Global Funding Radar

• Global VC hits $189B in Feb 2026, a record up 780% YoY, with AI claiming 90% ($171B).
• OpenAI's $110B raise at $840B valuation—largest ever—plus...

• Nominal (Austin) achieves unicorn status with $80M round led by Founders Fund
• Dash0 (NY/Berlin) raises $110M Series B led by Balderton at $1B...

• Teamfluence turnaround: Fractional CMO at $6k/mo slashed CAC 41%, churn from 68% to 29%, enabling $5M seed with 11-month runway.
• Huge savings:...

Unprecedented pace: Nearly 40 new unicorns emerged in 2026 YTD, with 47 total confirmed including 12 AI (25.5%) and 3 SpaceTech.

• Record valuations...

• Google's record $32B Wiz acquisition: its biggest ever and history's largest venture-backed M&A
• Index's Shardul Shah calls it the 'deal of the...

New unicorn crisis: Despite mega-rounds, cap table gridlock from too many investors and complex terms stalls growth and exits.

• Global VC...

Fintech's resilient surge from ~20 to over 300 unicorns in a decade, despite crises and 2022 corrections:

• Drivers: Post-2008 distrust, open banking,...

Insider move: Shayne Coplan and Tarek Mansour, prediction market rivals, back 5c(c) Capital—named after CFTC's event contract clause.

• Major...

Strategic M&A play: OpenAI snaps up Astral—makers of ultra-fast uv (127M monthly downloads), Ruff, and ty—to supercharge its Codex platform with 2M+...

AI is breaking SaaS economics, urging founders to shift to usage-based pricing over traditional models.

Key founder fixes from Derek Anderson:
-...

Heavy industry robotics heats up: KEWAZO's latest round brings total funding to $35M.

• Led by Schooner Capital, joined by Chevron Technology...

Finland's startup landscape explored with insights into top companies, recent funding rounds, key investors, M&A activity, IPOs, and latest news. Key Nordic ecosystem update.

• Capital concentration intensifies: 2025 US startup funding hit $280B (up 46%), with late-stage deals grabbing 56% of VC despite <10% of volume;...

Gumloop raises $50M from Benchmark to democratize AI agent building:

• Intuitive platform turns every employee into an AI agent builder
• Benchmark GP...

Key 2025 shifts in global VC per GlobalData:

• High-value (>$100M) deals surged 25% to 522 from 418
• Ultra-high (>$1B) rose from 13 to 16
• Total...

Does government recognition via Korea's Baby Unicorn program drive capital for scale-ups?

• Program highlights scale-stage startups.
• Core question:...

• Massive $40M seed led by Khosla Ventures, with S32, Anthropic/Menlo's Anthology Fund, Elad Gil, and angels like Jeff Dean
• Autonomous AI agents...

Key weekly highlights (Mar 16-23, 2026):

• Latent Health bags $80M Series A for clinical AI automating prior auth, slashing costs 92%—Y Combinator,...

Key reasons small funds preserve returns in European deep tech:

• Industry splitting into AUM aggregators (LP managers) vs true investors...

Credo Ventures launches €74M ($88M) Credo Stage 5 fund to back ambitious Central and Eastern European founders at pre-seed stage globally, fueling early-stage funding expansion in CEE.