The startup world is all about new acquisitions, mergers, and investment rounds. We’ve been watching the companies thrive and struggle, but what is more fascinating is the pace. In search of the biggest news, we have picked the top tech startup events that will bring exciting changes to the tech world.
Big budgets, military dogs, and missiles: Here’s where startup money is going.
AI for Engineering. Dulo raises $130 in its seed round
AI automating a great part of our work is no longer an innovation. Now we have AI models that design an aircraft or a car. That’s the ambition of Dulo, a new startup co-founded by Sebastian Thrun, the computer scientist behind Google X, Google Brain, and self-driving projects.
For its seed funding, Dulo has raised $130 million to develop AI models that can automate hardware design and validation. This is a big step forward in generative AI, where we do more than image and text generation. We can now work on complex physical products.
Dulo’s direct competitor is Prometheus, with manufacturing and engineering capabilities. The latest OpenAI and Anthropic models have also been tested in similar tasks, so the niche is quite competitive, but the models are still raw. Read more at Binance.
Warhound is building super soldiers with paws
Just when we thought AI-powered weapons and humanoid robots were enough, Silicon Valley has a new idea: genetically engineered military dogs to serve the US military, law enforcement, and other emergency response teams. After reading the news, I immediately remembered the Black Mirror Metalhead episode with robot dogs, and projections are not optimistic. Warhound, a startup co-founded by Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, has already raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation, a product that does not even exist (yet).
Warhound wants to clone top-performing Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds, edit their genes to reduce inherited health problems, enhance smell, speed, and agility, and provide them with protective armor, sensors, and software to improve battlefield awareness.
The first puppies will arrive in early 2027, but I’m not sure the dogs signed up for this future.
Read the full article on TechCrunch.
Physical Intelligence Is Worth $20 Billion. Its Robots Still Have No Paycheck
What happens when you teach robots to do more than dance or walk? Physical Intelligence is betting that the answer is worth billions.
Physical Intelligence, a startup developing AI software that allows robots to perform real-world tasks, plans to raise at least $1 billion at a $20 billion valuation. That’s almost double its previous valuation of $11.5 billion earlier this year. On October 13, they released the latest model available through a beta API, which significantly increased investors’ interest.
P.S. The company was founded in 2024 and yet has to generate revenue.
More about the news on The Next Web.
Midstream Health offers financial infrastructure for hospitals
An AI company, Midstream Health, has raised $20 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered financial recovery platform for hospitals. The platform promises to streamline contracts, invoices, and payments with specialized AI agents.
The platform already serves more than 250 hospitals, representing over $100 billion in annual operating expenses. The platform has already identified more than 1,500 potential financial recovery opportunities in 2026. The next goal is $100 million in client savings by year-end. More on the source.
Salesforce will acquire Rune to expand its Missionforce defense AI business
According to Resilience Media, Salesforce will pay $375 million in cash and shares for Rune and its AI-powered military logistics software. The platform called TyrOS helps military teams forecast supply needs, allocate resources, and optimize transportation routes, taking into account environments and network connectivity. This technology is already used in the US Army and Marine Corps, and the startup secured a $99 million Army contract in June 2026. With this information, the acquisition price looks less shocking. By the way, this month it is the second acquisition announcement; the first was the marketing platform Braze. Get the full story here.
Europe’s startup infrastructure is growing fast
Just in one week, there were more than 60 funding deals worth over €1.3 billion and over 10 acquisitions, exits, and other transactions. All these events happened across Europe, not Silicon Valley. Britain
The UK is trying to strengthen its position in this game with a new Founders’ Relief 10% Capital Gains Tax on qualifying share disposals. This initiative will support female founders and further AI investment.
Europe, including the UK, has no shortage of startup ideas or funding. The harder part is scaling startups into global companies. Find out more on Tech.eu.
Powerlattice to address the AI power problem
As the number of AI data centers grows and consumes more electricity, power shortages may soon become a serious problem. A Vancouver-based Powerlattice startup is working on a solution inside the chips themselves. The startup just raised $86 million, tripling the numbers after the previous $31 million investment. With the support of 18 investors, Powerlattice is developing power-delivery chiplets that sit directly inside processors, reducing energy loss and heat, unlike AI chips that draw electricity and throw off heat. By shortening the path to the processor, it will be possible (or it is already possible) to cut energy by half and boost performance. The Powerlattice chipset has already been demonstrated this week.
Read more about the news at GeekWire.
Hypersonica raised €100 million to build miles
British-German defense startup Hypersonica has closed another €100 million in Series B funding, led by US venture firms. After its Series A funding of €23 million, the company was working on the prototype, and now, with this investment, it will be able to get a ready product by 2029. The money will support the development of hypersonic missiles for European defense markets. Its HS-1 prototype reached speeds above Mach 6 during a test flight in February, covering more than 300 kilometers. Germany and the UK will probably be the first customers to obtain the weapon. We are in a reality where startups are working on missiles and not saving the world but getting billions of dollars in investment to fulfill the goal. Read more at Dealroom.
A 26-year-old founder raises $45 million to build a power grid for AI
Gongji Technology, a Chinese startup, has raised $45.1 million in its early VC round to expand its distributed computing network. The company was founded in 2023 by Tsinghua University doctoral student Fu Zhi, and since then it has been working to connect underused GPUs across different data centers and make their computing power available on demand for AI training and inference.
Gongji is also working on a computing-as-storage model that will shift computing tasks to data centers where renewable energy is more available.
The company has reported annual revenue growth of over 800%, with over $30 million in recurring revenue and more than 12,000 customers. More details here.
The UK’s pension savings may soon fund the quantum breakthrough
UK pension provider Scottish Widows, together with Aberdeen Investments and IP Group, is directing its capital into four British deeptech companies to cover the funding gap and help startups scale. The first investments include Oxford Quantum Circuits and Quantum Motion in quantum computing, Nyobolt in ultra-fast-charging batteries, and Genomics Limited in AI-powered healthcare and drug discovery; all companies with great potential but limited resources.
Apparently, the UK residents’ retirement fund might help build the next generation of quantum computers. Read more at Tech.eu.
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