Italian AI startup Cato raises €6M in seed funding to expand its platform that helps businesses win public sector contracts by monitoring 27,000+ sources and streamlining bid preparation across Europe's €2.5 trillion annual public tender market.
Gimlet Labs secures $300 million in Series B funding at a $3 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz, to scale its multi-silicon AI inference cloud that delivers up to 10x performance gains by distributing workloads across GPUs, CPUs, and accelerators from NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and Cerebras — fueled by a tripled customer base and billions in contracted revenue.
Nvidia acquires AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion in its second-largest deal ever, promising to keep the platform open and independent while critics warn that corporate pressures could quietly erode its open-source mission.
OpenAI commits $1 billion to launch the Daybreak initiative, providing AI tools and training to protect critical infrastructure—including water systems, power grids, and local governments—from AI-powered cyberattacks, though experts warn the effort falls short of addressing decades-old security vulnerabilities.
Lyte, a physical AI startup founded by former Apple engineers, reaches a $1.6 billion valuation after raising $165 million in Series C funding, as global physical AI venture investment surges to $47.4 billion in early 2026.
Seoul-based AI startup Intellisia raises $2.5M in pre-Series A funding to power its platform that replaces real consumer surveys with virtual AI respondents, boasting over 90% accuracy compared to actual responses, with global expansion and a digital twin shopping simulation on the horizon.
OpenAI terminates its billion-dollar partnership with AI coding tool Cursor, citing distrust of Elon Musk following SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of the startup, signaling the company is willing to sacrifice massive revenue over concerns about Musk's control.
Nvidia acquires Hugging Face for $13 billion in its largest-ever deal, gaining control of the open AI platform hosting 3 million models and serving over 200,000 companies, while pledging to keep it open for its 18 million developers.
HiddenLayer secures $100M in Series B funding led by Delta-v Capital to expand its AI protection platform globally, as the AI security market surges to $2.83 billion amid growing threats like adversarial attacks and prompt injection targeting AI models and workflows.
A new survey of 1,500 U.S. founders reveals AI adoption is supercharging startup growth, with heavy AI users raising venture capital at four times the rate of non-adopters, but rising costs are quietly cooling founder confidence, with team-hiring growth dropping sharply and 75% reporting expenses exceeded expectations.