India's Big Moves: AI Unicorn and Residential Solar
Two of the day's largest rounds came out of India, signaling continued investor appetite for both sovereign AI infrastructure and consumer clean energy.
- Sarvam AI raised $234M in a major round led by HCLTech, achieving unicorn status. The funds will support advanced AI model development and India's broader sovereign AI ambitions.
- SolarSquare closed a $53M Series C led by B Capital to expand its residential rooftop solar footprint across India, invest in technology, and scale operations as nationwide adoption accelerates.
Also from India, food lifestyle platform Foodstories raised roughly $6M (Rs 50 Cr) in a round led by investor Nikhil Kamath, earmarking funds for digital channels, retail expansion, and delivery infrastructure.
European Growth Rounds: AI Tools and Workforce Platforms
Europe's mid-stage deal flow leaned heavily toward applied AI, with two notable rounds targeting software engineering and frontline workforce management.
- Undo, a Cambridge-based AI root cause analysis platform, secured $37M (approximately 31M euros) led by Elsewhere Partners. The company brings runtime context to AI-assisted software engineering through deterministic program recording technology.
- Orbio, a Madrid-based AI workforce platform serving global enterprises with frontline teams, raised $21M (approximately 18M euros) in a Series A led by Dawn Capital, with participation from existing investor Visionaries.
Early Stage and Seed: Hospitality, Edtech, and Food Tech
Smaller rounds rounded out the day's activity across Europe, covering a range of consumer and enterprise verticals.
- Bestie Bite, a Rome-based hospitality tech startup focused on video restaurant reviews, closed a 1.5M euro round via a SAFE instrument led by the Grassi family, targeting US market expansion.
- Sirius Game, an edtech startup building game-based learning products, closed a 1.3M euro round led by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, with participation from Trentino Invest, Ultra VC, 28Digital, and Add Value.
Fund Closes and IPO Activity
Beyond company-level raises, two fund closes and a pair of high-profile public market developments added texture to the day's news.
- Anterra Capital, an Amsterdam and Boston-based firm focused on food and agriculture, announced the first close of its Fund III at $100M (approximately 86M euros) against a $200M target. Rabobank and Novo are among its institutional backers.
- Razorpay, the Indian fintech, filed confidential IPO papers aiming to raise roughly $720M (Rs 6,000 Cr), a significant milestone for one of India's best-known payments companies.
- SpaceX completed a $75B IPO priced at $135 per share, a development that European spacetech founders and investors are watching closely for its potential to either deepen or concentrate global investor appetite in the sector.
On the fund return side, pan-African early-stage fund Launch Africa disclosed it returned $2.5M to investors after 11 exits from its $36M vehicle, representing roughly 7% of paid-in capital.
What Today's Raises Signal
The day's activity points to a few clear currents in global venture. India is emerging as a serious destination for large-scale AI infrastructure bets, as the Sarvam AI unicorn round illustrates, while the SolarSquare close confirms that residential clean energy remains a fundable growth story even as broader climate tech sentiment has cooled elsewhere. In Europe, the concentration of rounds in AI-assisted developer tools and workforce automation suggests investors are moving past general AI hype and backing companies with specific, defensible workflow applications. The Anterra fund close, meanwhile, reflects a longer thesis: that AI will eventually reshape food and agriculture enough to justify specialist vehicles at scale. Taken together, the day's deals reinforce that meaningful venture activity is alive outside the United States, even as Crunchbase data shows American companies capturing nearly 80% of global funding so far in 2026.