Venture Capital

Audax Strategic Capital Invests In Strickland Brothers To Fuel M&A Growth

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Audax Strategic Capital (ASC) has made a structured equity investment in Strickland Brothers, a Princeton Equity Group-backed quick-lube and automotive maintenance platform, with proceeds earmarked to help fund actionable M&A opportunities as the business continues its national expansion. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cubby: $63 Million Series A Raised To Expand AI-Native Self-Storage Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Cubby has raised a $63 million Series A minority investment to accelerate the growth of its property management platform for self-storage operators, the company said. The round was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with existing investors also participating.

Yuki: $6 Million Seed Funding Raised To Build An AI ‘Control Layer’ For Data Spend

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Yuki, a data cost optimization startup, has emerged from stealth with a $6 million seed round, targeting a growing pain point for enterprises facing rising data and AI infrastructure bills. The financing was led by Hyperwise Ventures, with participation from VelocitX, Tal Ventures, Fresh.fund, and Yakir Daniel, the founder of Spot.io (which was acquired by NetApp and is now part of Flexera).

Healthier Capital: $220 Million Debut Fund Closed To Back Early-Stage Health-Tech Companies

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Healthier Capital has closed a $220 million oversubscribed inaugural venture fund, raising capital from universities, endowments, family offices, healthcare organizations, and other investors as it looks to back early-stage companies operating at the intersection of healthcare and technology.

Black Bay Partners Closes Third Fund At $425 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Black Bay Partners has completed the final closing of its third private equity vehicle, Black Bay III, L.P., reaching the fund’s hard cap of $425 million in capital commitments, the firm said Thursday.

GIGR (Playad): $5.4 Million Pre-Seed Secured To Build Multi-Agent AI Marketing Workflows

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

San Francisco-based startup GIGR (dba Playad) has raised $5.4 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate development of AI marketing agents designed to help teams create, test, and improve advertising creative with less manual work and less guesswork.

ZBD: $40 Million Series C Raised To Expand Lightning-Powered Payments And Rewards Inside Video Games

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

ZBD, a payments company focused on enabling real-money transactions inside games and consumer apps, said it has secured $40 million in Series C financing commitments led by Blockstream Capital Partners (BCP). The company positions itself as a fully licensed, vertically integrated payments provider built specifically for gaming, using the Bitcoin Lightning Network to support embedded payments and rewards at scale.

ABZ Innovation: $8.2 Million Closed To Scale Heavy-Duty Agricultural And Industrial Drones

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

ABZ Innovation, a Europe-based maker of heavy-duty agricultural and industrial drones, has raised $8.2 million in a funding round led by Vsquared Ventures, with participation from Day One Capital and Assembly Ventures. The company said the new capital will be used to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate product development, and support commercial growth in key international markets, including continued traction in the United States.

Octarine Bio: €5 Million Raised To Scale Precision-Fermented Natural Pigments

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Octarine Bio has secured €5 million in new funding, bringing its total Series A financing to €12.8 million, including earlier pre-Series A capital, as the Danish biotech pushes to scale a new platform for sustainable, bio-based pigments.

Mia Labs: $20 Million Series A Closed To Expand AI ‘Super Employee’ For Auto Dealership Communications

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Mia Labs, the company behind an AI-powered conversational platform designed specifically for automotive dealerships, has raised a $20 million Series A round to accelerate product development, expand its team, and scale deployments across the U.S. The financing brings the company’s total capital raised to $29 million.

Waldo: $225 Million Debut Fund Closed To Back Founder-Led Software And Tech-Enabled Services Companies

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Waldo, a New York-based investment firm, said it has closed its $225 million inaugural vehicle, Waldo I, to invest in proven, early-growth stage software and tech-enabled services companies. The firm said it is targeting entrepreneurs building enduring businesses with strong fundamentals and real-world traction, aiming to support companies on a path to scale without relying on public markets to define their outcomes.

Klir: $17.5 Million Series B And Credit Facility Closed To Scale Operational Data Hub for Water Utilities

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Klir has closed $17.5 million in growth financing, combining a $10 million Series B equity round with a $7.5 million credit facility from Innovation Banking at CIBC, as the company scales its operational platform for water utilities across North America and beyond.

Mews: $300 Million Series D At $2.5 Billion Valuation Raised To Push AI-Native Hotel Operations

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Mews, a hospitality operating system provider, has raised $300 million in a Series D funding round led by EQT Growth, with new participation from Atomico and HarbourVest Partners and continued backing from Kinnevik, Battery Ventures, and Tiger Global. The investment values Mews at $2.5 billion and will be used to accelerate product development focused on AI-driven automation, as well as expand payments and fintech capabilities and support international growth across North America, Europe, and additional markets.

Cyclic Materials: $75 Million Series C Raised To Scale Rare Earth Recycling

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Cyclic Materials has closed an oversubscribed $75 million Series C equity round as it scales rare-earth recycling operations across the U.S. and Europe and expands its Canada-based research and development footprint The financing was led by accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from the Canada Growth Fund and continued support from existing shareholders.

DealHub: $100 Million Raised To Build An Agentic Quote-To-Revenue Platform For Enterprise Monetization

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

DealHub has raised $100 million in a growth funding round led by Riverwood Capital as it pushes to reposition CPQ as the core “agentic” control plane for enterprise monetization, expanding beyond quoting into a unified quote-to-revenue platform that spans pricing and packaging through contracting, billing, and revenue recognition.

Pinegrove Opportunity Partners: $2.2 Billion Raised For Inaugural Fund

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 23, 2026

Pinegrove Opportunity Partners, a venture and growth secondaries specialist, announced it has closed its first fund with $2.2 billion in capital commitments, topping its $2 billion target and ending the raise oversubscribed.

BCI Names Jon Salon Global Head Of Private Equity, Succeeding Jim Pittman

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) has appointed Jon Salon as Executive Vice President and Global Head of Private Equity, effective February 2, 2026. Salon will lead BCI Private Equity’s C$36 billion-plus program and succeeds Jim Pittman, who has led the platform since 2016 and is departing BCI at the end of January.

Cambio: $18 Million Closed To Bring Agentic AI To Commercial Real Estate Capital Planning And Compliance

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Cambio, an AI-native commercial real estate operations platform, has launched publicly after raising $18 million in Series A funding to help landlords and investors turn sprawling building data into faster, investment-grade decisions on retrofits, capital planning, and regulatory compliance. The round was led by Maverick Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Adverb Ventures, Peterson Ventures, and angel investors that include executives from Procore, OpenAI, Anthropic, Vanta, Vercel, ServiceNow, Notion, and Amplitude.

Superstate Raises $82.5 Million Series B To Expand Onchain Equity Issuance

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Superstate announced it has closed an $82.5 million Series B financing as the company expands from tokenized Treasury products into infrastructure that enables SEC-registered public companies to issue and manage tokenized shares directly on public blockchains.

Railway: $100 Million Series B Closed To Unburden Builders and Scale AI-Native Cloud Infrastructure

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Railway, a cloud platform designed to help developers deploy applications faster with less operational overhead, has raised $100 million in Series B funding as it looks to scale infrastructure built for an AI-accelerated era of software development. The round was led by TQ Ventures, with participation from FPV Ventures, Redpoint, and Unusual Ventures. Railway said the capital will support its efforts to “make infrastructure invisible,” expand global capacity, grow headcount, and build new developer- and AI-oriented tooling.

Inferact Launches With $150 Million Funding At $800M Valuation To Commercialize vLLM As Inference Demand Surges

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Inferact, a new AI infrastructure startup founded by creators and core maintainers of the open-source vLLM inference engine, has launched with $150 million in seed funding at an $800 million valuation, positioning the company to push performance gains in large language model serving while keeping vLLM’s development in the open. The seed round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures and ZhenFund. Inferact also listed additional backers including The House Fund, Striker Venture Partners, Laude Ventures, Databricks Ventures, GC&H, and the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fund.

LiveKit: $100 Million Series C At $1 Billion Valuation Raised To Advance Voice AI Infrastructure Push

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

LiveKit announced it has raised a $100 million Series C round led by Index Ventures, valuing the company at $1 billion, as it doubles down on building infrastructure for real-time, voice-native applications. Alongside Index Ventures, the round included participation from Salesforce Ventures, Hanabi Capital, and existing backers Altimeter and Redpoint Ventures.

One To One Health: $12 Million Minority Growth Investment Raised For Scaling AI-Enabled Primary Care

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

One to One Health has secured a $12 million minority growth investment from Frist Cressey Ventures (FCV) to expand its employer-sponsored primary care footprint and accelerate development of its AI-enabled clinical platform, Intelligent Care Manager. The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based company said the financing is designed to meet rising demand from employers seeking measurable savings and improved health outcomes through higher-engagement, relationship-based primary care.

Cancilico: €2.5 Million Seed Funding Closed To Scale AI-Powered Bone Marrow Diagnostics

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Cancilico, a Dresden-based AI diagnostics startup focused on blood cancers, has raised a €2.5 million Seed round to expand commercialization and pursue regulatory pathways for its bone marrow analysis software, MyeloAID. The financing was led by a syndicate that included High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), TGFS – Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, GEDAD GmbH (the Ehninger family’s investment vehicle), and ROI Verwaltungsgesellschaft (Roland Oetker).

Optalysys: £23 Million Series A Extension Raised To Commercialize Photonic Chips And Expand In The U.S.

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Optalysys announced it has raised £23 million in a Series A extension round to accelerate the commercialization of its photonic computing technology and support a planned expansion into the United States. The round was led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from imec.xpand, Lingotto Horizon, and the U.K. government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF). The financing is aimed at advancing Optalysys’ proprietary photonic chips and scaling go-to-market efforts as demand intensifies for faster, more energy-efficient computing infrastructure to support AI and cloud workloads.

Flashpoint Reaches First Close For Second Direct Secondary Fund Targeting Up To $100 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Flashpoint announced it has completed a first closing for Flashpoint Direct Secondary Fund II, its second dedicated direct secondaries vehicle aimed at providing shareholder liquidity in later-stage technology companies founded by European and Israeli entrepreneurs.

PURE Property Management And HomeRiver Group Merge And Raise $80 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

PURE Property Management and HomeRiver Group said they have merged and will operate under the name PURE HomeRiver, a combination of the companies that create the nation’s largest third-party single-family rental (SFR) property management firm.

Mendra Launched With $82 Million Series A To Build AI-Enabled Rare Disease Therapeutics Portfolio

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Mendra, a newly launched biopharmaceutical company focused on rare diseases, has closed an oversubscribed $82 million Series A to acquire, develop, and commercialize therapies targeting high-unmet-need indications. The financing was co-led by OrbiMed, 8VC, and 5AM Ventures, with participation from Lux Capital and Wing VC.

Crux Capital: $342 Million Fund I Closed And Team Expanded

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

Crux Capital has added two new hires and promoted two investment professionals as it scales operations following the September 2025 close of Crux Capital Fund I, L.P., which raised $342 million in capital commitments.

DealHub.io: $100 Million Growth Round Raised To Scale Agentic Quote-To-Revenue Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2026

DealHub.io announced it has raised $100 million in a growth funding round led by Riverwood Capital as the company looks to accelerate global expansion and deepen product development for what it calls “Agentic Quote-to-Revenue” in the AI era.