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Welcome to another edition of 🔍 Startup Researcher - North America, your essential digest delivering the latest news and premium insights on startups and venture capital across the region 🌎️
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📰 Important News
- Ubie and Mayo Clinic collaborated to co-develop Ubie Smart Support to streamline patient access through AI chat and voice.
- FourKites launched Loft, an AI orchestration platform with agent Sophie to turn natural language into supply chain automation.
- Photonic partnered with TELUS to demonstrate quantum secure communications running over existing commercial networks.
- PixMob powered the 2026 Super Bowl and Winter Olympics with wearable lighting tech for large-scale live experiences.
- xAI co-founder Tony Wu resigned amid regulatory scrutiny and ongoing integration with SpaceX, marking another senior leadership departure.
💸 Top Funding Rounds
- Anthropic raised a monumental $30 billion Series G round led by GIC and Coatue, valuing the enterprise AI leader at $380 billion.
- Apptronik successfully landed $520 million in Series A-X funding from new investors including AT&T Ventures and John Deere.
- Inertia Enterprises secured $450 million from Bessemer and Alphabet's GV to build a powerful laser for a grid-scale power plant.
- Axiom Space attracted $350 million in financing, co-led by Type One Ventures and QIA, to accelerate its commercial space station.
- AI video-generation startup Runway closed a $315 million Series E funding round led by General Atlantic, nearly doubling its valuation to $5.3 billion.
💰️ IPO and M&A Watch
- Eli Lilly acquired Orna Therapeutics for up to $2.4 billion to advance in vivo CAR T and circular RNA therapies for autoimmune diseases.
- Grab acquired investing app Stash to accelerate entry into mass market investing and expand its fintech ecosystem.
- Proofpoint acquired AI security startup Acuvity to strengthen AI-native visibility and protection in agentic workspaces.
- Beast Industries acquired teen banking app Step with 7 million users to expand into youth financial services and literacy.
- Nebius acquired agentic search provider Tavily to integrate real-time AI search into its unified cloud infrastructure.
🏦 About Investors
- Primary Venture Partners announced its $625 million Fund V, becoming the largest standalone seed firm backing top tech founders across sectors.
- Seligman Investments launched Seligman Ventures, a new $500 million VC arm led by Umesh Padval, targeting early-stage to pre-IPO tech companies.
- JumpCloud launched JumpCloud Ventures, a new venture arm to support early-stage companies in identity, security, and AI.
- Industrial technology veteran Alistair Fulton joined Momenta as a Venture Partner to leverage his experience from Microsoft and Hitachi.
- Serra Ventures promoted Drew Beard to Principal, where he will take on greater investment-related responsibilities.
🚀 Startup of the Week
Introducing our Startup of the Week 🏆
Anthropic
Founded in 2021 in San Francisco by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic has rapidly emerged as a leader in enterprise artificial intelligence with its Claude model family and flagship agentic coding tool, Claude Code. Under CEO Dario Amodei, the company focuses on building reliable, safety-centered AI systems for large enterprises, now serving hundreds of major clients including Fortune 10 companies. Anthropic recently raised a landmark $30 billion Series G led by GIC and Coatue, reaching a $380 billion valuation to scale research, infrastructure, and global deployment across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. With expanding enterprise products and multi-cloud reach, Anthropic is positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for the AI-driven economy.
💼 Investor of the Week
Introducing our Investor of the Week 🏆
Primary Venture Partners
Founded in 2015 in New York by Ben Sun and Brad Svrluga, Primary Venture Partners is a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on backing exceptional early-stage tech founders across AI, fintech, healthcare, cybersecurity, and enterprise software. The firm recently announced its $625 million Fund V, positioning itself as the largest standalone seed investor and bringing total assets under management to over $1.65 billion. Known for its high-conviction approach, Primary writes $5–10 million checks and pairs capital with deep operational support through its in-house Impact team and incubation arm, PrimaryLabs. By combining institutional scale with founder-first execution, Primary aims to redefine modern seed investing in the AI era.
🤑 Opportunities Expiring Soon
gBETA AI Startup Accelerator at WCTC
- 📢 Organizer: Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC)
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator, Training & Learning
- 🪜 Target Stages: Ideation, Pre-seed, Seed
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Sector Agnostic
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 16, 2026
Beltline Business Ventures
- 📢 Organizer: Atlanta Beltline Business Solutions Office
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator, Training & Learning
- 🪜 Target Stages: Revenue-generating, Pre-series A
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Sector Agnostic
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 16, 2026
Alaska Healthcare Innovation Accelerator
- 📢 Organizer: Alaska Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator
- 🪜 Target Stages: Ideation, Pre-seed, Seed
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Health & Life Sciences
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 20, 2026
Startup in Residence ESG Accelerator Program
- 📢 Organizer: Desjardins
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator, Funding
- 🪜 Target Stages: Revenue-generating, Pre-seed, Seed
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Energy & Environment, Social & Governance, Health & Life Sciences, Real Estate & PropTech, Cybersecurity & Privacy, Legal & RegTech, Finance & Insurance, AI & Data
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 20, 2026
HiveBio Virtual Accelerator Program
- 📢 Organizer: HiveBio
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator, Training & Learning
- 🪜 Target Stages: Ideation, Pre-seed, Seed
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Health & Life Sciences, AI & Data, Software & IT, DeepTech
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 21, 2026
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