Innovation

AT&T Buying Lumen’s Fiber Unit In $5.75 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

AT&T announced it has reached an agreement to acquire substantially all of Lumen's Mass Markets fiber business for $5.75 billion, subject to purchase price adjustments, in an all-cash transaction that will expand investment in critical U.S. connectivity infrastructure, create new jobs, and accelerate high-speed fiber internet access to millions of Americans.

CloudSEK: $19 Million Series B1 Raised For Scaling Cybersecurity Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

CloudSEK, a leader in AI-based cyber threat prediction and intelligence, announced it has raised $19 million across its Series A2 and B1 funding rounds. The funding round included participation from MassMutual Ventures, Inflexor Ventures, Prana Ventures, Tenacity Ventures, and select strategic investors, including Commvault, the Meeran Family (founders of Eastern Group), StartupXSeed, Neon Fund, and Exfinity Ventures.

DataHub: $35 Million Series B Closed For Enabling AI To Manage Data

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

DataHub (by Acryl Data), a leading open-source metadata platform, announced it has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. This latest funding round brings the company's total to $65 million, enabling accelerated development of its context management platform, which provides discovery, observability, and control across data, AI models, and AI agents.

LMArena: $100 Million Seed Funding Raised for AI-Focused Open Community Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

LMArena, an open community platform for evaluating the best AI models, announced it has secured $100 million in seed funding led by a16z and UC Investments (University of California) with participation from Lightspeed, Laude Ventures, Felicis, Kleiner Perkins and The House Fund.

SparkCharge: $30.5 Million Raised For Advancing Mobile EV Charging Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

SparkCharge, which is the world’s largest off-grid electric vehicle fleet charging network and creator of the first mobile and off-grid EV charger, announced the close of a $15.5 million Series A-1 funding round led by Monte’s Fam and $15 million venture loan facility provided by Horizon Technology Finance Corporation, totaling $30.5 million. Additional venture capital and investment firms that participated in the Series A-1, including Collab Capital, Cleveland Avenue, Non-sibi Ventures, Elemental Impact, and MarcyPen.

ReproNovo: $65 Million Series A Raised For Advancing Reproductive Medicine And Women’s Health Therapies

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

ReproNovo, a company dedicated to developing innovative treatments for reproductive medicine and women’s health, announced the successful closing of a $65 million Series A financing round. The funding round was led by Jeito Capital, co-led by AXA IM Alts and founding investor M Ventures, with strong syndicate support from Ysios Capital and ALSA Ventures.

Strava Buying Core Assets Of The Breakaway

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 26, 2025

Strava, an app for active people, announced it has acquired the core assets of The Breakaway, a Y Combinator-incubated cycling training app. This deal follows the recent news of Strava acquiring Runna, a leading running training app. It signifies further investment in the Strava ecosystem for the platform’s global community of active people.

XP: $6.2 Million Raised For Ticket Marketplace

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 25, 2025

XP, a ticket marketplace dedicated to driving live experiences and rewarding fandom, announced it has raised $6.2 million in funding led by Blockchange, with participation from L1D, Reflexive, and others. The capital will accelerate XP’s mission to build the most fulfilling ticketing experience for fans.

Sanmina Buying ZT Systems Assets From AMD In $3 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 25, 2025

AMD announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell ZT Systems’ U.S.-headquartered data center infrastructure manufacturing business to Sanmina (an integrated manufacturing solutions company).

Siemens To Buy Design Automation Company Excellicon

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 25, 2025

Siemens Digital Industries Software announced that it has agreed to buy Excellicon. This will bring Excellicon’s software for the development, verification, and management of timing constraints to Siemens’ EDA portfolio of software for IC design.

TSG Consumer: Jessica Duran Promoted To COO

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 25, 2025

TSG Consumer Partners, a leading specialist private equity firm focused exclusively on the consumer sector, announced the promotion of Jessica Duran to Chief Operating Officer. Duran will continue to serve as Chief Financial Officer, a role she has held since joining the firm in 2017.

New Mountain Capital Forms Smarter Technologies By Combining Portfolio Companies

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 25, 2025

New Mountain Capital, a growth-oriented investment firm with $55+ billion in assets under management, announced a definitive agreement to form Smarter Technologies, the automation and insights platform for healthcare efficiency, created through the strategic combination of portfolio companies SmarterDx, Thoughtful.ai, and Access Healthcare.

QuantumLight: $250 Million Fund Closed

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 25, 2025

QuantumLight, a quantitative venture capital firm founded by Nik Storonsky, announced the final closing of its inaugural $250 million fund. And at the same time, the firm is publicly launching its second operating playbook Hiring Top Talent designed to help founders systematically scale world-class teams.