#AI startups

#AI startups

The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report takes us on a trip across various ecosystems in the US, highlighting some of the notable funding activity in the various markets that we track. The notable startup funding rounds for the week ending 11/8/25 featuring funding details for Armis, Billd, Ruli, and fourteen other deals representing $4.8B in new funding that you need to know about.

From the start, Nicholas and his team focused on solving real problems rather than chasing hype or inflated valuations. He is a firm believer that conviction should come from customers, not VCs, and that once Forethought delivered tangible value to real users, the hype and valuations naturally followed. His "7-Failure Rule" urges founders to embrace iteration over perfection and to expect a few misses before finding what truly clicks.

If you believed AI startups and the world's greatest AI-forward tech companies are just hiring engineers, data scientists, and developers, you're clearly missing out. Behind tech powerhouses and AI house names like OpenAI, Anthropic, and other smaller AI startups from Silicon Valley to Europe, there are three skills that repeatedly show up on these companies' career pages and are evidently in strong demand.

As a journalist who covers AI, I hear from countless people who seem utterly convinced that ChatGPT, Claude, or some other chatbot has achieved "sentience." Or "consciousness." Or-my personal favorite-"a mind of its own." The Turing test was aced a while back, yes, but unlike rote intelligence, these things are not so easily pinned down. Large language models will claim to think for themselves, even describe inner torments or profess undying loves, but such statements don't imply interiority.

It's likely safe to say-creative accounting's been around for as long as accounting itself. In 1494, for example, mathematician and 'father of modern accounting' Luca Pacioli wrote of Venetian merchants willfully rendering their ledgers illegible. In the Gilded Age, inflating assets and understating liabilities was standard practice across a booming system. And who can forget the "channel stuffing" of the 2000s?

You are seconds away from signing up for the hottest list in NYC Tech! Sign up today Octane - $24.5M Funding Round Octane, an end-to-end financing platform for powersports equipment purchases, has raised $24.5M in funding according to a recent SEC filing. The filing indicates that there were five investors in this round. Founded by Jason Guss in 2014, Octane has now raised a total of $245.7M in reported equity funding.

Cohere, the Toronto-based startup building large language models for business customers, has long had a lot in common with its hometown hockey team, the Maple Leafs. They are a solid franchise and a big deal in Canada, but they've not made a Stanley Cup Final since 1967. Similarly, Cohere has built a string of solid, if not spectacular, LLMs and has established itself as the AI national champion of Canada.

It's knowing that the city itself wants you to to build something great, is willing to actually put the money where the mouth is, right? And help you do that.

Nominal plugs into a company's existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and helps CFOs and controllers automate tasks to reduce manual work and errors.

"It's such a critical part of the internet," Sinha, a partner at Point72 Ventures, said regarding the creator economy's enduring significance. He noted that initial hype might have subsided but remains confident in its importance.

VAST Data is in discussions for financing that could elevate its valuation to $30 billion, positioning it among the top valuable AI startups.

Digital health startups raised $6.4 billion in venture capital funding during the first half of 2025, slightly more than the preceding two years' totals.

Belgium's startup ecosystem is thriving with strong public-private partnerships and innovative deep tech, highlighted by AI-first startups positioning it on Europe's innovation map.

While the UK excels at startup creation, we struggle to retain our most promising companies as they scale, said Carolyn Dawson, CEO of the Founders Forum Group.