financing

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.

Artificial intelligence infrastructure startup Fireworks AI is seeking a new round of financing, with a target valuation of $30 billion to $40 billion. A few months ago, the company's valuation was $17.5 billion. Fireworks AI offers "specialized intelligence" services, with an annual revenue exceeding $1 billion, processing over 400 trillion tokens daily.

The developer of the Bitcoin yield platform HoneyB, Nectar Group, has completed a $5 million seed round financing, led by Portal Ventures, with participation from Peer Venture Partners, Anchorage Digital Ventures, an unnamed family office, and angel investors. Co-founder and CEO Josh Gordon stated that this round of financing uses a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) plus a one-to-one token warrant structure, with a post-investment valuation of $30 million, and none of the investors received board seats or advisory positions.HoneyB aims to help Bitcoin holders earn yields on their holdings. In its first strategy, users borrow stablecoins using Bitcoin as collateral and then invest them in yield strategies involving U.S. Treasuries, fixed income, credit, gold, volatility, and options. The Bitcoin collateral can be held through on-chain smart contracts or by a tripartite arrangement consisting of borrowers, lenders, and custodians, with Anchorage Digital and BitGo providing custody services. HoneyB has also deployed infrastructure on Ethereum, Sui, Solana, and Arch Network. Gordon stated that the underlying investment products target an annualized return of about 10%, and HoneyB aims to provide users with an annualized return of about 2% to 4% on their Bitcoin holdings after deducting borrowing costs and fees.The first strategy will use a fund under Simplify Asset Management, which manages approximately $13.5 billion in assets, with Alphaledger responsible for managing and tokenizing the fund, and Amber Capital SPC as the issuer. Gordon named Bitwise, Lombard, Solv, and Sentora as competing platforms, noting that HoneyB's differentiation lies in integrating custody, lending, and investment services on the same platform, allowing institutional partners to offer their products under their own brand. HoneyB plans to launch in the fourth quarter of 2026, with its first product aimed at institutional investors outside the U.S., followed by plans to launch institutional products in the U.S. and retail products expected in the first quarter of 2027. Its business model involves charging a platform fee on deployed funds, and this round of funding will be used for product development, custody and financing integration, legal compliance, and distribution. Nectar was established in October last year and currently has more than 12 employees.

American fintech company Meow has completed a $31.6 million Series B financing round, led by Stifel, with participation from Archetype VC. Stifel will provide a white-label version of the Meow platform to its commercial banking clients, prioritizing venture capital and fund banking services, expected to launch in early 2027.Meow's CEO Brandon Arvanaghi stated that the platform has served billions of dollars in assets and payment volumes and has stablecoin capabilities. This collaboration will help traditional banks gain fintech capabilities that have already been validated in the market. Meow has previously collaborated with Stripe, Bridge, and Tempo in the stablecoin business.

Cryptocurrency researcher Kerman Kohli published "Compute Financing" on Substack on October 19, 2026, discussing financing for computing power construction. He believes one of the main bottlenecks is capital, especially credit: early expenditures mainly come from balance sheet cash, followed by a shift to equity financing. The article cites Alphabet's $85 billion financing and Meta's fundraising through shareholder dilution, with the next step being the credit market.Kohli summarizes the current beliefs of creditors into three points, which he believes are incompatible: AI may be a bubble; the biggest risk is counterparty risk in purchase contracts; the underlying GPUs are not valuable and depreciate like ordinary hardware. He argues that demand is closer to infinite, stating that the demand for agentic AI is growing by about 2.5 to 5 times each year, with supply potentially doubling by the end of 2030. Memory is expected to sell out by 2027, with computing power commitments reaching trillions of dollars, and he mentions Jane Street's multi-billion dollar commitments, as well as the needs of pharmaceutical companies, research, military, and cybersecurity.Regarding efficiency, he states that when the cost of intelligence drops by 90%, the increase in usage is even greater, with a baseline exceeding 10 times, and he cites Jevons' Paradox.On the topic of purchasing, Kohli believes that computing power is more substitutable than real estate; when demand is strong, if someone withdraws their commitment, others will take over. He mentions that many creditors require 2 to 3 year contracts and down payments of 20% to 30%, sometimes as high as 50%, and locking in long-term discount contracts effectively shorts computing power for lenders. The article also states that computing power rental prices have risen by about 50% in the past 6 months and about 100% in the past year, with B300 supplies being tight. Regarding collateral, he notes that the A100 from 2020 is still operational and rented out until 2029, leading him to believe it has at least about 9 years of use value; the current price of B200 is about 50% higher than when it was released about two years ago, and a 6-year-old A100 is still worth about 25% of its value. He concludes that computing power will surpass real estate to become the largest asset class, and the scale of credit-supported computing power is currently just beginning.

According to Cointelegraph, Bitwise Research Director Ryan Rasmussen stated that in the third quarter of 2026, the overall purchasing of Bitcoin by treasury companies slowed down, with a net increase of 1,666 BTC for the Strategy that quarter, down from 83,901 BTC in the second quarter; other listed companies had a net increase of 5,617 BTC, down from 45,725 BTC in the previous quarter. He expects corporate purchases to accelerate again as early as this year.Bitfinex Derivatives Director Jag Kooner mentioned that if the stock prices of treasury companies rise above the value of their holdings, it may restart stock purchases, but "the likelihood of returning to last year's indiscriminate financing wave is low," and funds will prioritize mature companies with scale, liquidity, and a proven track record.

Robot AI company Dream Labs announced the completion of a $90 million seed round financing, with investors including B Capital, Kindred Ventures, A.Capital, SV Angel, and Wing VC. The company was founded in 2026 by the former head of the NVIDIA GR00T robotics research team, and the funds will primarily be used for computing power investment, expanding the tasks supported by the model, types of robots, and user scale.Dream Labs also launched Dream API, which can convert robot camera footage and natural language commands into motion control commands. The company claims that its Dream-1 model, through video learning, can adapt to robots from different manufacturers and has already partnered with over 20 hardware partners to support desktop tasks such as object grasping, placement, and folding clothes.

A startup that provides web data APIs for AI agents recently announced the completion of a $9 million funding round, led by General Catalyst, with participation from Orange Collective and Robinhood Ventures.The company's single API supports search, scraping, crawling, and monitoring functions, aiming to enable AI agents to easily access and utilize internet data. Currently, the API has been adopted by over 800 clients. Institutions such as SV Angel, Eniac VC, and Pioneer Fund, as well as angel investors like Paul Graham, Guillermo Rauch, and Rick Rubin also participated in this funding round.To coincide with this funding, the company announced the issuance of 50,000 credits to all users registered today.

OpenAI is intensifying its efforts to secure funding commitments from investors, hoping to complete the financing before its competitor Anthropic is expected to go public in mid-November. This round of financing could value OpenAI at over $1.4 trillion.SoftBank Group, MGX, and other existing investors are in negotiations to participate in this round of approximately $30 billion financing.

Market sources say that SoftBank and MGX are in talks to participate in this round of financing for OpenAI.