mastodon 4.7.3+vivaldimodArrr! 🏴☠️ https://Pirates.BZ Tech Startup News: Fund, Grow & Course 🦄 Tech startups thrive on bold ideas, leveraging cutting-edge tech to revolutionise markets and challenge industry giants or entire economies.
American AI startup Poolside has released Laguna XS.2, a free open-source model for local agentic coding. The 33bn-parameter model runs locally on a single GPU, achieving 44.5% on SWE-bench Pro, nearly matching models six times its size. Available via Hugging Face and Ollama. https://venturebeat.com/technology/american-ai-startup-poolside-launches-free-high-performing-open-model-laguna-xs-2-for-local-agentic-coding #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Daniel Ek-backed European defence startup Helsing is close to raising 1.2B USD at an 18B valuation, per TechCrunch. The five-year-old company, backed by the Spotify founder, builds AI-powered military drones for European defence. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/11/daniel-ek-backed-defense-tech-helsing-to-raise-1-2b-at-18b-valuation/ #Tech #Startup #News #Defence
Quantum software startup Algorithmiq has raised 18M EUR and moved its global HQ to Milan, in Italy's largest quantum VC round. Total funding reaches 36M EUR. https://tech.eu/2026/05/11/algorithmiq-moves-global-hq-to-milan-and-raises-eur18m-in-italys-largest-quantum-vc-round/ #Tech #Startup #News #DeepTech
Korea’s largest manufacturers including Samsung and Hyundai have backed Config, a startup building the data layer for robotic foundation models. The $27M seed round values the company at $200M. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/11/koreas-biggest-manufacturers-back-config-the-tsmc-of-robot-data/ #Tech #Startup #News #Robotics
With Trump wavering on Nato and war in Ukraine, Europe is scrambling to spend billions on weapons such as drones. British startup Skycutter is designing interceptor drones in a small East Midlands workshop, with 3D-printed fuselages produced hundreds of thousands of times a month in partner Ukrainian factories. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/10/defence-sovereignty-europe-builds-low-cost-weapons-drones #Tech #Startup #News #Defense
Wispr Flow, a voice AI startup, has seen growth accelerate in India after launching Hinglish support. The company is betting on the market despite challenges with diverse languages and accents. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/09/voice-ai-in-india-is-hard-wispr-flow-is-betting-on-it-anyway/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
This week's startup funding highlights by https://Pirates.BZ: #DeepSeek raised at 45B valuation for its first funding round, #ElevenLabs raised 550M USD Series D, #KodiakAI raised 100M USD, #Hightouch raised 150M USD at 2.75B valuation, #Skyroot became India's first space tech unicorn, #QuTwo reached 325M valuation. #Tech #Startup #News
Alibaba's Metis AI agent uses HDPO reinforcement learning to cut redundant tool calls from 98% to 2% while improving accuracy. The 8B model beats larger agents on reasoning benchmarks and is open source. https://venturebeat.com/orchestration/alibabas-metis-agent-cuts-redundant-ai-tool-calls-from-98-to-2-and-gets-more-accurate-doing-it #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Swedish legal AI startup Legora extends its Series D by 50M USD with Nvidia and Atlassian, reaching 5.6B USD valuation and 100M in annual recurring revenue. The Y Combinator alum competes with US rival Harvey. https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/legal-ai-startup-legora-hits-5-6-valuation-and-its-battle-with-harvey-just-got-hotter/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Rocsys raises 13M USD and launches the world s first multi-bay hands-free robotaxi charging system. The M1 overhead robot can charge up to 10 vehicles autonomously using AI vision, achieving 99.9 percent plug-in success. Pilot deployment now, full rollout in 2027. https://thenextweb.com/news/rocsys-13m-multi-bay-robotaxi-charging-m1 #Tech #Startup #News #Robotics
Scout AI has raised 100M USD in funding to develop AI models designed to help individual soldiers control fleets of autonomous vehicles. The startup operates a training ground where its AI agents are being tested for military applications. https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/29/coby-adcocks-scout-ai-raises-100-million-to-train-models-for-war-we-visited-its-bootcamp/ #Tech #Startup #News #DefenseTech
US defence startup Firestorm Labs raises 82M USD to build containerised drone factories that can print and deploy unmanned systems in under 24 hours at the front line. https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/29/firestorm-labs-raises-82m-to-take-drone-factories-into-the-field/ #Tech #Startup #News #Defense
Fusion startup Zap Energy has raised over $330M to become the first company pursuing both nuclear fusion and fission simultaneously. The Everett, Washington company appointed former Navy engineer Zabrina Johal as CEO to lead the dual-track approach. https://www.geekwire.com/2026/zap-energys-nuclear-double-play-fusion-startup-is-the-first-to-add-traditional-atomic-power-to-its-lineup/ #Tech #Startup #News #DeepTech
All3, a construction robotics startup, has raised 5 million in seed funding to develop autonomous robots and AI-powered design software for building sites. The company aims to automate on-site assembly and component production, tackling productivity challenges in the construction industry. https://tech.eu/2026/04/29/all3-raises-25m-to-boost-construction-productivity-with-robotics-and-ai/ #Tech #Startup #News #Robotics
AI startup Intruder launches autonomous pentesting agents that replicate human penetration testers, completing tests in minutes that cost manual testers 50,000 dollars. https://thenextweb.com/news/intruder-ai-pentesting-cybersecurity-knowbe4 #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Sierra, the San Francisco-based AI customer experience startup, has raised 950M USD in fresh funding at a 15B valuation. Google Ventures and Tiger Global led the round. https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/biggest-funding-rounds-sierra-astrani-anagram-therapeutics/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Parker, a fintech startup that raised over 200M USD in funding, has filed for bankruptcy. The Y Combinator-backed company offered corporate credit cards for e-commerce businesses. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/09/fintech-startup-parker-files-for-bankruptcy/ #Tech #Startup #News #Fintech
Sales and marketing AI startups have attracted 2.7 billion USD in funding so far in 2026, with AI-focused companies scooping up the majority of investment. Hightouch raised 150 million USD in a Series D led by Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Ventures, valuing the San Francisco startup at 2.75 billion USD. https://news.crunchbase.com/sales-marketing/gtm-ai-startup-funding-netomi-hightouch/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Thinking Machines, the AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, has unveiled interaction models that enable near-realtime voice and video conversation. The system processes input and output simultaneously, achieving a turn-taking latency of just 0.40 seconds compared with 1.18 seconds for GPT-realtime-2.0. https://venturebeat.com/technology/thinking-machines-shows-off-preview-of-near-realtime-ai-voice-and-video-conversation-with-new-interaction-models #Tech #Startup #News #AI
The office of the future might sound like a call centre as more workers turn to voice AI for coding and tasks. One VC describes startup offices now as feeling like a high-end call centre as dictation tools like Wispr rise in popularity. Tomorrow's offices could be whisper-filled spaces where workers dictate rather than type. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/10/get-ready-for-the-whisper-filled-office-of-the-future/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Nscale, the UK AI infrastructure startup backed by Nvidia, has secured 790M USD in debt financing to develop an AI data centre in Narvik, Norway. Microsoft will rent Nvidia chips at the site, which was previously earmarked for OpenAI's Stargate Norway project. Earlier this year Nscale was valued at 14.6B USD following a 2B USD Series C. https://tech.eu/2026/05/11/nscale-snaps-up-major-us-data-centre-site-inks-ai-compute-deal-with-microsoft/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Skio, a Y Combinator 2020 alum that built subscription commerce software, has been acquired by Recharge for 105M USD after raising just 8M USD from investors. https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/y-combinator-alum-skio-sells-for-105m-cash-only-raised-8m-founder-says/ #Tech #Startup #News #Fintech
Manchester-based Keel has emerged from stealth after pivoting from consumer neobank Frost to a Banking-as-a-Service platform. The company reached profitability and now serves venture-backed fintechs with multi-currency accounts, Visa card issuing and integrated compliance tools. https://tech.eu/2026/05/11/keel-unveils-fintech-infrastructure-business-after-pivot-from-neobank/ #Tech #Startup #News #Fintech
Nvidia has committed over 40 billion USD to equity AI deals in 2026, including a 30B USD investment in OpenAI. The chipmaker has also invested in Corning and IREN. #Tech #Startup #News #AI https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/09/nvidia-has-already-committed-40b-to-equity-ai-deals-this-year/
The week's biggest funding rounds saw AI company Sierra grab 950M USD at a 15B valuation, space tech firm Astranis secure 455M USD, and biotech startup Anagram Therapeutics raise 250M USD. https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/biggest-funding-rounds-sierra-astrani-anagram-therapeutics/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Kodiak AI, the autonomous trucking startup, has raised 100M USD at a steep discount, sending its stock tumbling 37%. The company also announced a new commercial contract and a pilot programme in Canada. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/07/kodiak-ai-raises-100m-at-a-steep-discount-sending-its-stock-tumbling-37/ #Tech #Startup #News #Robotics
Basata, a Phoenix AI startup, automates specialist referrals. Its system reads faxes, extracts clinical data, and AI voice agents call patients to schedule appointments - tackling a major healthcare bottleneck. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/07/the-back-office-problem-that-explains-why-specialists-never-call-you-back/ #Tech #Startup #News #AI
Robinhood is preparing to launch its second retail venture fund, RVII, after the first fund stock doubled since its NYSE debut in March. Unlike the first fund focusing on late-stage companies, RVII will invest in growth and early-stage startups. https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/11/riding-an-ai-rally-robinhood-preps-second-retail-venture-ipo/ #Tech #Startup #News #Fintech
