors and accelerate its business expansion in Asia. Pigment was founded in 2019 and primarily provides a financial and business planning platform for enterprises, launching intelligent AI features, with its annual recurring revenue (ARR) surpassing $100 million.

According to Sifted, the Dutch startup Photon Bridge announced the completion of a €10 million seed round financing. The company is developing laser technology that can be used for internal connections of AI chips in data centers, aiming to enhance inter-chip connectivity performance.The company claims that its laser technology can be manufactured at scale to meet the rapidly growing demand for AI infrastructure.

According to the Ant Group's WeChat official account, the company Today AI has announced the completion of over 200 million dollars in financing. The investors in this round include Ant Group, IDG Capital, Tencent, Wuyuan Capital, Sequoia China, Transsion Holdings, Tongge Venture Capital, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Hanyuan Asset.Today AI is developing a personalized proactive AI system that provides each user with an AI assistant. Its functions include schedule management, life services, work assistance, travel planning, note-taking, data research, health management, information push, and learning practice. The product has completed internal testing and has been launched for the first time in the domestic market.

According to Jiemian News, the autonomous driving technology company Neolix has officially completed a new round of financing of nearly $400 million. So far, Neolix's total financing amount has exceeded 10 billion yuan, making it the leader in the unmanned delivery vehicle industry in terms of financing scale.Insiders in the investment circle revealed that Boyu Capital and the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund are the lead investors in this round of financing. Alibaba AEF NextGen Hong Kong Fund, Monolith Lisi Capital, Vertex Growth under Temasek, and GAC Capital participated in the investment, while existing shareholders such as UAE Stone Venture, Xincheng Capital, SoftBank Asia, Yizhuang Guotou, and Gao Rong Venture Capital continued to increase their holdings.The National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund was established with contributions from the National Big Fund Phase III. Previously, its investment focus was concentrated on AI and computing power chips, high-bandwidth memory chips (HBM), large model algorithms, embodied intelligent robots, AI security, and other fields. It has invested in leading companies in key areas of artificial intelligence such as Kimi, DeepSeek (general large model), Muxi (AI computing power chip), Galaxy General (embodied intelligence), and Changting Technology (AI security).

Solana ecosystem leverage and yield infrastructure protocol Hylo announced the completion of a $1 million strategic financing round, led by Solana Ventures, with participation from Colosseum.Hylo stated that this is Solana Ventures' second investment in Hylo and Colosseum's third investment. Hylo noted that this round of financing reflects the continued support from both institutions for its vision of expanding leverage and yield infrastructure on Solana.

According to market news, the robotics startup Eka Robotics announced the completion of a $150 million Series A funding round, with a post-money valuation of $1.45 billion, co-led by a16z and F-Prime. The company was founded by MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja.Eka has developed a control architecture that combines force-sensitive grippers with a "vision-force-action" model, distinguishing it from the mainstream "vision-language-action" model. This model utilizes physics simulators and large-scale reinforcement learning training to generate thousands of hours of robotic experience in just a few minutes. According to the company, its robots can grasp approximately 1,500 objects weighing no more than 1 kilogram per hour (compared to about 600 for humans), with a success rate exceeding 95%. The hardware cost of its grippers is less than $1,000, with a rated lifespan of 5 million cycles, aiming to reach the 20 million cycle standard of industrial robotic arms.

According to CNBC, Arda, an AI manufacturing startup founded by former OpenAI research director and former Palantir head of product and engineering Bob McGrew, announced the completion of a $230 million financing round, with a valuation of $1.5 billion. This round of financing was led by Altimeter Capital, Accel, and Khosla Ventures.Arda develops AI software and agents for manufacturing engineers, helping to build and adjust assembly lines more quickly. Its AI models have been deployed at defense technology company Anduril. McGrew stated that when product design changes, retraining workers takes only one day, while adjusting automated production lines typically takes three to six months.Arda combines self-developed models, open-source models, and some cutting-edge models to run its software, with the next product roadmap incorporating robotics technology. Co-founders include Augustus Odena, Alex Mark, and Jakob Frick. Apoorv Agrawal from Altimeter noted that the global manufacturing industry is valued at $16 trillion, with approximately $3 trillion in the United States. McGrew joined OpenAI in 2017 and left in 2024.