Syndication and co-investment for institutional venture capital.

Seoul-based social media analytics startup Featuring has secured KRW 15.3 billion (approximately $11.1 million) in Series B funding to accelerate development of its AI-powered influencer marketing and social data analytics platform. The round included participation from existing investors STICK Ventures, Albatross Investment, and Magna Investment, alongside new investors Hana Ventures, Kiwoom Investment, Korea Development Bank, and IBK Industrial Bank of Korea. Founded in 2019 and led by CEO Martin Jihoon Jang, Featuring develops influencer marketing solutions and enterprise social analytics tools powered by its proprietary “Featuring AI” engine. The company currently serves approximately 16,000 enterprise customers across industries including fashion, beauty, and consumer brands. Featuring stated that the fresh capital will support advancement of its vertical AI agent technology focused on automating end-to-end influencer marketing operations, while also strengthening hiring and international expansion initiatives. The company is aggressively expanding Korea–Japan cross-border creator marketing campaigns and evaluating M&A opportunities in Japan to deepen regional market penetration. The startup reported record annual revenue performance last year and is increasingly positioning itself as a data infrastructure layer for AI-native creator marketing ecosystems across Asia. The funding reflects growing investor interest in AI-powered marketing automation, creator economy infrastructure, and enterprise social intelligence platforms as brands increasingly rely on data-driven influencer operations globally.

San Jose-based AI startup Hark has secured more than $700 million in Series A funding at a $6 billion post-money valuation as it accelerates development of advanced personalized AI systems and next-generation AI-native hardware. The oversubscribed round was led by Parkway Venture Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, Align Ventures, AMD Ventures, ARK Invest, Brookfield, Greycroft, Intel Capital, Prime Movers Lab, Qualcomm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Tamarack Global. Founded by Brett Adcock, Hark is building multimodal AI systems designed to function as a “universal interface between humans and machines.” The company combines proprietary foundation models, personalized memory systems, speech, vision, and custom-built hardware to create deeply individualized AI experiences beyond traditional chatbot interfaces. Hark stated that the fresh capital will support AI model training, hardware development, infrastructure expansion, and hiring across research, engineering, and product teams. The company has already secured a dedicated NVIDIA B200 GPU data center to train its next generation of models and plans to launch its first multimodal AI systems later this summer. The startup is increasingly being viewed as one of the emerging challengers in the race to define the next generation of AI-native computing platforms integrating software, hardware, memory, and autonomous intelligence into unified consumer experiences. The funding highlights surging investor appetite for frontier AI infrastructure startups building personalized AI agents, multimodal systems, AI hardware, and next-generation human-computer interaction technologies.

Arlington, Virginia-based maritime technology startup Quartermaster has secured $43 million in Series A funding to accelerate deployment of its AI-powered ocean sensing and maritime intelligence platform. The round was co-led by First Round Capital and Quiet Capital, with participation from TMV Logistics, Steel Atlas, BoxGroup, Operator Partners, Shorewind Capital, and investor David Adelman. Founded by Neil Sobin, Quartermaster is building a distributed maritime sensing network through its “SmartMast” platform - a rugged onboard system combining cameras, radios, geolocation sensors, and edge AI computing installed on commercial and civilian vessels. The company describes the system as a “continuous distributed sensing network” capable of delivering real-time maritime intelligence across millions of square miles of ocean. Quartermaster aims to modernize maritime monitoring infrastructure beyond the traditional AIS (Automatic Identification System), which the company says is vulnerable to spoofing, manipulation, and operational blind spots. Its AI-powered sensing network is designed for applications including shipping intelligence, sanctions monitoring, maritime safety, autonomous navigation, defense operations, logistics visibility, and environmental monitoring. According to the company, SmartMast systems are already deployed across more than 600 vessels covering over 10 million square miles of ocean. Quartermaster also stated that its network has assisted in more than 20 maritime rescue operations to date. The fresh capital will support engineering expansion, product development, and global scaling of Quartermaster’s edge AI maritime infrastructure as governments, logistics firms, insurers, and defense operators increasingly seek real-time ocean intelligence systems.

Israeli AI startup Unframe has secured $50 million in Series B funding as the company rapidly expands its enterprise AI deployment platform. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from TLV Partners, Craft Ventures, Third Point Ventures, SentinelOne Ventures, Cerca Partners, and Terra Nova Ventures. Founded by Shay Levi , Larissa Schneider, and Adi Azarya Unframe helps enterprises rapidly deploy secure, production-ready AI systems across internal operations without requiring large-scale infrastructure overhauls or data migrations. The company focuses on enabling organizations to integrate generative AI and autonomous AI agents directly into enterprise workflows while maintaining security, governance, and compliance controls. Unframe stated that its platform allows businesses to operationalize AI in areas such as customer support, cybersecurity, software development, internal knowledge management, and enterprise automation. The company says it has experienced rapid enterprise adoption amid growing global demand for secure AI deployment infrastructure. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate international expansion, scale engineering operations, and strengthen enterprise AI orchestration capabilities. Unframe is also investing heavily in agentic AI systems, workflow automation, and secure enterprise-grade large language model integrations. The funding highlights continued investor confidence in enterprise AI infrastructure startups building deployment, governance, and orchestration layers for generative AI adoption across large organizations.

San Francisco-based fintech company Mercury has secured $200 million in Series D funding at a $5.2 billion valuation as it accelerates its push to become the leading banking platform for AI-native startups and modern businesses. The round was led by TCV, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, CRV, Sapphire Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital. Founded by Immad Akhund, Jason Zhang, and Max Tagher, Mercury provides digital banking, payments, treasury, cards, invoicing, and financial operations infrastructure tailored for startups and technology companies. The company says it now serves more than 300,000 customers, including one in three U.S. startups. Mercury stated that the fresh capital will support expansion of its AI-powered financial operations platform, deeper banking infrastructure, and development of intelligent financial workflows designed for the next generation of AI-driven businesses. The company recently also received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Mercury Bank, a fully chartered national bank. The company has increasingly positioned itself as a core operating system for startups by integrating banking, spend management, treasury, accounting workflows, and AI-assisted financial tooling into a unified platform. Mercury reported $650 million in annualized revenue and four consecutive years of profitability. The funding highlights continued investor confidence in fintech infrastructure platforms serving AI startups, digital-first businesses, and next-generation enterprise ecosystems.

New York-based fintech startup Moment has secured $78 million in Series C funding to expand its AI-powered operating system for investment management. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Avra, and existing investors. Founded by former Citadel Securities quants and traders including Dylan Parker, Moment is building an AI-native platform that unifies portfolio management, trading, compliance, rebalancing, direct indexing, and investment operations into a single system for wealth management firms. The company says its platform is now being used by firms collectively managing more than $10 trillion in client assets, including major wealth management firms such as Edward Jones, LPL Financial, and Hightower Advisors. According to Moment, adoption has surged as financial institutions increasingly deploy AI agents and automation across investment workflows. Moment’s platform enables portfolio construction through natural-language AI prompts, multi-asset optimization, tax-aware investment management, compliance monitoring, and automated execution management across equities and fixed income markets. The company aims to replace fragmented legacy investment software systems with a unified AI operating layer for financial institutions. The fresh capital will support platform expansion, AI infrastructure development, and scaling of enterprise investment management capabilities as traditional wealth firms race to modernize operations using generative and agentic AI systems.