Innovation

COVU Buying Boutique California Agency CIII Insurance Services

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 6, 2025

COVU, a leader in AI-based services for insurance agencies, announced the acquisition of CIII Insurance Services, a boutique California agency known for its premium clients, white-glove service, and carrier partnerships.

Blue Yonder Reveals AI-Based Cognitive Solutions And Buys Pledge Earth

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 6, 2025

With volatility increasing and economic concerns growing, supply chain leaders are under intense pressure to maximize profits and avoid bottlenecks while remaining optimized. With the latest product release showcased at its annual customer conference, ICON 2025, Blue Yonder announced several AI-based Cognitive Solutions, accelerating long-range and intraday decision making for increased resiliency, resource leverage, and cost control. Blue Yonder also recently announced it has acquired Pledge.

AI Fund: $190 Million Fund II Closed To Co-Found AI Companies

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 6, 2025

AI Fund, a venture studio founded by renowned AI entrepreneur Andrew Ng, today announced the successful closing of its second fund, raising about $190 million in an oversubscribed round.

Autonomys: Interview With CEO Todd Ruoff About The Decentralized AI Scaling Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 6, 2025

Autonomys is a network that provides the infrastructure necessary to scale decentralized AI applications on-chain. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Autonomys CEO Todd Ruoff to learn more about the company.

Carrier: Acquisition Of Addvolt Completed

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Carrier announced it has acquired long-term partner Addvolt, a Portuguese transport electrification technology company. Addvolt provides noninvasive and low-maintenance electric systems with refrigerated vans, trucks, trailers, and containers. Its plug-in electric systems for refrigerated transportation markets avoid fuel usage and reduce major emissions, including noise, particulates, nitrogen oxide, and carbon dioxide.

Gestalt Diagnostics: $7.5 Million Series A Raised For Expanding AI-Based Pathology Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Gestalt, an innovator in AI-based digital pathology solutions, announced the completion of a $7.5 million Series A financing. The funding round was led by Cowles Ventures, TVF Funds, Inland Imaging Investments, KickStart Funds, and angel investors from the Pacific Northwest.

Blooming Health: $26 Million Series A Closed To Advance Social Care Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Blooming Health, a social care technology platform, announced it has raised $26 million in a Series A funding round led by global software investor Insight Partners. Existing investors Afore Capital, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and Metrodora Ventures participated.

P-1 AI: $23 Million Raised For Building Engineering AGI For Physical Systems

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

P-1 AI is a company known for building Archie, an AI agent aimed at cognitive automation of tasks that human engineers perform today when designing physical systems. The company also revealed a $23 million seed funding round. The Investors in P-1 AI’s seed round, led by Radical Ventures and included Village Global, Schematic Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and several angels, including Jeff Dean, Peter Welinder (VP Product, OpenAI), and Bob van Luijt (Co-Founder and CEO, Weaviate), among others.

Omada: Investment Raised From GRO And Kirk Kapital

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Omada—a leader of Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) software—announced a new phase in its partnership with existing investor GRO. Together with Kirk Kapital, Omada will take a majority ownership position to support its continued expansion and innovation.

Dawn Health: €11.5 Million Raised For Scaling Pharma Digital Health Solutions

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Dawn Health, a leader in digital health, announced it has secured a €11.5 million funding round from its existing investors, Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), and Trifork.

Birdsboro Power: Strategic Value Partners Acquires Stake In The Facility

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Strategic Value Partners, an alternative investment firm with about $22 billion of assets under management, announced that its managed funds completed the acquisition of a stake in Birdsboro Power, which is a 485-megawatt natural gas-fired combined-cycle generation facility located in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Dataminr: $100 Million Investment Raised From Fortress

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Dataminr announced the closing of a $100 million convertible financing from funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group.

TTV Capital: Lynne Laube And Rachel Hamilton Named As Venture Partners

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

TTV Capital, an early-stage fintech venture capital firm, announced that Lynne Laube and Rachel Hamilton have joined as venture partners. And in these roles, Laube and Hamilton will provide strategic counsel to TTV Capital's portfolio companies based on their decades of experience scaling early-stage fintech companies.

True Anomaly: $260 Million Raised For Building Space Security

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

True Anomaly announced its $260 million fundraising effort. The Series C funding was led by Accel, with participation from Meritech Capital and existing investors Eclipse, Riot Ventures, Menlo Ventures, 645 Ventures, ACME Capital, Space VC, Champion Hill Ventures, and Narya. Stifel Bank is providing debt capital.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: $10 Million Gift From Alumnus And Entrepreneur Ajit Prabhu

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) announced it has received a $10 million gift from Ajit Prabhu ’98, founder and CEO of Quest Global, to establish the Ajit Prabhu Catalyst Endowment and the Ajit Prabhu Catalyst Fund in support of the Office of Strategic Alliances and Translation (OSAT). Prabhu launched the fund to assist RPI students and faculty entrepreneurs.

Peek: Series A Raised For Virtual Leasing Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Peek, a virtual leasing platform that helps property managers and owners accelerate the leasing process and reduce vacancy loss, announced that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by Moneta Ventures, with participation from Timber Grove Ventures and other existing investors.

Ara Partners: Over $800 Million Raised For Inaugural Infrastructure Fund

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Ara Partners, a global investment firm dedicated to decarbonizing the industrial economy, announced that it has raised over $800 million for its Ara Infrastructure strategy, including its debut Fund, Ara Infrastructure Fund I, and associated co-investment vehicles.

Blacksmith: $3.5 Million Raised For High-Performance CI Cloud Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Blacksmith, a high-performance CI cloud designed to compete with industry giants in an AI world, announced $3.5 million in seed funding led by GV (Google Ventures) and Y Combinator, with participation from angel investors including Spencer Kimball, CEO of Cockroach Labs; Peter Mattis, CTO of Cockroach Labs; and Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of WePay by J.P. Morgan.

Smith Point Capital: Over $360 Million Raised For Inaugural Fund

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Smith Point Capital Management—an operator-led venture capital firm shaping the intelligent enterprise—announced the final closing of its inaugural fund, Smith Point Capital Fund I. With over $360 million in aggregate commitments, Smith Point Capital Fund I exceeded its target of $300 million.

Mission Wealth: Strategic Investment Raised From Great Hill Partners

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Mission Wealth (coinciding with its 25th anniversary) announced a minority investment from Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm that invests in high-growth companies.

Sunoco Buying Parkland Corporation In $9.1 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Sunoco and Parkland Corporation announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Sunoco will acquire all outstanding shares of Parkland in a cash and equity transaction valued at approximately $9.1 billion, including assumed debt.

Skymel: Interview With Co-Founders Neetu Pathak & Sushant Tripathy on Building Adaptive AI Systems

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2025

Skymel recently unveiled its Orchestrator Agent (OA) – the industry’s first real-time AI deployment agent – designed to adaptively manage where and how AI models run across both local devices and the cloud. Built on the company’s core NeuroSplit technology, the Orchestrator Agent allows developers to configure infrastructure decisions instantly, eliminating long deployment cycles. Pulse 2.0 spoke with Skymel co-founders Neetu Pathak (CEO) and Sushant Tripathy (CTO) to learn more about their backgrounds, the motivation behind the company, and how their hybrid AI infrastructure is changing the way intelligent applications are built and delivered.

Sevii: Pre-Seed Funding Raised For Autonomous Agentic AI Defense Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

Sevii, a cybersecurity innovator working on a next-generation autonomous agentic AI defense platform, announced the closing of its pre-seed funding round. Overline led the round, which also included 10VC and SaaS Ventures.

Wingspire Equipment Finance: $350 Million Credit Facility Secured

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

Wingspire Equipment Finance announced that it has closed on a $350 million credit facility to expand its financing capabilities for middle-market and sponsor-backed companies. The new warehouse line was offered to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wingspire Equipment Finance, with Bank of America and Wells Fargo as lenders.

Scamnetic: $13 Million Closed For AI Scam Detection Technology

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

Scamnetic, a company focused on protecting individuals and businesses from digital threats using advanced AI technology, announced it received $13 million in series A funding. Roo Capital led the round, which 1st and Main Growth Partners, SaaS Ventures, and Riptide Ventures also joined. This series A funding round brings the total investment in Scamnetic to $16 million.

Uncork Capital: $300 Million Raised For Investing In Category-Defining Companies

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

Uncork Capital announced the closing of $300 million in new capital across two funds: Uncork VIII, a $225 million seed fund, and Uncork Plus IV, a $75 million growth fund.

Stonepeak Unveils Data Center Company Montera Infrastructure

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real assets, announced Montera Infrastructure's launch, which is a new North American hyperscale-focused data center company with a $1.5 billion equity commitment.

SquareX: $20 Million Raised For Transforming Browser Detection and Response

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

SquareX, a pioneer in Browser Detection and Response (BDR), announced it closed a $20 million in Series A funding led by SYN Ventures, a leading venture capital firm focused on cybersecurity investments, with participation from existing investor Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital SEA).

CND Life Sciences: $13.5 Million Series A Closed For Neurodiagnostics Innovations

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

CND Life Sciences announced that it has raised $13.5 million in its Series A equity financing round, with $8.6 million in its most recent Series A3 offering. CND's latest Series A3 round included funding from existing investor groups like Cambrian Capital Partners, Tanis Ventures, Lupo Labs, Top Corner Capital, HonorHealth, Triana, Gold Bench Capital, and BlueStone Ventures, and from new investors Labcorp, MBX Capital, and Vilas Ventures.

Charney Companies And Tavros Close On 175 Third Street In Gowanus

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2025

Charney Companies and Tavros announced significant funding for 175 Third Street, the planned fourth building in their jointly developed campus Gowanus Wharf. After completion, 175 Third Street will be the largest building in Gowanus, with about 1 million square feet and 1,000 residences.