Northwood Space, a ground infrastructure startup building antennas and software for satellite communications, announced a $375 million Series C round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ Growth, valuing the company at $2 billion. The round includes a financial agreement with HSBC, and funds will go toward scaling operations, hiring, and fulfilling existing contracts. Founded in 2022 and led by CEO Bridgit Mendler, the company previously raised a $100 million Series B in January and secured a nearly $50 million U.S. Space Force contract.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-11-02
Cloud security startup Upwind closed a $400 million Series C led by Bessemer Venture Partners at a $3.8 billion valuation, with Greylock Partners and Craft Ventures also participating. The round nearly collapsed after Datadog offered to acquire Upwind but declined to pay above the valuation VCs had already set, prompting Upwind to stay independent instead.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-28
Blacksmith, which builds continuous integration tools for testing software including AI-generated code, raised a $66 million Series C led by Sequoia Capital at a $1 billion valuation, the company announced Wednesday. CEO Aditya Jayaprakash said annual recurring revenue has grown 17-fold and the platform has run over 90 million CI jobs, with customers including Mercury and Granola.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-21
Estonia-based web security firm Blackwall announced a $100 million Series C round led by AVP, with existing investors Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tera Ventures also participating. Executive chairman Roi Carthy said the raise quadruples the company's valuation to $2.2 billion since its 2025 round. Blackwall sells bot- and traffic-security tools to hosting and cloud providers, who rebrand and resell them to their own customers.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-20
Parallel Systems, founded by former SpaceX engineers, has raised a $100 million Series C round led by AVP to scale production of its battery-powered, autonomous rail vehicles called Panther. The vehicles can haul several tons of freight up to 500 miles without an operator, traveling solo or in short platoons rather than traditional long trains. CEO Matt Soule says the technology lets railroads compete with trucking on shorter routes they've largely abandoned.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-07
FedEx has placed an order for 2,000 electric medium-duty trucks from startup Harbinger, a deal valued at $300 million, with delivery expected by the end of next year. Harbinger confirmed the order to TechCrunch after Bloomberg News first reported it. This follows FedEx's earlier $160 million Series C investment in Harbinger and an initial order of 53 trucks already delivered.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-30
Edge-AI chipmaker SiMa.ai closed a $150 million Series C round co-led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify, with Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, and StepStone Group also participating. The deal values the company at $1.45 billion, up from a $960 million valuation after its July 2025 Series B, and brings total funding raised to over $500 million.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-28
Instinct, maker of a viral AI assistant that performs tasks like booking travel and making calls on users' behalf, has raised $1 billion in a Series C round led by investors including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue. The round values the company at $10 billion, just a month after a prior raise valued it at $2.5 billion, and comes roughly a year after its invite-only launch in August 2026.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-28
Angle Health, a Y Combinator alum from 2020 that helps small businesses manage level-funded health plans, announced a $200 million Series C round plus a $400 million tender offer allowing employees to sell shares. The round, valuing the company at $2.7 billion, was led by Vitruvian Partners with participation from Town Hall Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Portage Ventures, PruVen Capital, and Y Combinator, and is expected to close later this month. Angle says it now serves over 5,000 businesses and is profitable.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-18
Defense tech startup Mach Industries raised $600 million in a Series C extension, pushing its valuation to $3.7 billion just three months after a $300 million round valued it at $1.8 billion. Backers in both rounds include Ribbit Capital, Infinite Capital, Bedrock Capital and Sequoia. The company makes unmanned military vehicles, including VTOL drones, long-range strike systems and counter-drone tech, from its Huntington Beach, California facility.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-10
French startup The Exploration Company, led by Helene Huby, closed a record $450 million Series C funding round to advance its Nyx cargo capsule, a future crewed spacecraft, and plans for a reusable heavy-lift rocket. Huby says the company aims to test a 400,000-pound-thrust methane engine by 2028 and fly the new launcher by 2033, with further fundraising expected once key technical milestones are hit.
science.slashdot.org
· 2026-09-10
The Exploration Company, led by CEO Hèlene Huby, closed a $450 million Series C funding round, the largest such raise by any European space firm and reportedly the biggest ever for a female-led company in Europe. Huby was also named an envoy at France's International Space Summit, appearing alongside astronaut Thomas Pesquet as a prominent voice in European space policy.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-09