Midu SF Weekly — Nov 6, 2026 (Issue #4)

110 New Projects & Launches Worth Watching

1. #01

   Zipline · South San Francisco

   Autonomous drone delivery network (aircraft, launch/landing systems, logistics software). Expanding with Walmart (~300 new sites) and Uber (target: 1M deliveries/day by 2029).

   Deal: Financing $1.5B at a $21.5B post-money valuation; co-led by Paradigm, WCM Investment Management and Layer Global, with Valor, Fidelity, Uber, Tiger Global, J.P. Morgan, ARK Invest and Salesforce Ventures. About 10 months after a ~$600M round at ~$7.6B (11/5).

   X: @zipline
   Source: Company PR · TechCrunch

2. #02

   Fal · San Francisco

   Generative-media inference cloud that hosts and runs AI video, image and audio models, especially open-source workloads.

   Deal: Series F $1.3B at a $16B valuation (double the ~$8B mark in April); led by Bessemer with Nvidia, Sound Ventures and T. Rowe Price. Company also disclosed Series E+F totaling ~$1.65B (Sequoia led E). Bloomberg reported annualized revenue above $800M unverified (11/3).

   X: @fal
   Source: TechCrunch

3. #03

   Northwood Space · Torrance, CA

   Shared multi-orbit satellite ground network: phased-array antennas, software and global sites for commercial, U.S. government and allied missions.

   Deal: Series C $375M at a $2B valuation; co-led by a16z and DFJ Growth, with Washington Harbour, Alpine Space, Stepstone, In-Q-Tel and others; plus a multi-year HSBC Innovation Banking credit facility. Six multi-orbit sites on two continents; new ~185,000 sq ft HQ/factory (11/2).

   X: @NorthwoodSpace
   Source: Company blog · TechCrunch

4. #04

   Applied Compute

   Training + inference + routing cloud for companies that want to own and improve their own models (async RL, self-distillation, Shift-1 router, Agent Cloud AC2).

   Deal: Financing $350M at a $3.25B valuation led by Elad Gil, with Kleiner Perkins, Lux, NVIDIA, Blackstone, Shopify Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Neo and others. Company says ARR run rate topped $100M in under 18 months; customers include Microsoft, DoorDash, Harvey and Clay (company claim) (11/2–3).

   X: @appliedcompute
   Source: Company post · SiliconANGLE

5. #05

   Sentra · New York + Tel Aviv

   Agentic data security: classify and govern data at rest, and control what humans, service accounts and AI agents can reach—without moving the data out of the customer environment.

   Deal: Strategic investment $150M led by Capital One Ventures (board seat); existing investors Bessemer, Zeev, Standard Investments, Munich Re Ventures and Key1. Company cites >300% YoY growth over the past year (company claim) (11/4).

   X: unverified
   Source: Sentra announcement · SiliconANGLE

6. #06

   Serval · San Francisco

   AI-native enterprise service management / codegen automation agents positioned against ServiceNow.

   Deal: Series C $150M at a $3B valuation led by Sequoia (10/29; missed last issue’s cutoff).

   X: @getserval
   Source: Business Wire · Fortune

7. #07

   Traversal · New York

   AI SRE with a Production World Model and Causal Search Engine—root-cause analysis toward self-driving production (the “outer loop” after coding agents).

   Deal: Series B $120M at a $1B valuation; co-led by Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint and Khosla, with Sequoia and Battery. Company says monthly investigations grew from ~513 to nearly 73,000 (company claim) (11/3).

   X: @traversal_ai
   Source: Traversal blog · Business Wire

8. #08

   Tutor Intelligence

   Warehouse/manufacturing robots Cassie (single-arm pallet/case work) and Sonny (two-arm fulfillment); remote human tutors collect deployment data that trains the foundation model; hourly pricing.

   Deal: Series B $75M led by a16z, with Union Square Ventures and Neo; ~$117M total. Targets >1,000 robots under contract by end of 2027 (company/a16z). Note: SiliconANGLE called it Series A; a16z and Business Wire say Series B (11/2).

   X: @tutorintel
   Source: a16z · Business Wire

9. #09

   Humble Robotics

   Cabless electric autonomous freight trucks; team with Apple/Uber autonomy backgrounds.

   Deal: Series A $51M led by Obvious Ventures, with Eclipse and Energy Impact Partners (11/5).

   X: @humblerobotics
   Source: Business Wire · Obvious

10. #10

    Trajectory · Stanford founders (DeepMind / Apple)

    Continual-learning / post-training platform so domain experts can improve open-source models without hiring forward-deployed engineering teams.

    Deal: Series A $45M at a $300M valuation led by Sequoia, with Nvidia, Bessemer and Bain Capital Ventures. Customers include Harvey, Rogo, Decagon, Mercor and Nvidia; platform now publicly available (11/2).

    X: unverified
    Source: TechCrunch

2This Week's Funding & Investment Trends

1. 1

   Weekly totals stay huge; strip OpenAI’s unfinished mega-round before reading AI.

   Value Add VC tracked 65 US rounds totaling $18.6B for 2026-10-29–11-05. The #1 line is OpenAI’s ~$11B (of an original ~$30B ask; reporting says the target/valuation were cut and the round is not fully closed). Company-side leaders: Zipline $1.5B, Fal $1.3B, Northwood $375M, Applied Compute $350M.

   Sources: Value Add VC weekly rankings · Investing.com / WSJ · CNBC

2. 2

   Inference and “own your intelligence” infra keep clearing megarounds.

   Fal jumps to $16B on generative-media inference. Applied Compute claims a $100M ARR run rate in under 18 months at a $3.25B valuation. Continues last issue’s Furiosa / General Compute / Upwind thread: capital still bets that inference is scarce and that enterprises will train what they run.

   Sources: TechCrunch · Fal · Applied Compute

3. 3

   Physical AI expands from job sites to air delivery and warehouse arms.

   Zipline’s $1.5B / $21.5B raise funds a national drone network plus a Walmart expansion (~300 sites). Tutor ships Cassie/Sonny under hourly pricing into manufacturing and logistics. Humble raises $51M for cabless electric freight. Extends last week’s Bedrock / Dream built-world thread into sky and floor.

   Sources: Zipline PR · a16z · Tutor

4. 4

   Agent economy outer loop: data permissions, production reliability, enterprise IT.

   Sentra ($150M) frames agentic DSPM—secure data before agents touch it. Traversal ($120M / $1B) sells AI SRE for the reliability debt coding agents create. Serval ($150M / $3B) takes agent automation at ServiceNow. Complements last issue’s Infisical / Hex / Plato secrets–analytics–sim chain.

   Sources: Sentra · Traversal · Fortune · Serval

5. 5

   Ground networks and continual learning buy the distribution/iteration layer.

   Northwood’s $375M Series C at $2B scales shared satellite–Earth connectivity. Trajectory’s $45M / $300M Series A automates post-training so domain experts, not FDEs, improve models. Capital is paying for pipes and iteration loops, not only larger base models.

   Sources: Northwood · TechCrunch · Trajectory

3SF Opportunities: Events & Accelerators

Events to watch (11/6–11/13, PT)

• Fri 11/6 · 13:00 PT
  Hack the Feed · AI for Greater Good Demo Day

  Creator-tools hackathon at Amplitude HQ (Oriane, GMI Cloud, Lovable). Same afternoon: AI for Greater Good Demo Day at AWS Builder Loft.

  justmovetosf · Bond AI

• Sat 11/7
  MakerMods Physical AI · Blueprint Festival · AIE Code Summit hack

  MakerMods Physical AI Hackathon at Founders Inc Lab (08:00). Blueprint Festival hardware showcase at Founders Inc (17:00). AIE Code Summit Hackathon at Shack15.

  justmovetosf · Blueprint

• Mon 11/9 · evening PT
  AI Builders Night · OpenRouter × Meta Build Day

  AWS Builder Loft AI Builders Night (17:00); OpenRouter × Meta Build Day (17:30).

  justmovetosf

• Tue 11/10
  Bedrock Demo Night · Scaling Robotics · Akamai AI Summit

  Built on Bedrock Demo Night (17:00, AWS Builder Loft); Scaling Robotics at Founders Inc (17:15); Akamai AI Summit at Oracle Park (daytime).

  justmovetosf

• Wed–Fri 11/11–13
  The Pitch SF (Chief Clubhouse)

  Three-day live pitch recording; tickets listed around $1,500. Meet founders before episodes air.

  The Pitch SF

• Thu 11/12
  Do Not Disturb HACKATHON · Hardware Demo Day · SGLang Summit

  32-hour phone-agent hackathon at Entrepreneurs First (LangChain; $3k prizes). Humanmade Hardware Accelerator Demo Day (17:00). SGLang Summit at Fort Mason; Cloudflare fireside with Michelle Zatlyn at Founders Inc.

  Do Not Disturb · justmovetosf

• Fri 11/13
  BAND Dark Factory · SF Frontier · Full-Stack Agents · On-Device AI

  BAND Dark Factory Buildathon (AWS Builder Loft); SF Frontier autonomous code-factory hack; Full-Stack Agents Hackathon; AIE × MLH; On-Device AI with Liquid AI × Qualcomm.

  Bond AI · TLDR Events

• Further out
  Physical AI · Hardware for Good · Founders Inc campus

  11/14 Physical AI Hackathon and Hardware for Good (YC F26). Founders Inc Night Hack / Open Campus continue.

  justmovetosf

Incubators & accelerators

• ◆ YC Winter 2027
  On-time deadline was 11/2, 20:00 PT. Late applications are still accepted without a promised decision date; on-time applicants hear by 12/11. Batch runs in person in San Francisco, January–March. · YC Apply
• ◆ a16z speedrun SR008
  Priority window closed 11/1, 23:59 PT. Later applications are reviewed year-round for subsequent residencies. Deal still up to $1M; residency 2027/2/1–4/18; Demo Day 4/13. · speedrun announcement · Apply
• ◆ Founders Inc
  Blueprint Festival on 11/7 is the closest public hardware / Physical AI touchpoint this week; Night Hack and Open Campus remain ongoing. · Founders Inc · Blueprint
• ◆ Deadline pressure
  YC late window is still open; speedrun priority is closed. If you are aiming at W27, submit the late application now rather than waiting for another mixer.