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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
- Databricks launched AppKit and partnered with Replit to accelerate secure, collaborative AI app development in TypeScript.
- Cohere's research arm launched Tiny Aya, a family of compact, open-weight multilingual models supporting over 70 languages.
- Airwallex announced a multi-year partnership with the San Francisco Giants, becoming the team's official jersey patch.
- Sadie AI partnered with Payfacto to integrate its voice ordering technology directly into Payfacto's restaurant POS systems.
- FlashLabs launched FlashAI 2.0, a next-generation enterprise voice AI platform built to deliver human-level conversations with ultra-low latency.
💸 Top Funding Rounds
- World Labs raised $1 billion in a new funding round with investors including Autodesk and NVIDIA to advance its mission of building world models.
- Restaurant-commerce platform inKind secured $450 million in capital to expand its unique funding model, which provides financing for food credits.
- Vestwell closed a $385 million Series E funding round co-led by Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth to expand its AI-driven savings platform.
- Temporal raised $300 million in Series D funding led by Andreessen Horowitz to accelerate agentic AI adoption in production environments.
- Cloud platform Render landed a $100 million Series C extension at a $1.5 billion valuation to scale its infrastructure.
💰️ IPO and M&A Watch
- Palo Alto Networks acquired Koi to strengthen agentic endpoint security and address AI-driven risks on modern devices.
- Booz Allen Hamilton is set to acquire Defy Security, a move designed to accelerate and scale its end-to-end tech-enabled cybersecurity solutions.
- Capitolis announced its acquisition of 20 Gates Management’s U.S. Secured Financing Platform to expand its Capital Marketplace.
- TitanX acquired FrontSpin in an eight-figure transaction to unify its AI intelligence with industry-leading call deliverability technology.
- Sensei Biotherapeutics acquired Faeth Therapeutics and secured $200 million in financing to advance PIKTOR.
🏦 About Investors
- Thrive Capital closed its oversubscribed tenth fund at a record $10 billion, with $1 billion for early-stage and the rest for growth-stage investments.
- Global investment firm Battery Ventures closed its fifteenth fund at $3.25 billion to continue backing technology companies.
- Crypto venture firm Dragonfly Capital closed its fourth fund at $650 million to double down on financial use cases like DeFi and stablecoins.
- Quantonation closed its $260.5 million second fund, the largest for quantum tech, which was oversubscribed and doubled its prior fund.
- The Riverside Company successfully closed its $200 million Riverside Acceleration Capital Growth Lending Fund III.
🚀 Startup of the Week
Introducing our Startup of the Week 🏆
World Labs
Founded in 2024 by renowned AI researcher Fei-Fei Li, World Labs is building next-generation world models designed to generate and reason about immersive 3D environments. The spatial intelligence startup recently closed a landmark $1 billion funding round backed by Autodesk, NVIDIA, and AMD. Its first product, Marble, enables users to create high-fidelity 3D worlds from text, images, or video, targeting the gaming and media industries. Through a strategic partnership with Autodesk, World Labs is integrating AI-driven world generation with professional design tools, positioning itself at the forefront of spatial AI and the future of physical computing.
💼 Investor of the Week
Introducing our Investor of the Week 🏆
Thrive Capital
Founded in 2009 in New York by Josh Kushner, Thrive Capital has grown into one of venture capital’s most influential firms, known for its concentrated, high-conviction strategy. The venture capital firm backs transformative technology companies across stages, with a sharp focus on AI and platform businesses. This year, Thrive closed its tenth and largest fund, Thrive X, at $10 billion, nearly doubling its predecessor and signaling strong investor conviction. Its portfolio includes category leaders such as OpenAI, Stripe, and SpaceX, underscoring a track record of bold, early bets. By pairing deep capital reserves with hands-on partnership, Thrive positions itself as a long-term architect of industry-defining global enterprises.
🤑 Opportunities Expiring Soon
gBETA Electrify Nevada Spring 2026
- 📢 Organizer: gener8tor
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator, Training & Learning
- 🪜 Target Stages: Ideation, Pre-seed, Seed
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Energy & Environment, DeepTech
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 22, 2026
AI Ventures Accelerator for Young Women
- 📢 Organizer: Technovation
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator, Funding, Training & Learning
- 🪜 Target Stages: Ideation, Pre-seed
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Sector Agnostic
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 23, 2026
Amazon Devices Climate Tech Accelerator 2026
- 📢 Organizer: Amazon Devices & Services
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator
- 🪜 Target Stages: Stage Agnostic
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Energy & Environment, AI & Data, Manufacturing & Materials, Retail & Consumer
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 24, 2026
FAO International Innovation Award 2026
- 📢 Organizer: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
- 🗂️ Category: Award/Prize
- 🪜 Target Stages: Stage Agnostic
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Agriculture & Food, Social & Governance, Mobility & Logistics
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 28, 2026
Multiple Autism Tech Accelerator
- 📢 Organizer: Multiple
- 🗂️ Category: Accelerator
- 🪜 Target Stages: Pre-seed, Seed, Revenue-generating
- 🏭 Focus Sectors: Education & Workforce, Social & Governance, Health & Life Sciences, AI & Data
- 📅 Application Deadline: February 28, 2026
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