Seed Rounds: AI Takes Center Stage
The largest seed deals of the day came from AI-native startups pushing into enterprise and consumer workflows.
- telli raised $15M led by redalpine, with participation from Mutschler, Cherry Ventures, and Y Combinator, to automate customer-facing operations for B2C companies.
- kausable raised $12M led by UVC Partners and Entourage, with follow-on from HTGF and Mätch VC, to build reasoning-first AI that adapts to new contexts without retraining.
- Imagi raised $5M (approximately $4.5M) led by Brighteye Ventures and Day One Capital, with participation from artist Will.i.am, to teach students how to build software through AI-assisted coding.
- Dreamfly Innovations raised approximately $1.4M (Rs 12 crore) led by Avaana Capital to manufacture fire-resistant, high-density batteries for drones and aerospace, reducing Indian drone makers' reliance on imports.
- PageMind raised $1M (approximately 1.2M euros) to develop an AI-powered product discovery and optimization platform for e-commerce.
Series A and Growth Rounds: Healthcare and Fintech
More mature startups closed growth rounds targeting product expansion and market entry.
- CARPL.ai raised $10M in a Series A led by IFC to expand its radiology AI marketplace, with funds earmarked for product development and partner ecosystem growth.
- BusinessNext raised $40M from ServiceNow to co-develop an autonomous technology platform for the banking industry.
Hardware and Climate Tech: Pre-Seed and Early Rounds
Several hardware-first startups also closed early funding to address infrastructure and sustainability problems.
- Flo Mobility raised $3M (approximately $2.5M) in a pre-Series A to scale its autonomous construction robots, which carry loads of up to 1.5 tonnes across building sites and are already deployed by L and T and Godrej.
- Aampere raised $4M (approximately 4.2M euros) led by Trind Ventures, with Vend Marketplaces ASA and G-FUND participating, to expand its fully digital used electric vehicle resale platform across Europe.
- Nernst Electric raised $2M (approximately 1.7M euros) from Hatch Blue's Blue Revolution Fund to scale on-site oxygen generation technology for aquaculture and heavy industry.
Macro Context: Billion-Dollar Rounds Dominate Global Totals
Zooming out, Crunchbase data published this week shows that roughly 60 percent of global startup funding in the first half of 2026, amounting to around $320B, flowed into rounds of $1B or more. That figure pushed H1 2026 global venture funding to record levels and underscores a widening gap between the largest raises and everything else.
Editorial Perspective
Today's deals reflect a venture market pulling in two directions at once. At the top, billion-dollar-plus rounds are concentrating an outsized share of capital among a small number of late-stage bets. Lower in the stack, seed investors are still active and willing to back unconventional ideas, from construction robotics in Bengaluru to drone battery manufacturing and reasoning-first AI in Germany. The common thread across nearly every deal is an expectation that software or hardware intelligence will reduce a specific operational bottleneck, whether that is retraining a model, staffing a call center, or sourcing oxygen for a fish farm. Investors appear less interested in general-purpose platforms and more focused on startups that can point to a defined workflow and a credible path to replacing it.