Syndication and co-investment for institutional venture capital.

DeFi derivatives protocol Variational has secured $50 million in Series A funding to accelerate expansion of its on-chain derivatives infrastructure and real-world asset (RWA) trading ecosystem. The round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Peak XV Partners, Hack VC, Brevan Howard Digital, and North Island Ventures. Founded by Edward Yu and Lucas V. Schuermann, Variational is building a decentralized derivatives protocol designed to aggregate liquidity from both crypto-native exchanges and traditional financial institutions. The company aims to modernize derivatives trading by enabling peer-to-peer settlement infrastructure for perpetuals, futures, options, and tokenized real-world assets directly on blockchain rails. The funding coincides with the launch of Variational’s first RWA perpetual markets, allowing users to trade commodities such as gold, silver, copper, and oil alongside crypto assets through a unified cross-margined trading environment. The company says it plans to expand to more than 100 traditional financial markets over the coming months. Unlike many decentralized exchanges that rely on traditional order books, Variational uses an RFQ (Request-for-Quote) architecture that sources liquidity from centralized exchanges, market makers, and institutional dealers to provide deeper and more efficient pricing. The company believes this model can better support institutional-scale adoption of tokenized real-world assets and on-chain derivatives. The startup stated that the fresh capital will support protocol development, institutional onboarding, liquidity expansion, and broader deployment of RWA trading infrastructure as DeFi increasingly converges with traditional financial markets.

Vietnam-based rooftop solar financing startup Stride has secured $15 million in Series B funding to accelerate solar and battery adoption among households and small businesses across Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The round was co-led by Lightrock and TRIREC through the Accelerate7 platform, with continued participation from existing investors Clime Capital and UOB Venture Management. Stride provides financing solutions that allow households and MSMEs to install rooftop solar and battery systems through affordable payment plans rather than large upfront costs. The company’s platform also includes insurance offerings and quality assurance infrastructure designed to simplify access to distributed clean energy systems. According to the company, the fresh capital will be used to scale operations across Vietnam, expand into additional regional markets, strengthen digital infrastructure, and improve project quality systems. Stride says it aims to help an additional 200,000 people gain access to clean energy solutions by 2030. Since its earlier funding rounds, the company has significantly expanded its network of verified EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) partners and nearly tripled its project portfolio across Vietnam. Investors are increasingly viewing distributed solar financing platforms as a critical infrastructure layer supporting Southeast Asia’s clean energy transition. The funding highlights growing investor interest in climate fintech, decentralized energy infrastructure, rooftop solar adoption, and consumer-focused renewable energy financing models across emerging markets.

San Francisco-based developer documentation startup Mintlify has secured $45 million in Series B funding at a $500 million valuation to accelerate development of its AI-native knowledge infrastructure platform. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Y Combinator, DST Global Managing Partner Rahul Mehta, MVP Ventures, Avra, HubSpot Ventures, and TwentyTwo Ventures. Founded by Han Wang and Hahnbee Lee, Mintlify provides AI-powered developer documentation infrastructure used by more than 20,000 companies globally, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Coinbase, PayPal, and Perplexity. The platform helps organizations create, maintain, structure, and optimize technical documentation for both human developers and AI agents. Mintlify stated that AI agents now account for a majority of traffic across many customer documentation systems, fundamentally reshaping how software documentation is consumed. The company has been rapidly building infrastructure optimized for AI-native workflows, including Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, llm.txt generation, AI retrieval systems, and machine-readable documentation architectures. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to expand engineering operations, AI tooling, enterprise integrations, and intelligent knowledge automation systems capable of powering autonomous coding agents, customer support agents, and enterprise AI workflows. Mintlify is increasingly positioning itself as a foundational infrastructure layer for the emerging AI-agent ecosystem. The funding highlights accelerating investor interest in AI infrastructure companies building the underlying knowledge, retrieval, and orchestration systems required for next-generation autonomous AI agents and developer ecosystems.

Construction procurement platform Handle.com has secured $27 million in Series B funding to accelerate expansion of its AI-powered material purchasing and supplier management platform for the construction industry. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Founders Fund, Buildertrend, and several strategic construction technology backers. Founded by Austin Simms and Sam Tugender, Handle.com helps contractors, subcontractors, and construction firms streamline procurement workflows, automate supplier coordination, manage invoices, and optimize material purchasing operations through AI-driven software infrastructure. The company stated that the fresh capital will support AI product development, expansion of supplier integrations, and scaling of enterprise procurement capabilities as construction companies increasingly digitize fragmented back-office operations. Handle.com aims to reduce delays, procurement inefficiencies, and cost overruns through automated workflows and real-time purchasing intelligence. The startup is increasingly positioning itself as a critical operating layer for construction commerce infrastructure as the sector undergoes digital transformation driven by automation, AI, and cloud-native project management systems. The funding reflects continued investor interest in construction technology, AI-powered procurement systems, and vertical SaaS platforms modernizing large industrial industries traditionally underserved by modern software infrastructure.

New York-based cloud infrastructure startup Modal has secured $355 million in Series C funding to accelerate development of its AI-native compute platform powering next-generation artificial intelligence applications. The round was led by Founders Fund and included participation from Redpoint Ventures, Benchmark, General Catalyst, Y Combinator, and existing investors. Founded by Erik Bernhardsson and Stas Bekman, Modal provides serverless cloud infrastructure optimized for AI workloads, GPU orchestration, model inference, large-scale training, and high-performance computing. The platform enables developers and enterprises to deploy AI applications without managing complex infrastructure layers. Modal has emerged as one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies amid exploding demand for scalable GPU compute and inference systems driven by generative AI adoption. The company’s platform supports machine learning pipelines, multimodal AI applications, autonomous agents, data processing, and enterprise-scale AI deployment workflows. The startup stated that the fresh capital will support expansion of global compute infrastructure, engineering hiring, GPU cluster scaling, and new developer tooling for AI-native applications. Modal is increasingly positioning itself as a foundational operating layer for AI startups and enterprises building large-scale AI products. The funding highlights continued investor confidence in AI cloud infrastructure, GPU orchestration, serverless computing, and developer platforms enabling the next generation of generative and agentic AI systems.

Jordan-based healthtech startup Aumet has secured $12 million in Series A funding to accelerate expansion of its AI-powered pharmaceutical procurement and healthcare supply chain platform across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The round was led by Global Ventures, with participation from Saudi Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, Shorooq Partners, and several regional strategic investors. Founded by Ismail Amla and Khaldoon Al Otoom, Aumet operates a digital B2B marketplace connecting pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies across the healthcare ecosystem. The platform uses AI-driven procurement intelligence, inventory management, pricing optimization, and demand forecasting to streamline healthcare supply chain operations. Aumet stated that the fresh capital will support geographic expansion across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and broader MENA markets while also strengthening AI capabilities, logistics infrastructure, and embedded fintech services within its procurement ecosystem. The company aims to modernize fragmented pharmaceutical supply chains through data-driven automation and digital infrastructure. The startup says it already serves thousands of pharmacies and healthcare providers across multiple regional markets and is increasingly positioning itself as a core operating layer for healthcare commerce and procurement digitization in emerging economies. The funding highlights rising investor interest in AI-enabled healthcare infrastructure, supply chain modernization, pharmaceutical commerce, and digital procurement platforms across the Middle East and Africa.