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Stripe is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire OpenRouter, the AI model routing marketplace, in a deal that could value the startup at roughly $10 billion — nearly 8x its May 2026 Series B valuation of $1.3 billion. The move would mark Stripe's most aggressive push yet into AI infrastructure, bet

Etched, an AI chip startup founded by three Harvard dropouts in 2022, has secured a $300 million Series C funding round at a $10.3 billion valuation, led by Sequoia and joined by Andreessen Horowitz, SK Hynix, and other prominent investors. This marks the highest valuation ever for a Sequoia-led Series C. The company, which previously valued at $5 billion in December 2025, has doubled its valuation in seven months. Etched's success stems from its innovative chip designs that optimize AI inference processes, including a low-voltage prefill chip and cluster-scale memory technology for decoding. Despite initial skepticism about its approach to AI chip development, the startup has overcome challenges by demonstrating tangible results, such as manufacturing its first chips and securing $1 billion in orders. Founders Gavin Uberti, Robert Wachen, and Chris Zhu faced significant hurdles, including fundraising and hiring, but their persistence paid off. The article highlights Etched's technological advancements, investor confidence, and the broader implications for AI chip innovation in the industry.

Lovable, a Swedish startup specializing in vibe-coding technology, is reportedly in advanced negotiations to raise $300 million at a valuation of $13.2 billion—exactly double its $6.6 billion valuation from December 2025. The funding round, led by Menlo Ventures (which recently launched a $3 billion fund), comes as the company achieves a $500 million annualized revenue run rate. Vibe-coding, a method allowing users to build software by describing it in natural language, has become a dominant use case for AI, with Lovable's platform now adopted by major enterprises like Workday, Asana, and Nvidia. The startup's user base includes founders, designers, and sales professionals creating websites and e-commerce platforms. This growth aligns with broader trends in AI-driven development tools, as evidenced by other notable startups like Replit ($9 billion valuation) and Factory ($1.5 billion valuation). The surge in vibe-coding adoption highlights its potential to revolutionize software development, though challenges remain in scaling and maintaining accuracy. Lovable's success underscores the growing importance of AI in enterprise solutions, positioning it as a key player in the evolving tech landscape.

The company is reportedly in talks to raise another $750 million at a pre-money valuation of more than $40 billion. It last raised in November at $32 billion.

Index Ventures is said to be leading a $250 million to $350 million round.

Some AI founders are using a novel valuation mechanism to manufacture unicorn status.

Unacademy's valuation has dropped by over 85% from its pandemic-era peak price tag of $3.5 billion, its founder said.

Other startup funding includes Series A, B, and C rounds but these are the primary Angel Round or seed-level investments covered recently.

Snabbit has raised its third funding round in nine months.

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By Anna Tong SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Scale AI competitor Micro1 is finalizing a Series A round valuing the startup at $500 million, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Micro1 provides data labeling services to artificial intelligence labs, a sector that has grown tremendously in recent years as high-quality, human-generated datasets have become more important in training advanced AI systems. Micro1 has capitalized on this trend by building an AI-powered recruitment engine enabling AI labs to target specialized experts instead of large pools of low-wage labor. The company has told investors it has crossed $50 million in annualized revenue, up from $10 million earlier this year, and is projecting it will cross $100 million in annualized revenue by the end of September, the sources said. Former Twitter COO Adam Bain joined its board recently, and venture capital firms 01A and LG Technology Ventures will invest in the round, the sources said. Micro1 has benefited from recent changes at San Francisco-based Scale AI, a data labeling company that provides infrastructure and services to help organizations accelerate the development of AI models. Scale AI recently lost customers after Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) poached its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to become Meta’s chief AI officer, leading Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs. Among the customers that have left or are planning to leave Scale AI are Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google and OpenAI, which are planning to move away over concerns that doing business with Scale could expose their research priorities to Meta. Another Scale AI competitor, Surge AI, is raising up to $1 billion, and raked in over $1 billion in revenue last year. Before you buy stock in GOOGL, consider this: ProPicks AI are 6 easy-to-follow model portfolios created by Investing.com for building wealth by identifying winning stocks and letting them run. Over 150,000 paying members trust ProPicks to find new stocks to buy – driven by AI. The ProPicks AI algorithm has just identified the best stocks for investors to buy now. The stocks that made the cut could produce enormous returns in the coming years. Is GOOGL one of them?

Vanta Inc., a startup that helps companies comply with privacy and cybersecurity regulations, has raised $150 million in fresh funding. Wellington Management led the Series D investment. It was joined...