Startups

Sentora Raising Up To $25 Million Series A As IntoTheBlock And Trident Merge

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

IntoTheBlock (a leader in institutional DeFi solutions) and Trident Digital (a digital assets financial services firm) announced their merger to form Sentora, an institutional DeFi platform combining yield strategies, risk management, and financial services. And at launch, Sentora is securing up to a $25 million Series A round of funding led by New Form Capital, with participation from Joint Effects, Tribe Capital, and strategic ecosystem investors including Ripple, Curved Ventures, Flare, and Bankai Ventures.

Tesseral: $3.3 Million Raised To Simplify Authentication For Business Software

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

Tesseral, an open-source authentication infrastructure for business-to-business (B2B) software companies, announced its emergence from stealth with $3.3 million in seed financing. Investors include Y Combinator, Jessica Livingston, and Paul Graham, co-founders of Y Combinator; Calvin French-Owen, co-founder and former CTO of Segment; Steve Bartel and Nick Bushak, co-founders of Gem; and Mike Wiacek, founder of Stairwell.

Parloa: $120 Million Series C Raised At $1 Billion Valuation To Improve Customer Service With Agentic AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

Parloa, an innovator in Agentic AI for customer experience, announced it has secured $120 million in Series C funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $1 billion. And Durable Capital Partners, Altimeter Capital, and General Catalyst are leading this round with participation from EQT Ventures, RPT Capital, Senovo, and Mosaic Ventures.

Liftoff: Minority Growth Investment Raised At $4.3 Billion Valuation From General Atlantic

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

Liftoff, a leader in performance marketing and monetization solutions for the app economy, announced that Blackstone's private equity funds signed an agreement to sell a minority stake in Liftoff to General Atlantic. As part of the transaction, long-time investor Blackstone will remain the majority shareholder.

StackOne: $20 Million Series A Raised To Transform SaaS And AI Agent Integrations

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

StackOne, a next-gen AI-based platform advancing the future of enterprise AI agents and SaaS integrations, announced it raised $20 million in a Series A round led by GV (Google Ventures). Workday Ventures, XTX Ventures, existing investors Episode 1 and Playfair, and angels from OpenAI, Deepmind, Microsoft, and Mulesoft also participated.

Recraft: $30 Million Series B Raised For AI-Based Design Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

Recraft, an AI-based design platform that generates images with brand consistency, announced it has raised a $30 million Series B funding round led by Accel. Participating investors include Madrona Ventures and existing investors Khosla Ventures, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, and RTP Global.

MyVenue: Majority Investment Raised From Greater Sum Ventures

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

Entrepreneurial family office and growth equity firm Greater Sum Ventures (GSV) announced a majority investment in MyVenue, a worldwide leader in event venue point-of-sale (POS) technology.

iAltA Holdings: $20 Million Raised For Modernizing Private Markets

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

iAltA Holdings, a private markets infrastructure company, announced its launch with an initial funding of $20 million led by WestCap. Launched out of WestCap, iAltA’s goal is to build a digital infrastructure that unifies private market systems.

Google Announces AI Futures Fund

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 12, 2025

Today, Google announced the AI Futures Fund. This new program will invest in and collaborate with startups that want to bring their innovative ideas to market using Google DeepMind's latest AI models. With this fund, Google will work closely with companies in various stages of growth while also providing access to Google’s advanced resources, expertise, and early iterations of the company’s latest AI models like Gemini.