Startups Weekly: Founders may be raising less, but deals haven’t been lacking
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Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.
This week showed more optimism among startups than in other corners of the world, with entrepreneurs feeling confident enough to acquire other companies, raise fresh funding, and even say no to more money.
Not quite four weddings and a funeral, but almost.
Fervor: Fervo Energy, a well-funded startup that is working with Google on a first-of-its-kind geothermal power plant, is reportedly planning to IPO in the next two years.
Picked: Peak.ai, a startup founded in Manchester, England, that builds “decision-making” AI, was acquired by UiPath, the now public robotic process automation (RPA) company. Peak had raised $121 million, including a $75 million round backed by SoftBank in 2021.
Butterfly effect: Manus, the “agentic” AI platform launched by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, is generating a ton of buzz, although some early users warned it is no panacea, writes TechCrunch’s newly appointed AI editor Kyle Wiggers. But the butterfly effect is still there: Browser Use, one of the tools powering Manus, is also going viral.
The end: Swedish battery manufacturing startup Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in Sweden this week. It had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. in November.
Plenty of deals, but also another week in which the round’s size won’t tell you the round’s letter.
Ditto: San Francisco-based startup Ditto raised an $82 million Series B at a $462 million post-money valuation to make sure corporate clients can access data on edge devices even when connectivity is unstable.
Good karma: Nirvana, an AI-based insurance platform that uses telematics data to build and manage insurance policies for truckers, raised an $80 million Series C round of funding at an $830 million post-money valuation.
Pentesting: Pentera, a cybersecurity startup founded in Tel Aviv but now based in Boston, raised a $60 million Series D at a valuation over $1 billion. It plans to use the funding for M&A and product development.
Problem zolved: Zolve, a neobank for highly skilled foreigners moving to the U.S. without credit history, raised $51 million in equity for its Series B round. It also secured $200 million in debt and plans to enter new geographies.
New name, new money: Estonia-based startup Blackwall, formerly known as BotGuard, raised a €45 million Series B round (approximately $49.2 million) to protect SMBs from malicious online traffic via midmarket hosting platforms and other service providers.
Italians do it better? Early-stage Italian VC firm Vento is launching a €75 million fund to back Italian startup founders, including those living abroad. This is Vento’s second fund; its portfolio already includes some 100 startups.
Y Combinator’s latest Demo Day signaled a “vibe shift,” according to a regular attendee. Terrence Rohan, an investor with Otherwise Fund who’s been investing in Y Combinator since 2010, noted that it is now common to see founders raising less money on purpose — and not for lack of VC interest. This stirred discussion as to whether it is a good idea.
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Freelance Reporter
Anna Heim is a writer and editorial consultant. As a freelance reporter at TechCrunch since 2021, she has covered a large range of startup-related topics including AI, fintech & insurtech, SaaS & pricing, and global venture capital trends. As of 2025, her reporting for TechCrunch mostly focuses on Europe, and particularly on the rise of defense, security and resilience tech in the region. She also writes TechCrunch’s Startups Weekly newsletter, rounding up startup news every Friday. Anna has moderated panels and conducted onstage interviews at industry events of all sizes, including major tech conferences such as TechCrunch Disrupt, 4YFN, South Summit, TNW Conference, VivaTech, and many more. A former LATAM & Media Editor at The Next Web, startup founder and Sciences Po Paris alum, she’s fluent in multiple languages, including French, English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.
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