Artificial Intelligence

XBuild: $19 Million Series A Raised And AI-Based Residential Roofing Estimate Product Launched

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

XBuild, an AI estimating platform built for construction contractors, has raised $19 million in a Series A round led by N47, with participation from Rackhouse Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. The company said it will use the new capital to expand beyond roofing into additional construction estimating categories, including concrete, landscaping, painting, windows and doors, glass and glazing, insulation, HVAC, and plumbing.

Atlas Invest: $25 Million Raised To Expand AI-Driven Commercial Real Estate Private Credit Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

Atlas Invest has raised $25 million in funding led by BlackRock as it looks to scale its technology-enabled approach to commercial real estate bridge lending and broaden access to institutional-style real estate debt opportunities. The New York-based lender said the raise will support expanded origination and management of senior, real estate-backed loans while strengthening underwriting, monitoring, and servicing capabilities across its portfolio.

Emergent Lands $70 Million Series B As ARR Hits $50 Million In 7 Months

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

Emergent, an AI-driven software creation platform that helps users build full-stack web and mobile applications, has raised $70 million in Series B funding led by Khosla Ventures and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the company said Tuesday.

Humans& Raises $480 Million Seed Funding At $4.48 Billion Valuation For Building Human-Centric AI Collaboration Tools

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

Today humans& announced it officially launching, which is a new company founded by leading researchers from Google, Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI, Meta, and other top labs and academic institutions. In an announcement sent to Pulse 2.0, the company said it has raised $480 million in a seed round of funding at a valuation of $4.48 billion. The round was led by SV Angel and co-founder Georges Harik, with participation from NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos, GV (Google Ventures), Emerson Collective, Forerunner, S32, DCVC, Human Capital, Felicis, and CRV, among others. And this financing is one of the largest seed rounds in the AI industry.

MelodyArc: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO James McHenry About The AI Operator Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

MelodyArc builds a platform for designing and deploying “AI Operators” (agentic AI systems) that can reason, execute workflows, and collaborate across real business tools, data, and teams. Pulse 2.0 interviewed MelodyArc co-founder and CEO James McHenry to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Vertus Hits $1 Billion Daily AI Trading Volume And Posts 51.15% 2025 Return With 2.13 Sharpe

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

Vertus announced it surpassed $1 billion in daily AI-driven trading transactions and delivered a 51.15% return in 2025, posting a Sharpe ratio of 2.13, as the company positioned its systems as a step forward for “machine reasoning” in live financial markets.

Pennylane Raises €175 Million To Expand AI And E-Invoicing Push Across Europe

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

Pennylane has raised €175 million in a funding round led by TCV, with participation from Blackstone Growth, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, CapitalG, and Meritech Capital, as the company seeks to position itself as a leading “financial operating system” for European businesses. Bloomberg revealed that the funding round was at a $4.25 billion valuation.

Prudential Advisors Adds AI-Driven Lead Scoring And GenAI Insights To Advisor Leads Program

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

Prudential Advisors, the retail distribution business of Prudential Financial, announced it has enhanced its Advisor Leads program by embedding artificial intelligence and data science across the full lead lifecycle to improve lead quality and increase conversion rates for its advisor force.

BioCatch: Interview With VP Of Product Marketing Raj Dasgupta About The Fraud Detection Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 20, 2026

BioCatch is a digital fraud detection company that uses AI-driven behavioral biometric intelligence to analyze user interactions—such as keystroke dynamics and mouse movements—to distinguish between legitimate customers and potential cybercriminals. Pulse 2.0 interviewed BioCatch VP of Product Marketing Raj Dasgupta to learn more.

Sharon AI Enters Strategic $200 Million Investment Partnership With Digital Alpha

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 19, 2026

SharonAI Holdings and its subsidiaries announced it has entered a strategic investment partnership with Digital Alpha that could provide up to $200 million of equity and revenue-share capital, alongside an exclusive technology partnership with Cisco aimed at scaling AI and high-performance cloud compute infrastructure across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

e& And IBM Unveil Enterprise-Grade Agentic AI To Transform Governance And Compliance

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 19, 2026

Global technology group e& and IBM announced a strategic collaboration aimed at building an enterprise-grade agentic AI foundation at e&, beginning with policy, risk, and compliance workflows.

Elyos AI: $13 Million Series A Raised To Expand AI “Front Office” Agents for Trades Businesses

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 19, 2026

Elyos AI has raised a $13 million Series A round to accelerate development of AI agents built for trades businesses, targeting one of the sector’s most persistent operational problems: missed work and lost revenue when customer inquiries aren’t handled quickly and consistently. The Series A was led by Blackbird, with participation from Y Combinator and Pi Labs.

OpenAI: Revenue Surpassed $20 Billion In 2025

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 19, 2026

OpenAI announced annualized revenue topped $20 billion in 2025 as compute capacity scaled from 0.2 GW in 2023 to 0.6 GW in 2024 and about 1.9 GW in 2025, with revenue rising in parallel from $2 billion ARR in 2023 to $6 billion in 2024. The company argues ChatGPT has moved from experimentation to everyday use at home and at work, embedding into workflows across engineering, marketing, finance, and management.

A47: $2 Million Pre-Seed Funding Raised To Build AI-Native News Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 18, 2026

A47 has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate the development of an AI-native news platform that helps audiences discover, understand, and trust information amid a growing flood of misinformation, fragmented feeds, and engagement-driven noise.

YouMail: Interview With CEO Alex Quilici About Fighting Against Robocalls And AI-Based Fraud

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 18, 2026

YouMail protects consumers, enterprises, and carriers from harmful phone calls. Best known for its mobile apps that protect users from unwanted calls, texts, and voicemails, YouMail also powers robocall-mitigation intelligence used by carriers and enterprises to detect and stop illegal calling campaigns at the source. Pulse 2.0 spoke with YouMail CEO Alex Quilici to discuss how the company is using AI and large-scale call data to combat robocalls and the growing threat of phone-based fraud.

Fundera Network Launches AI-Powered Platform Built for Clarity

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 18, 2026

Fundera Network announced it has launched an AI-powered, non-custodial decentralized finance platform aimed at helping users navigate multichain activity with greater structure, risk awareness, and execution support. The company also opened a presale for its $FDR token, positioning the offering as an on-ramp to its broader ecosystem.

Micron To Buy PSMC’s Tongluo Fab Site For $1.8 Billion, Adding 300,000-Square-Foot Cleanroom And Expanding Taiwan DRAM Capacity

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 17, 2026

Micron Technology has signed an exclusive letter of intent to acquire Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.’s P5 fabrication site in Tongluo, Taiwan, in a deal valued at $1.8 billion in cash. The transaction would give Micron an existing 300mm cleanroom footprint of roughly 300,000 square feet, providing additional space to equip and ramp DRAM production as the company seeks to meet rising global demand for memory.

Plume Buys Sweepr To Build AI-Orchestrated Customer Experience Platform For ISPs Worldwide

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 16, 2026

Plume announced it has acquired Sweepr, an AI-powered customer-care orchestration platform, in a deal aimed at turning real-time home-network intelligence into guided and automated support actions across digital and assisted channels for internet service providers globally.

Instinct Science Acquires ScribbleVet To Build An Intelligence-Native Veterinary Practice Management Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 16, 2026

Instinct Science, an animal health technology company best known for its Instinct EMR veterinary practice management system and clinical tools including Standards of Care, Plumb’s and Clinician’s Brief, has acquired ScribbleVet, an AI scribing platform for veterinarians. The companies say the combination is intended to create what Instinct describes as the industry’s first “clinical intelligence platform,” integrating AI documentation, workflow automation and point-of-care clinical decision support into a single system for veterinary teams.