Recently funded startups, hand-picked every weekday
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Sep 15
$20M Series A · mithrl.com
Mithrl — AI built on biomedical world models for drug discovery
Mithrl is an AI infrastructure company focused on the biopharma sector. It develops advanced platforms that utilize proprietary biomedical world models to optimize AI technologies. The company aims to enhance drug discovery and development through sophisticated AI-driven solutions.
BiotechnologyArtificial intelligenceMachine learningAgi HouseHeadlineObvious Ventures · +1 · +4
$15M Seed · liquidcompute.co
Liquid Compute — Regulated marketplace for trading AI infrastructure
Liquid Compute is a marketplace company focused on building regulated venues for trading AI infrastructure. The company emerged from stealth with significant seed funding to further its mission. Founded by Ronit Jain and Aarav Patel, Liquid Compute aims to transform the way AI infrastructure is exchanged. It is a Y Combinator company that originated as Pluto.
Artificial intelligenceBlockchainMachine learningDmitry BalyasnyUfo HoldingsBrainchild Holdings · +6 · +9
$15M Seed · getscaffold.com
Scaffold — AI that coordinates trade contractors for homebuilders
Scaffold is a software company that uses AI to automate coordination among trade contractors in the homebuilding industry. Its platform integrates with existing systems to improve communication and reduce errors in construction management. By streamlining processes, it enables contractors to focus on critical tasks rather than manual data entry. The company aims to transform the $500 billion homebuilding sector by linking disparate systems in a cohesive manner.
SoftwareIvy ZelmanStage2 CapitalHome Technology VenturesGrid CapitalWindsor America · +5 · +8
$200M · factory.ai
Factory — Coding agents that engineering teams delegate work to
Factory is pioneering agent-native development, a new way of building software that keeps developers in control of the important high-level details while agents – or Droids – handle the coding. By shifting from autocomplete to delegation, Factory puts the orchestration and management of Droids into the hands of engineers and enables teams to ship faster, improve code quality, and embrace a new philosophy of working with AI. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in San Francisco, Factory is backed by investors including Sequoia Capital, NEA, NVIDIA, J.P. Morgan, Abstract Ventures, Mantis VC, SV Angel and BoxGroup.
SoftwareMarc BenioffBrad GerstnerNico RosbergClearlakeMantis VC · +8 · +11
$40M Seed · typesafe.ai
TypeSafe AI — Composable, machine-native AI for software developers
TypeSafe AI is a frontier AI lab focused on building machine-native, composable AI. Founded by former OpenAI researcher Diogo Almeida and his team, the company aims to create a new class of intelligence that provides developers with efficient and reliable AI for integration into software systems.
SoftwareArtificial intelligenceMachine learningDcvc$10M+ · +2
$5M · interlune.space
Interlune — Harvests natural resources from space
Interlune is a space resources company dedicated to leading the world in sustainable and responsible harvesting of natural resources from space, with the mission of benefiting humanity and advancing long-term scientific and economic progress.
Information technologyAerospace$1M+
Sep 14
YC F26 · papaya.fyi
Papaya — Tunes AI agents already running in production
Papaya tunes AI agents that are already in production. You connect traces with a one-line SDK or hand over raw data, and it runs 200+ research-backed analyses across thousands of runs to find what is recurring — prompt and caching inefficiency, tool schema drift, context bloat and retrieval strategy, model selection and routing, retry loops and wasted API calls. Findings come back ranked by impact, each with the specific runs affected, an estimated effect on quality, latency and cost, and a confidence level, delivered into Slack, a dashboard or a PR. The company cites cost reductions up to 52%, latency improvements up to 61% and quality gains of +11%, and offers a free 24-hour audit. Founded in 2026 by Macy Mody, Niyaz Puzhikkunnath and Faiz Vadakkumpadath, Papaya has 3 employees in San Francisco.
AiopsB2BEnterprise softwareYCInfrastructureArtificial intelligence · +3
YC F26 · agent37.com
Agent 37 — Always-on hosted sandboxes for coding agents
Agent 37 runs coding agents as always-on hosted sandboxes, so you host neither the machine nor the state. One POST to /v1/instances provisions an isolated environment with its own URL that you can message across sessions; files, memory and connected tools stay put until you delete it. It runs Hermes, OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex or a custom harness, in 2-8 vCPU / 4-16 GB sizes, with gVisor kernel-level isolation, encryption at rest and in transit, and SOC 2 Type I. There is no plan fee — compute meters by the minute at $0.0011 per vCPU-hour and $0.00096 per GB-hour of RAM, which puts a continuously running 2 vCPU / 4 GB sandbox near $4.76 a month. Founded in 2026 by Vishnu Krishnaprasad, based in New York City.
Developer toolsSaaSB2BYCArtificial intelligence · +2
$12.7M Seed · boomerangHR.com
BoomerangHR — Automates offboarding and turns alumni into rehires
BoomerangHR turns the people who leave a company into its next hires. The platform automates offboarding — exit compliance, COBRA, 401k rollovers, equipment returns — then keeps the relationship alive: verified alumni profiles, role matching, network engagement, and reporting on talent migration, re-engagement signals and sales opportunities. It plugs into existing HCM and ATS systems rather than replacing them. Founded and led by Jeff Wald in New York, BoomerangHR says hundreds of companies representing millions of alumni use it, with Warby Parker among the named customers. The $12.7M seed was co-led by Kalos Ventures and Album Ventures, with Monta Vista Capital, Capital Eleven and the Strada Education Foundation participating.
Information technologySoftwareArtificial intelligenceStrada Education FoundationCapital ElevenMonta Vista Capital · +5 · +8
$50M Series A · nuancelabs.ai
Nuance Labs — Full-duplex audiovisual foundation model for conversation
Nuance Labs is a Seattle AI research lab building a full-duplex audiovisual foundation model for human conversation. Instead of chaining transcription, a language model, voice synthesis and animation together, a single unified system perceives and generates speech, facial expression and body language at the same time — so it reads the non-verbal cues in a live conversation and responds in the moment rather than after the turn ends. Founded by former Apple PhD researchers Fangchang Ma (CEO), Edward Zhang (CTO) and Karren Yang (Chief Scientist), with Yaser Sheikh advising. Target uses are sales, customer service, coaching, professional training and education, with a research preview due later in 2026. The $50M Series A was led by returning investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Accel and South Park Commons also returning and NVIDIA and Define Ventures joining.
BiotechnologyArtificial intelligenceMachine learningDefine VenturesNvidiaSouth Park Commons · +4 · +7
Sep 11
YC F26 · usevyra.com
Vyra — AI video editor for people who aren't editors
Vyra is an AI video editor that turns raw footage into finished video. You describe the edit in plain language — "cut my clips to the beat and make a color wheel edit" — and Vyra analyses the uploaded footage and returns a finished draft in minutes, with every conventional editing tool (split, ripple, slip, clone, motion graphics, text layers) available in the same conversation rather than buried in a timeline UI. It is built for people who are not editors but still have to ship video, and it connects to Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client. Founded in 2026 in San Francisco by Caleb Pong (built neural networks for Omoggle, 3M+ users, and Adobe plugins; CS at Brown) and Sulan Zhang (CS and visual arts at Brown; 60k+ creator following as @sulansart). Y Combinator Fall 2026.
VideoAutomationSmbYCConsumer · +2
$40M Series B · impossible-objects.com
Impossible Objects — Composite 3D printing systems for production-scale parts
Impossible Objects, based in Northbrook, IL, makes Composite-Based Additive Manufacturing (CBAM) systems that bring 3D printing to industrial-scale production. Its CBAM 25 platform prints composite parts — including carbon fiber — at production speeds, standing in for CNC machining and injection moulding rather than for prototyping. Parts are stronger, more precise and geometrically more complex than other additive methods allow, across a wider range of materials. Customers include the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army's Rock Island Arsenal — where the technology can support production of up to 10,000 drone bodies a month — the National Institute for Aviation Research, the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center and Rochester Institute of Technology.
Manufacturing3d-printing$10M+
$50M Series C · archy.com
Archy — All-in-one cloud software for dental practices
Archy is an all-in-one cloud platform that replaces virtual servers and patchwork of specialized tools, enabling scheduling, charting, imaging, billing, insurance, payments, messaging, and reporting—all in real time, all in one place. The platform’s design allows practices to hire and quickly onboard non-dental professionals, while built-in AI-powered automation handles time-consuming tasks like insurance verification and patient communication, reducing overhead and optimizing efficiency.
SoftwareHealthcareAlvenCrvBessemer Venture PartnersEntrée Capital · +3 · +6
Sep 10
YC F26 · runmirrors.com
Mirrors — Staging environments that replay AI agent sessions
Mirrors builds runnable staging environments for AI agents. It captures production traces from an agent's real sessions, reconstructs a working twin of the internal tools and APIs that agent calls, then replays those sessions against every prompt, model or tool change before it ships — so regressions surface in staging rather than in production. The gap it fills is that agents call bespoke internal services no standard test suite can reproduce, which matters most where a mistake is irreversible: issuing refunds, updating records, sending outbound messages. Founded in 2026 in San Francisco by Aryan Singhal (ML research at UT Austin and UCSB; six AI/ML papers published while in high school, three at NeurIPS). Y Combinator Fall 2026.
Developer toolsSaaSB2BYCDevOpsArtificial intelligence · +3
$15M Series A · piston.com
Piston — Cardless fuel payments between fleets and gas stations
Piston is a cardless payments platform that connects commercial fleets with gas stations, founded by former fleet owners Vikram Sekhon and Shivam Shah. The company has created a secure payment system that eliminates card fraud and retail price markups. Piston aims to transform the fuel payment landscape by offering real-time insights and savings for both fleets and gas stations. Currently, Piston is serving over 120 fleets and 800 gas stations while processing more than $20 million in annualized transaction volume.
SoftwarePear VCSpark CapitalFpv Ventures$10M+ · +2
$100M Series A · mavenrobotics.ai
Maven Robotics — General-purpose robots for logistics and manufacturing
Maven Robotics designs, builds, and deploys intelligent robotics for logistics and manufacturing. They created the world's first general-purpose robotics system for industrial work, integrating hardware, software, and AI across all layers. Their robots are designed for complex physical environments and rigorous commercial standards, focusing on industrial-grade reliability and scalability.
ManufacturingSoftwareArtificial intelligenceXtx VenturesVine VenturesLocal Globe · +4 · +7
$15M Series A · r3lithium.com
R3 Lithium — Lithium carbonate made from recycled batteries
R3 Lithium produces lithium carbonate from 100% recycled battery materials at its facility in Covington, Georgia. The company operates a 154,000-square-foot plant designed to recover lithium at commercial scale from battery manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries. R3's facility can process up to 30,000 metric tons of battery material annually and currently produces 2,500 metric tons of lithium carbonate per year. The company has secured approximately $1 billion in offtake agreements with customers including major trading firms.
ManufacturingRenewable energy$10M+
Sep 9
$5M Pre-Seed · onix.life
Onix — Private AI versions of named health and wellness experts
Onix is a Montreal consumer AI company building Personal Intelligence: a private assistant trained on licensed knowledge from named health and wellness practitioners rather than scraped internet text. Users consult AI versions of specific physicians, nutritionists, sleep psychologists and athletes, with small language models run locally so the company never holds the user's data. Founded by CEO David S. Bennahum (former WIRED contributing editor) and CTO Dr. Nicholas Nadeau (former CTO of robotics company 1X), it raised a $5M USD pre-seed convertible note led by Alpha Edison with Garage Capital, Ride Home Fund, Jeremy Zimmer and JS Cournoyer. In early access on iOS.
Information technologyArtificial intelligenceJean Sébastien CournoyerJeremy ZimmerRide Home FundGarage Capital · +2 · +5
$6.8M Seed · bulwarkdynamics.com
Bulwark Dynamics — Uncrewed landing craft that land cargo without a port
Bulwark Dynamics builds the Caravel series of uncrewed autonomous landing craft — vessels that carry cargo to shore without a port, pier or crane. A 15-foot prototype has completed an unmanned resupply demonstration; 35-foot and 55-foot variants are designed to carry one and two twenty-foot containers. The craft transit to unimproved shorelines, discharge and retract from the beach without a crew, including in GPS-denied environments. The $6.8M seed accompanies a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Onomichi Dockyard — itself a new investor — to manufacture Caravel in Japan and explore a dedicated site for serial production of unmanned vessels.
LogisticsOnomichi DockyardNēnē VenturesArchetype VenturesSbi Us Gateway Fund Lp$1M+ · +3
YC F26 · superradiant.co
SuperRadiant — Robots that form hypotheses and run scientific experiments
SuperRadiant builds Embodied Scientific Intelligence: general-purpose robotic experimentalists that observe, form hypotheses and run experiments in the physical world. The system automates the full experimental loop while staying flexible enough for real discovery work, adapting to changing protocols and new instruments. Founded in 2026 in San Francisco by Cooper Niu, Benedict Quartey and Owen Tower, with a team drawn from Brown, NASA JPL, Fermilab and CERN. Y Combinator Fall 2026.
RoboticsEnergyAdvanced materialsYCArtificial intelligenceBiotechnology · +1 · +4
$50M Seed · bluecore.energy
Bluecore Energy — Floating nuclear reactors that power ports
Bluecore Energy builds small modular nuclear reactors mounted on floating barges, delivering clean baseload power to ports and the infrastructure around them. Founded in 2026 by Kofi Asante, the company is developing a maritime nuclear system with an initial deployment planned for the Port of Long Beach. The $50M oversubscribed seed round was led by Silverton Partners, with Collab Capital, HartBeat Ventures, Slauson & Co., Harlem Capital and Chris Larsen participating; it closed in eight weeks and follows a $10M pre-seed.
OtherCommerce and shopping$50M+
Sep 8
YC F26 · oroagents.com
ORO AI — Open benchmark and rewards for AI shopping agents
ORO AI runs an open benchmark for agentic commerce: builders submit shopping agents that independent validators score against problems that change daily, the best performers earn rewards on Bittensor, and every run produces training data that feeds back into the next generation. Founded in 2026 in Vancouver by Shardul Bansal (ex-AWS, Crucible Labs) and Seth Schilbe (ex-AWS). Y Combinator Fall 2026.
Artificial intelligenceCrypto web3Consumer productsYCB2B · +2
$1B · stokespace.com
Stoke Space — Fully reusable rockets for space launch
Stoke Space is a pioneering aerospace company on a mission to build 100% reusable rockets and redefine space mobility. By empowering top industry talent with ownership and innovation freedom, Stoke moves fast, works hard, and delivers breakthrough advancements in reusable launch technology—making space access more sustainable, efficient, and exciting for the future.
ManufacturingTransportationTravelYCWoven CapitalWashington Harbour Partners · +8 · +11
$60M Series A · poseidonaero.com
Poseidon Aerospace — Uncrewed cargo aircraft for defense and regional freight
Poseidon Aerospace is developing unmanned cargo aircraft for aerologistics, focusing on cost-effective cargo transportation rather than flashy technology. The company is building fixed-wing aircraft powered by conventional combustion engines, including the Egret and its seaplane variant Heron, designed to operate without pilots. Poseidon targets defense and regional commercial cargo markets, with plans to operate its own air cargo business serving routes with degraded infrastructure. The startup emphasizes autonomy and remote piloting to reduce operational costs and enable more flexible, point-to-point cargo delivery.
TransportationAerospaceDrover VenturesDraper AssociatesStarship VenturesJaws · +4 · +7
