This month’s roundup of interesting startup deals spans some unusual corners of technology. @MaxinsightsAI raised a $30 million seed round to collect videos of humans performing everyday tasks that can be used to train robots, while Foundational secured around $11 million to develop a cheaper way to track satellites using lasers. Other startups that caught our eye include one developing a cleaner way to make cement, a startup that helps independent game developers attract players, and a company that wants to turn agricultural waste into a carbon-removal tool, starting on Colombian coffee farms. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

AI is making it easier for employees to misuse proprietary company information — and harder for businesses to contain the damage, warns attorney Seth Kugler, a partner at @GrellasShahLLP. Drawing on a federal trade-secrets case he litigated involving a former employee who allegedly used stolen company information to build an AI-powered competitor, Kugler explains why traditional confidentiality agreements and IT safeguards may no longer be enough and outlines steps founders can take to protect sensitive data. news.crunchbase.com/ai/prote…

As AI agents begin researching products and making purchases on behalf of consumers, brands increasingly have two audiences to win over: humans and machines. Toby Coulthard, chief product and growth officer at Jacquard, argues that startups have an opportunity to build brands that appeal to both of those audiences from day one. In a guest essay, he explains why clear product descriptions, consistent brand guidelines and testing how AI summarizes marketing messages are becoming essential. news.crunchbase.com/startups…

AI companies are posting extraordinary revenue growth, but are their valuations getting ahead of the economics? @AnuragGurtu, co-founder and CEO of @Airrived_ai, argues that @AnthropicAI's delayed IPO highlights some uncomfortable questions for investors. He points to the company’s enormous infrastructure commitments, mounting competition from lower-cost open-weight models, and a proposed $2 trillion valuation as signs of a potentially unsustainable market. news.crunchbase.com/public/a…

Insurance offered at checkout — whether for a flight, youth sports registration or equipment rental — can be a difficult business when individual policies cost as little as $25. Startup Slingshot Insurance believes AI can change the economics. The Minneapolis-based company is emerging from stealth with $27 million in seed funding co-led by Rally Ventures and Skyward Group, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively. The startup, whose platform automates much of the administrative work involved in connecting software companies with insurers, is also pursuing an acquisition. news.crunchbase.com/fintech-…

Going years without raising new venture funding doesn’t necessarily spell doom for a startup’s exit prospects. An analysis of Crunchbase data identified 15 sizable acquisitions of startups that hadn’t raised equity funding in at least four years, including @Uber's recent $2.3 billion purchase of @ezCater. The deals suggest that startups that spent years extending their runways after the funding boom are increasingly finding paths to an exit, even if investors aren’t getting the returns they once envisioned. news.crunchbase.com/ma/acqui…

Some of venture capital’s biggest winners are the startups that initially look too unconventional to fund, according to Reach Capital partner @jameskimEDU. The former high school math teacher discusses how Reach — which recently raised a $265 million fifth fund — has expanded from education into healthcare and workforce technology, what attracted it to AI detection startup @GPTZeroAI, and why the firm is increasingly focused on ownership stakes and secondary sales. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

A startup acquisition can create life-changing wealth for employees, but the headline deal price rarely tells the full story, writes Ron Honig, co-CEO of From-Honig Family Office. Employees at the same company can walk away with very different financial outcomes depending on their stock options, vesting schedules, taxes and the terms of the acquisition. In a guest essay, he explains why a big exit can create as much uncertainty as opportunity for workers — and the questions employees should answer before making major financial or career decisions. news.crunchbase.com/ma/acqui…

All told, fintech startups raised $10.6 billion globally in the third quarter of 2026, down 28.4% from $14.9 billion in Q2 2026 and 21.4% from $13.5 billion in Q3 2025. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

Founders can build billion-dollar businesses without venture capital by prioritizing customer revenue, pricing for quality, hiring exceptional talent and automating processes to scale efficiently, argues @demarconacho, who draws on his experience bootstrapping @bairesdev, to emphasize financial discipline and a lasting commitment to solving customer problems as the foundations of sustainable growth. news.crunchbase.com/startups…

Latin American startups raised $1.3 billion in Q3, up 26% year over year, Crunchbase data shows, as late-stage investment remained strong and seed funding more than doubled from the prior quarter. Notably, the region’s two largest rounds went to energy startups in Chile and Colombia rather than the usual powerhouses of Brazil and Mexico. Although Mexico has pulled ahead of Brazil in total venture funding so far this year, Brazil continues to attract a broader range of deals. An investor tells Crunchbase News that international VCs are returning to Latin America after years of relative quiet, potentially setting the stage for what he calls another “rediscovery moment.” news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

AI startups promise autonomous software, but some are spending fortunes hiring engineers to make their products work inside customer organizations. @AnuragGurtu, co-founder and CEO of @Airrived_ai, argues that Silicon Valley’s growing reliance on forward deployed engineers risks disguising labor-intensive services businesses as scalable software companies. In a sharply worded guest essay, he questions whether the recurring revenue generated by these deployments justifies software-style valuations and offers a simple test for investors: Would the product still deliver what customers paid for if the embedded engineers disappeared tomorrow? news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

Startup investors aren’t exactly hitting pause, but they did scale back on giant rounds this week, with just two startup financings in the multiple hundreds of millions. The biggest round went to AI infrastructure provider @modal, which picked up $750 million, followed by construction automation unicorn Icon, which secured $200 million. Other sectors that attracted larger rounds included biotech, insurance and AI. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

Asia-based startups raised $38.5B in Q3, up 93% year over year and the region’s second-highest quarterly tally in years, Crunchbase data shows. China dominated with roughly $27B, while AI-focused companies attracted more than half of all investment. We take a look at the country's biggest rounds and seed funding growth. The picture was less rosy elsewhere in Asia, with India and Singapore seeing significant sequential funding declines. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

For the third quarter of 2026, global cybersecurity- and privacy-focused startups pulled in a total of $6.8 billion, per Crunchbase data. That’s up about 50% from the prior quarter and tied for the highest quarterly tally in years. news.crunchbase.com/cybersec…

As AI enables smaller, faster teams, companies should hire curious, adaptable people who challenge established practices and can be trusted to make independent decisions, according to guest author Eric Francia, who writes that giving employees real responsibility, encouraging questions and investing in continuous learning helps teams innovate, stay engaged and retain talent. news.crunchbase.com/ai/build…

New York-based Chariot Claims has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Silverton Partners to help consumers pursue claims over alleged privacy violations, hidden fees and subscriptions that are difficult to cancel. news.crunchbase.com/ai/legal…

Semiconductors, financial services and space technology led for the 38 new companies joining The Crunchbase Unicorn Board, with the remainder hailing from a broad swath of industries including biotech, AI infrastructure, AI training, security and frontier labs. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

In this Crunchbase News exclusive, we spoke to @MarkloAI founder @JessicaHerrin about her solution to the marketing problems she encountered when building earlier startups, and how a group of investors, led by @ForerunnerVC, are backing that early experience with a $5 million seed funding round. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

Complex, interconnected problems like compliance require a comprehensive product from the outset, argues guest columnist Daniel Kjellén, CEO and co-founder of Freda. Drawing on his experience selling @tink, he explains how repeat founders can combine capital, credibility and hard-earned lessons with AI’s development speed to pursue bigger ambitions without shrinking their vision. news.crunchbase.com/startups…