When the founders of a mental health app for men called Mental saw that one feature - AI interactive audio - was resonating wildly with their users, they knew they were onto something. And so the idea for a new, and hopefully safer, kind of AI therapy app was born, which they called The Path, co-founder and CEO Anson Whitmer tells TechCrunch.
Imperagen is using three core technologies as it seeks to redefine enzyme engineering. Specifically, it uses a quantum physics-based simulation instead of trial-and-error enzyme mutations in a lab. Imperagen predicts the behavior of enzyme variants on a computer using advanced quantum physics modeling that can explore millions of mutations, the company said. Then it translates this information into its custom AI models, trained on the enzyme problems Imperagen seeks to explore.
Business Insider will reveal our sixth annual Seed 100 list, celebrating the most successful early-stage investors. The list makes it clear AI is changing seed investing, just like it's changing everything else. Find out who made the 2026 list and hear from two investors in a LIVE Q&A, Monday at 2:30 p.m. ET. Scroll down to watch.
Hint wants to get there before your roof leaks. The service pulls public property data and user-uploaded documents, such as warranties and insurance policies, and then builds a running record of what the home needs and when.
PAVE Space is building a fleet of orbital transfer vehicles designed to complete the journey from launch orbit to working orbit in under 24 hours, addressing the inefficiencies in satellite deployment.
David Silver's name is synonymous with some of the most memorable milestones in AI. During more than a decade at Google DeepMind, he helped develop AlphaGo, the first AI to defeat a world champion at the ancient game of Go, and later AlphaStar, which bested professional players in StarCraft II. His work has shaped how modern AI systems learn and make decisions.
Fintechs are increasingly adopting stablecoins-a non-volatile type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the US dollar. When it comes to payments and money transfers, stablecoins offer clear advantages but developing the infrastructure to support them can be slow and costly. This is where Levl wants to fill the gap. The startup aims to build a platform where digital wallets and other fintechs can seamlessly send money around the world using stablecoins.
London-based Mozart AI has raised $6 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Balderton Capital, as the startup looks to reshape how music is created in the age of artificial intelligence. The fundraise follows a $1.1 million pre-seed round completed last summer, taking Mozart AI's total funding to more than $7 million. The latest investment coincides with the launch of the company's long-awaited mobile app and comes amid rapid early traction for its AI-powered "Generative Audio Workstation". Mozart
If your company wants to give up its marketing budget, lay off half of its employees and solely use AI-generated content, then Airpost is "not for you," CEO and Founder John Gargiulo said.
Allen Wang and Eric Liu, two UC Berkeley dropouts, think they can help college students find love using AI. Their dating startup, Ditto, leverages AI to match people based on the data users input into the service. It then plans the date for them. "We're bringing people back to in-real-life interactions," Wang, 23, told Business Insider. After users make a profile, they directly message Ditto's AI chatbot via text- no app required - about their type and dating preferences. On Wednesdays, users get a text about a potential match. After each date, Ditto follows up for feedback and uses that information as additional data for future matches.
I was a CFO myself for five years previously before going into venture [...] We had thousands and thousands of customers, and we would have several people in my team that were basically just replying to queries and chasing people all day.
"Smart people are burning out sifting through backlogs of unprioritized, low-value vulnerabilities, while the real critical pathways go unprotected," says Shlomie Liberow, founder and CEO of Aisy (and formerly head of hacker research and development at HackerOne). He doesn't see this changing for mid-tier and larger companies - partly because of the security industry itself. Each vulnerability tool competes with other vulnerability tools, and each one avoids the possibility of a competitor finding more issues than it does itself.
Rainbow Weather has raised $5.5 million in seed funding to push weather forecasting further into the short-term, high-precision territory it believes the industry still underserves. The Warsaw-based climate tech startup focuses on hyperlocal, minute-by-minute forecasts, zeroing in on what happens in the next few hours rather than days out. The round was backed by a syndicate of investors, including Yuri Gurski, founder of Flo Health, one of Europe's best-known consumer tech unicorns.
Warsaw, Poland 26 January 2026 - Rainbow Weather has raised $5.5 million in seed funding to push weather forecasting further into the short-term, high-precision territory it believes the industry still underserves. The Warsaw-based climate tech startup focuses on hyperlocal, minute-by-minute forecasts, zeroing in on what happens in the next few hours rather than days out. The round was backed by a syndicate of investors, including Yuri Gurski, founder of Flo Health, one of Europe's best-known consumer tech unicorns.
On Me, a digital gift card startup founded by former Google employees, is aiming to redefine the gift card industry with its mobile-first gifting platform that lets users purchase digital gift cards categorized by interests rather than being restricted to specific retailers. The company on Thursday said it had raised $6 million in a seed funding round, which it will use to expand its gift categories to include things like horseback riding lessons, wine tastings, and theme park trips.
Goodword is leveraging AI to build tools that encourage closer connections, including a search function, reminders for follow-up conversations, and a method of making introductions. The startup describes its product as a "networking copilot" and has an AI assistant that users can chat with to keep track of meetings and people they meet. The platform is built using large language models from OpenAI, chief product and technology officer Chris Fischer said.
CEO George Cheng and CTO Dylan Nguyen cofounded Code Four, which is police radio lingo to indicate that a situation is under control. They say their technology reduces paperwork, allowing officers to spend more time in the field. The startup uses AI to generate reports from bodycam footage that can be used in court or for record-keeping purposes. Code Four can also redact footage and reports for records requests and generate transcriptions and summaries from video interviews and security footage.
On Monday, a new Model Context Protocol security startup called Runlayer launched out of stealth with $11 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures' Keith Rabois and Felicis. It was created by third-time founder Andrew Berman (previous companies: baby-monitor maker Nanit and an AI video conferencing tool, Vowel, that sold to Zapier in 2024). In the four months since Runlayer launched its product in stealth, it has signed dozens of customers, including eight unicorns or public companies like Gusto, Rippling, dbt Labs, Instacart, Opendoor, and Ramp, it says.
Three years ago, Luminal co-founder Joe Fioti was working on chip design at Intel when he came to a realization. While he was working on making the best chips he could, the more important bottleneck was in software. "You can make the best hardware on earth, but if it's hard for developers to use, they're just not going to use it," he told me.
Generative AI advances inspired his next project, which he calls "the highest bar" for the technology: replicating human beings with their life stories and personality. In 2024, he founded and self-funded, Eternos, a legacy service that allows people to preserve their voice and stories for loved ones after they pass away. Now, it's got a new name and modified mission.
Liquid - $7.6M Seed Liquid, a perp DEX aggregator that routes and executes futures trades across multiple exchanges, has raised $7.6M in Seed funding led by Paradigm. Founded by Franklyn Wang in 2025, Liquid has now raised a total of $7.6M in reported equity funding. AlleyWatch is NYC's leading source of tech and startup news, reaching the city's most active founders, investors, and tech leaders.
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, both 23, are turning heads with Phia, their AI fashion app that's drawing interest from investors andtrendsetters. Phia, an AI-powered shopping assistant, went live in April and said it has since amassed over 600,000 users. The free app and browser extension compare prices on fashion items across around 40,000 linked sites to help users find deals. It's the pair's first business, and it's making waves with investors.
Traditional AI breaks when faced with new, high-stakes situations without data. Astut gives organisations a way to make confident, transparent decisions when precedent doesn't exist. This funding will allow us to strengthen our partnerships in defence, energy, retail and finance, and embed our technology into partner platforms so it can reach those who need it most. Our creative AI is radical - an
Wonder, which launched in April, said the funding was led by Atomico, alongside existing backers LocalGlobe and Blackbird. Other investors included Adobe Ventures, Upside Ventures - a VC firm launched by the UK YouTube group Sidemen - and Joaquin Cuenca Abela, CEO of the creative AI company Freepik. Also participating were Nigel Morris, a former Dentsu executive, and Erik Huggers, chairman of EveryoneTV and former Vevo CEO. All in, Wonder has raised $15 million.
Estuary, the right-time AI data platform that alleviates bottlenecks, has raised $17M in Series A funding led by M13. Founded by David Yaffe and John Graettinger in 2019, Estuary has now raised a total of $24M in reported equity funding.
