Midu Weekly · Week 43, 2026 · Oct 19 – Oct 25
MIDU
This Week 20 storiesbig stories, the most talked-about are: Legora raises $550M at $8.8B valuation six months after Series D；Tenstorrent raises $1.5B Series E at $6.2B valuation to challenge GPU dominance；Whop raises $205M at $5.1B valuation, led by Sequoia。
AI
TechCrunch Startups10.22Flapping Airplanes raises $1B Series A at a $6B valuation
Flapping Airplanes, a year-old AI lab founded by Aidan Smith and brothers Asher and Ben Spector.
SiliconANGLE10.21ASI raises $325M Series C at $3B valuation for infrastructure AI
ASI Inc., formerly Air Space Intelligence, raised a $325M Series C led by Spark Capital at a $3B valuation.
Fortune Term Sheet10.20Daytona raises $60M Series B at $1B valuation for agent sandboxes
Daytona, a San Francisco startup building cloud sandboxes for AI agents, raised a $60 million Series B led by FirstMark at a $1 billion valuation.
SiliconANGLE10.20Nvidia and Dell back $200M Series A for doubleAI
doubleAI, officially AA-I Technologies Ltd., raised $200 million in a Series A co-led by Lightspeed and Bessemer.
TechCrunch Startups10.20AI assistant startup Town hits unicorn valuation with $108M Series B four months after launch
Town, a San Francisco startup building AI assistants for businesses, raised a $108 million Series B co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures.
SiliconANGLE10.21Arda Industries raises $232M to make factory production lines more adaptable
Arda Industries launched with $232 million in funding from Accel, Altimeter.
Fintech
Tech Funding News10.22Whop raises $205M at $5.1B valuation, led by Sequoia
Whop raised $205 million in a Series D led by Sequoia at a $5.1 billion valuation.
Enterprise Software
Tech Funding News10.20Blackwall raises $100M Series C at $2.2B valuation to expand web security for AI agent traffic
Blackwall, an Estonia-founded web security company, raised $100M in a Series C led by AVP at a $2.2B valuation.
Tech Funding News10.21Pigment raises $250M Series E at $2.3B valuation led by EU's Scaleup Europe Fund
Pigment, a Paris-based planning platform competing with Excel, raised a $250M Series E at a $2.3B valuation led by the EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund.
Fortune Term Sheet10.21Blacksmith raises $66M Series C at $1B valuation as AI-written code surges
Blacksmith, a startup that runs continuous integration infrastructure for testing code before it ships.
SiliconANGLE10.21Salesforce to acquire Braze for $5.66B in cash
Salesforce agreed to acquire marketing automation provider Braze for $5.66 billion in cash.
Healthcare
SiliconANGLE10.24Pathos AI raises $237M Series E at $3B valuation led by Bristol Myers Squibb
Pathos AI raised $237 million in a Series E round at a $3 billion valuation, led by Bristol Myers Squibb with returning backers including AstraZeneca.
Tech Funding News10.19Nouscom raises $135M Series D to test cancer prevention vaccine NOUS-209
Nouscom raised a $135M Series D co-led by M Ventures and Revelation Partners to fund a global registration-enabling trial of NOUS-209.
Robotics/Hardware
BetaKit10.19Tenstorrent raises $1.5B Series E at $6.2B valuation to challenge GPU dominance
Tenstorrent closed a $1.5 billion Series E led by Trace Capital and Innovation X at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation.
Tech Funding News10.21Eka Robotics raises $150M Series A at $1.45B valuation led by a16z and F-Prime
Eka Robotics raised a $150M Series A led by a16z and F-Prime at a $1.45B post-money valuation.
Tech Funding News10.20Dream Labs raises $90M seed led by B Capital and Kindred Ventures for a shared robot AI brain
Dream Labs, a San Francisco startup founded in 2026 by former NVIDIA robotics researchers.
TechCrunch Startups10.23Former OpenAI science lead Kevin Weil launches Warp Sciences with $215M for lab robots
Former OpenAI science lead Kevin Weil launched Warp Sciences, an AI startup that trains robots to make and test drug compounds.
TechCrunch Venture10.23Warhound raises $200M at $1.2B valuation to engineer military working dogs
Warhound, a startup from Colossal Biosciences' Ben Lamm and Anduril's Palmer Luckey.
Enact Intelligence exits stealth with €26.68M pre-Seed backed by Yann LeCun and Arthur Mensch
Zurich-based physical AI startup Enact Intelligence exited stealth with a €26.68M ($30M) pre-Seed round.