Artificial Intelligence

Cloudforce: $10 Million Series A Raised To Advance International Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 11, 2026

Cloudforce, a Maryland-based AI company focused on regulated industries, has closed a $10 million Series A funding round led by Owl Ventures, with strategic participation from M12, Microsoft’s venture fund. The company said the investment deepens its go-to-market alignment with Microsoft, including access to Microsoft’s enterprise sales organization and product teams, as Cloudforce expands deployment of its nebulaONE platform.

OpenAI Hires Team From Convogo

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 11, 2026

The team behind Convogo, a software platform built to help executive coaches and HR leaders streamline leadership assessments and feedback reporting, is joining OpenAI, according to a LinkedIn post from Convogo co-founder Matt Cooper.

Torq: $140 Million Series D At $1.2 Billion Valuation Raised For Agentic AI-Focused Security Operations Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 11, 2026

Torq, an agentic AI-focused security operations company, said it has raised $140 million in a Series D financing at a $1.2 billion valuation, bringing its total funding to $332 million. The round was led by Merlin Ventures with participation from existing investors Evolution Equity Partners, Notable Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Ventures Partners and Greenfield Partners.

NVIDIA: Alison Wagonfeld Hired As Chief Marketing Officer

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 11, 2026

Alison Wagonfeld, a senior marketing leader at Google Cloud, announced she will leave Google in late January to join NVIDIA as chief marketing officer, where she will lead the company’s marketing and communications as it enters its “next phase of growth.”

april: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Ben Borodach About The Tax Filing Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

april is a company that provides an AI-powered tax filing platform that helps individuals complete and optimize their taxes directly within financial apps. Pulse 2.0 interviewed april co-founder and CEO Ben Borodach to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

OpenAI And SoftBank Invest $1 Billion In SB Energy As Stargate Data Center Buildout Accelerates

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

SoftBank Group and OpenAI are investing a combined $1 billion in SB Energy to expand the company’s role as a development and execution partner for large-scale U.S. data center campuses and related energy infrastructure, the companies said Friday.

Brado Partners With Santé Ventures To Scale Conversational AI For Patient Navigation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Brado has entered a strategic investment partnership with Santé Ventures aimed at accelerating growth of Brado’s Conversational Engagement Platform, an AI-powered tool designed to help health systems guide patients through care options and next steps.

Silverfort: Interview With Director Of Product Management Ido Halevi About The Identity Security Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Silverfort is a company that focuses on identity security, protecting the identities (human and non-human) that access systems, both on-premises and in the cloud. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Silverfort's Director of Product Management, Ido Halevi, to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Lirio: Interview With Chief Behavioral Officer Amy Bucher, PhD About The Personalized Engagement Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Lirio is a company that provides an AI-driven behavioral engagement platform that uses personalized machine learning to guide individuals toward better health decisions and improved clinical outcomes. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Lirio Chief Behavioral Officer Amy Bucher, PhD to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Fenergo: Interview With Director Of Thought Leadership & Regulatory Affairs Tracy Moore About The Client-Lifecycle Management Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Fenergo is a leading provider of AI-powered Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions that digitally transform how financial institutions, asset management and fintech firms and corporates onboard and manage clients throughout their client lifecycle. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Fenergo's Director of Thought Leadership & Regulatory Affairs, Tracy Moore, to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Snowflake To Buy Observe For AI-Based Observability At Enterprise Scale

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Snowflake announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Observe, positioning the deal as a move to bring AI-powered observability directly into the Snowflake AI Data Cloud as enterprises manage growing volumes of telemetry from increasingly complex AI agents and data applications.

Collaboration.Ai Acquires innosabi To Expand AI-Based Innovation Management Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Collaboration.Ai, an AI-based software and services company, said it has acquired innosabi GmbH, a global innovation management provider, in a move aimed at building a more connected platform that helps organizations move from early insight to execution across the full innovation lifecycle. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Spangle AI: $15 Million Series A Closed To Build Agentic Infrastructure For Commerce

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

Spangle AI, an agentic infrastructure layer for commerce, said it raised a $15 million Series A round led by NewRoad Capital Partners with participation from Madrona, DNX Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, and strategic angel investors, bringing total funding to $21 million.

SocraticX: Interview With Founder Memo Ozdogan About The Decision-Making Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 10, 2026

SocraticX builds an AI-driven platform that helps companies automate complex decision-making and operational workflows using structured reasoning models. Pulse 2.0 interviewed SocraticX founder Memo Ozdogan to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

OpenAI Introduces ChatGPT Health, A Dedicated Experience Designed For Health and Wellness

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 8, 2026

OpenAI has introduced ChatGPT Health, a dedicated experience within ChatGPT that’s designed to help people feel more informed and prepared when navigating health and wellness questions. The company said health is already one of the most common uses of ChatGPT, with more than 230 million people globally asking health and wellness questions each week, and Health is intended to make those conversations more relevant by allowing users to securely connect health information and apps.

IMVARIA Announces Strategic Investments For AI-Based Digital Biomarker Solutions

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 8, 2026

IMVARIA, a Berkeley, California-based health tech company developing AI-driven digital biomarker solutions, said it has secured strategic investments from new and existing investors to accelerate growth and expand its AI-powered diagnostic services.

Cyera: $400 Million Series F At $9 Billion Valuation Raised As Enterprises Ramp Up AI Security

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 8, 2026

Cyera, an AI and data security company, has raised $400 million in a Series F funding round led by funds managed by Blackstone, pushing the company’s valuation to $9 billion and bringing total funding to more than $1.7 billion. The financing comes roughly six months after Cyera’s prior round and marks a valuation that the company says has tripled over the past year.

Fullcast Promotes Britt Davies to Chief People Officer as It Scales AI-Native RevOps Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 7, 2026

Fullcast, an AI-native revenue operations platform for go-to-market teams, announced it has promoted Britt Davies to chief people officer as the company expands and increases investment in recruiting, employee experience, and culture.

CapStone Acquires Structurely To Expand AI-Driven Sales Automation Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

CapStone Holdings announced it has acquired Structurely, an AI-powered sales engagement company focused on automating early-stage revenue conversations for real estate and mortgage organizations. The deal positions Structurely for expanded investment and faster growth as enterprises increasingly adopt AI to improve sales efficiency and customer engagement.

Mobileye To Buy Mentee Robotics For $900 Million To Expand Physical AI Push Into Humanoid Robots

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Mobileye announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mentee Robotics Ltd., an AI-first humanoid robotics company, in a deal the companies say will broaden Mobileye’s ambitions beyond automotive autonomy into humanoid robots and “physical AI” systems designed to operate safely and effectively in real-world environments.

xAI Raises $20 Billion Series E

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

xAI announced it has closed an upsized Series E funding round totaling $20 billion, surpassing its previously targeted $15 billion raise, as the company accelerates development of its AI models and the infrastructure behind them. The company said the financing included participation from Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among other investors. And xAI added that NVIDIA and Cisco Investments joined as strategic investors, backing efforts to scale compute capacity and expand what it described as some of the world’s largest GPU clusters.

LMArena: $150 Million At $1.7 Billion Valuation Raised To Expand Real-World AI Evaluation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

LMArena announced it has raised $150 million in new financing to expand its community-driven platform for evaluating frontier AI models, valuing the company at $1.7 billion post-money. The round was led by Felicis and UC Investments, the University of California’s investment office, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Laude Ventures.

NVIDIA Releases New Open Models, Datasets And Tools To Broaden Real-World AI Development

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

NVIDIA has introduced a new slate of open models, data, and developer tooling aimed at accelerating AI adoption across industries ranging from enterprise software and cybersecurity to robotics, autonomous driving, and biomedicine. NVIDIA said the releases expand its open model universe with updates spanning the Nemotron family for agentic AI, the Cosmos platform for physical AI, the new Alpamayo family for autonomous vehicle development, the Isaac GR00T robotics model line, and new Clara models for healthcare and life sciences.

Bain & Company: Nicolas Willemot To Head Global Consumer Products And Aaron Cheris As Head Of Global Retail

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Bain & Company has appointed Nicolas Willemot as global head of its Consumer Products practice, elevating the longtime partner to lead the firm’s work with consumer goods companies facing shifting consumer expectations and accelerating technology change. And Bain has appointed partner Aaron Cheris as global head of its Retail practice, a leadership change the firm said is aimed at strengthening its work with retailers as advances in generative and “agentic” AI reshape shopping behavior and retail economics.

Microsoft Acquires Osmos To Add Agentic AI Data Engineering Capabilities To Fabric

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Microsoft announced it has acquired Osmos, an agentic AI data engineering platform designed to simplify complex data preparation workflows and help organizations turn raw data into analytics- and AI-ready assets within OneLake, the unified data lake at the core of Microsoft Fabric.

Azimuth AI Raises New Funding As Smart-Utility Edge-AI Chip Moves Toward Production

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Azimuth AI, a semiconductor company building custom edge-AI system-on-chips for smart utilities, energy, and industrial infrastructure, said it has closed a new funding round led by Jetha Global, with participation from existing investors Moneta Ventures and AUM Ventures as well as additional new investors.

Qualcomm Introduces New Robotics Stack And Dragonwing IQ10 Processor To Power Physical AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

At CES, Qualcomm Technologies unveiled a new end-to-end robotics architecture and its latest premium-tier robotics processor, the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ10 Series, positioning the combined hardware and software stack as a foundation for “Physical AI” systems ranging from household and personal service robots to industrial autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and full-size humanoids.

Accordion Acquires FCM, Expanding Operator-Led Performance Improvement Offerings For Private Equity Clients

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Accordion, an AI and data-powered financial consulting firm focused on private equity, has acquired FCM, an operator-led performance improvement firm known for large-scale value creation programs at private-equity-backed companies.

Exotec: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Romain Moulin About The Warehouse Robotics Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Exotec develops warehouse robotics and automation solutions that combine hardware (robots) and software to optimize storage, retrieval, and order fulfillment operations. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Exotec co-founder and CEO Romain Moulin to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Cowbell Names John Botros CFO As Insurtech Targets Profitability and Accelerates Global Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Cowbell announced it is entering a “next cycle” of its growth strategy focused on sustained revenue expansion, operating profitability, and continued international buildout, as the cyber and specialty insurance provider broadens beyond its roots in adaptive cyber coverage.