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Penny Finance announced a strategic investment from One Washington Financial, the holding company of Washington State Employees Credit Union, as the company continues to broaden access to financial planning tools designed for everyday consumers. The investment strengthens Penny Finance’s momentum as a digital platform built to help credit union members manage spending, grow savings, reduce debt, and begin investing with greater confidence.

Celero Communications has secured $140 million in funding to accelerate the development and deployment of its high-performance coherent DSP technology, which the company says is becoming increasingly essential as artificial intelligence infrastructure undergoes rapid global expansion. The financing includes a newly announced $100 million Series B round led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, along with earlier seed and Series A investments totaling $40 million led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with contributions from Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, Maverick Silicon, and additional backers.

CRScube has finalized its acquisition of Mednet in a move that significantly expands the company’s global eClinical footprint and accelerates its presence in the North American market. The deal brings together two long-established technology providers known for serving sponsors and contract research organizations across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices.

GetVocal, a Paris-based provider of transparent and governed conversational AI agents for enterprise customer support, has closed a $26 million Series A funding round led by Creandum, with participation from Elaia and Speedinvest. The investment brings the company’s total capital raised to $30 million and marks one of Europe’s notable early-stage financings in the fast-growing enterprise AI customer experience market.

Avanzanite Bioscience has secured a €32 million Series A investment from MVM Partners, marking the company’s first institutional financing and positioning it for an accelerated phase of commercial and strategic growth across Europe’s rare disease landscape.

Shipday has secured $7 million in Series A funding in a round co-led by ECP Growth and Ibex Investors Mobility VC, positioning the global delivery and logistics technology provider for accelerated expansion of its AI-driven solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. The financing also included participation from B Capital and Supply Chain Ventures, bringing Shipday’s total funding to more than $10 million following its 2023 seed round.

Bambusa Therapeutics has completed an oversubscribed Series A-2 financing round at a significant valuation increase, marking a major milestone as the Boston-based biotechnology company accelerates the development of its next wave of bispecific antibody programs. The clinical-stage company, which focuses on advancing transformative therapies for immunology and inflammation, secured expanded participation from all existing investors, including Athos KG, RA Capital Management, INCE Capital, Redmile Group, BVF Partners, Salvia, Janus Henderson Investors, Invus, ADAR1 Capital Management, and Dawn Biopharma, an investment platform controlled by KKR. Their sustained support reflects increased confidence in the company’s bispecific platform, executional strength, and growing clinical momentum.

Breakthrough Properties has closed $430 million in the first round of fundraising for its Breakthrough Properties Growth Portfolio II, marking a significant step in expanding its global life science real estate platform. The announcement reflects growing investor confidence in the firm’s strategy and builds on the success of its inaugural $3 billion life sciences investment fund, which was completed in 2022.

Flocean, a Norwegian subsea desalination company, has expanded its Series A financing to $22.5 million, with global water technology leader Xylem joining as a strategic investor. The investment strengthens Flocean’s push to commercialize its subsea desalination systems, including the planned launch of Flocean One, which is set to become the world’s first commercial subsea desalination plant when it goes live in 2026.

Equifax has finalized its acquisition of Vault Verify, a move that strengthens its employment and income verification services by adding new data sources and technologies to its existing ecosystem. The deal deepens The Work Number's capabilities, a core Equifax offering used by employers, financial institutions, and government agencies to help consumers secure jobs, mortgages, benefits, and other key financial services.

X-Caliber Capital Holdings has closed a major $285 million Rural PACE-X financing package to support the ground-up development of a $495 million resort and entertainment district in Osage Beach, Missouri, marking one of the most significant real estate financings in the state in recent years. The project, known as The Oasis at Lakeport, is positioned to become a prominent Midwest destination with a Marriott hotel featuring 402 rooms, a large indoor waterpark, a conference center, an amusement park, and a broad spectrum of entertainment amenities.

Nanoramic has secured $54 million in Series 1 equity financing, marking a significant step toward scaling the global commercialization of its Neocarbonix battery platform. The round includes a new investment from PEP Capital along with continued participation from Samsung Ventures and Top Material. Earlier commitments from General Motors Ventures and Catalus Capital, which co-led the round, were also included alongside prior investments from ITOCHU Corporation, Fortistar Capital, and WindSail Capital Group.

Gridware has secured a $55 million Series B strategic growth round led by Tiger Global and Generation Investment Management, marking a significant step in the company’s efforts to expand its continuous grid monitoring technology across the United States and into new international markets. The round also includes continued participation from Sequoia Capital, Convective Capital, Fifty Years, True Ventures, Lowercarbon, and Y Combinator.

Capital Markets Gateway provides a platform that streamlines and digitizes the equity capital markets issuance process for banks and investors. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Capital Markets Gateway CEO & Co-Founder Greg Ingram to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Infinite Orbits has raised an oversubscribed €40 million financing round to accelerate its position as Europe’s leading in-orbit servicing provider. The company, headquartered in Toulouse and already recognized as a global pioneer in the sector, plans to leverage the new capital to expand its European footprint, accelerate satellite deployment, and strengthen the continent’s space sovereignty.

TPG and La Caisse have signed a definitive agreement to acquire a majority interest in Pike Corporation, one of the nation’s largest providers of turnkey infrastructure engineering and construction solutions for the electrical grid. The investment, made through TPG Rise Climate with La Caisse taking a significant minority position, marks a major strategic move to accelerate Pike’s growth amid rising nationwide demand for grid modernization and climate adaptation.

Peec AI, a marketing technology platform designed for the emerging age of AI-driven search, announced a $21 million Series A financing round on November 18, 2025. The investment was led by European venture firm Singular, with participation from Antler, Combination VC, identity.vc, and S20. The round brings the company’s total funding to $29 million following its Seed raise led by 20VC in July 2025, making it one of the largest Series A financings in the AI search category to date.

Secure.com has introduced its new Digital Security Teammate platform, an AI-native agent designed to help overwhelmed security teams handle rising breach costs, severe labor shortages, and the accelerating pace of cyberattacks. The launch coincides with the company’s $4.5 million investment from Disrupt.com, the MENA venture builder known for backing global technology companies, including Cloudways, which achieved a $350 million exit to DigitalOcean. The financing marks Secure.com’s first institutional raise and positions the company for expanded global deployment.

Klarna has entered into a major U.S. funding agreement expected to support $6.5 billion in Fair Financing loans, marking one of the company’s largest U.S. capital arrangements to date and reinforcing its rapid growth in the American consumer credit market.

UJET announced the acquisition of Spiral, a conversational analytics and artificial intelligence company, to expand its AI capabilities and add a standalone customer intelligence product to its portfolio. The transaction enhances UJET’s core CCaaS platform and accelerates its roadmap for conversational AI, predictive analytics, and large-scale customer data analysis.

Topgolf Callaway Brands announced an agreement to sell a 60 percent stake in its Topgolf and Toptracer businesses to private equity firm Leonard Green and Partners, valuing the businesses at approximately $1.1 billion. The deal will provide the company with about $ 770 million in net proceeds following purchase price adjustments and marks a significant strategic shift as the company narrows its focus to its core Golf Equipment and Active Lifestyle platform.

nvp capital has closed its second venture fund at $80 million, bringing the New York-based firm’s total assets under management to $200 million as it expands its global focus on seed-stage enterprise software and vertical AI startups. The new fund includes commitments from institutional investors such as Prudential Financial, Rutgers University Endowment, Ford Foundation, and Liberty Mutual Investments, as well as corporate backers such as Audible and Horizon Mutual Holdings.

CIBC Innovation Banking and Information Venture Partners have jointly provided a $20 million financing facility to DealMaker. This New York-based platform enables companies to raise capital directly from individual investors. The new funding, a mix of equity and debt, strengthens a relationship that began in 2022 and is expected to accelerate DealMaker’s product innovation and expansion efforts across the U.S. market.

Azul announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to receive a majority strategic investment from Thoma Bravo, marking a significant expansion milestone for the enterprise Java platform provider. Existing investors Vitruvian Partners and Lead Edge Capital will reinvest additional capital and retain meaningful minority positions, joining Azul employees as shareholders.

Microsoft, Nvidia, and Anthropic unveiled a sweeping set of strategic partnerships that will significantly expand access to Claude, accelerate infrastructure development, and deepen long-term collaboration across engineering, cloud computing, and model optimization.

Dynasafe is the world leader in demilitarization, specializing in the decommissioning of explosive devices, chemical weapons and hazardous materials. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Dynasafe CEO Charles Diggs to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Hammerhead AI has emerged from stealth with a $10 million seed round to accelerate the deployment of AI factories by enabling operators to maximize power utilization for AI workloads. The oversubscribed round was led by Buoyant Ventures, with participation from SE Ventures, AINA Climate AI Ventures, MCJ Collective, WovenEarth Ventures, Bombellii Ventures, Clearvision Ventures, Stepchange, Acclimate Ventures, and several prominent industry leaders, including Jack Cogen of CoreWeave’s Board of Directors.

Maxima has secured $41 million in combined Seed and Series A financing as it aims to transform the month-end accounting close through its agentic AI platform. The funding was led by Redpoint Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Audacious Ventures, with participation from several industry leaders, including former BlackLine executives Andres Botero and Eric Borrmann, Rubrik CFO Kiran Choudary, Vanta CFO David Eckstein, and Liquid 2 Managing Partner and former NFL Super Bowl Champion Joe Montana.

GlobalFoundries announced a significant expansion of its silicon photonics leadership with the acquisition of Singapore-based Advanced Micro Foundry, representing one of the company’s most important moves to date in strengthening its global manufacturing footprint and accelerating its AI infrastructure portfolio. The transaction positions GlobalFoundries as the largest pure-play silicon photonics foundry by revenue and further deepens the company’s reach across data center, communications, computing, automotive, and sensing applications.

PicoJool has emerged from stealth with $12 million in new funding, led by Playground Global, as the company seeks to commercialize a new class of pixel-level photonics designed to increase bandwidth in AI and hyperscale data centers dramatically. The Palo Alto–based startup has developed high-bandwidth Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) and a suite of parallel-optics packaging technologies that aim to make optical connections as inexpensive and manufacturable as copper, enabling data centers to transition to optical architectures at scale.