AI, robotics and computing-related industries remained the main draw for private-market capital last week. The race around top model companies also kept accelerating: Amazon disclosed that it has completed a total of $50 billion in investment in OpenAI and, in the second quarter, invested $13.7 billion in OpenAI and $11.3 billion in Anthropic. Moonshot AI reportedly raised more than expected in its latest round, bringing in $3.5 billion at a $35 billion valuation.
In the primary market, AI user-simulation company Simile raised a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation, while AI voice company Fish Audio secured a $50 million seed round. In robotics, capital continued to flow to general-purpose robot platforms, training data and real-world deployment. RoboStrategy led Standard Bots’ $200 million Series C, Enigma raised $71 million in seed funding, and Quantum Dynamics announced financing of more than RMB 100 million.
AI expansion also lifted adjacent sectors including energy and security. Nuclear company Antares Nuclear closed a $470 million financing led jointly by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital, and bot-detection startup Spur Intelligence raised $200 million led by Insight Partners.
Crypto funding continued to shrink in scale, with capital concentrated in security, trade execution and AI-integrated infrastructure. According to PANews’ incomplete tally, there were six blockchain financing events globally last week, from July 27 to Aug. 2, totaling $41.5 million.
Crypto financing snapshot
By segment, three disclosed deals fell under infrastructure and tools, while another three were in Web3 plus AI. In M&A, Metaplanet acquired Siiibo Securities and said it plans to build a Bitcoin fixed-income market based in Japan.
Infrastructure and tools
V12 raises $10 million seed round
AI agent security tool V12 said it raised a $10 million seed round led by Electric Capital, with participation from ZachXBT, samczsun and Walden Yan.
V12 previously identified a major vulnerability on a major blockchain that put more than $100 million at risk. The team received a $2.5 million bug bounty, which it described as the largest single bounty ever earned by an AI agent. The team said its goal is to build a “cyber nuke” — an AI system capable of finding every vulnerability in a system. It focuses on white-box code auditing rather than black-box penetration testing and argues that bug bounty programs will disappear in the AI era, with the only real solution being to eliminate vulnerabilities before code goes live.
V12 said crypto is one of its key application areas. The team previously founded blockchain security company Zellic, completed more than 1,500 security reviews and took part in multiple vulnerability research projects.
Beezie raises $4 million
Web3 consumer platform Beezie said it completed a $4 million financing round, with Psalion participating through its early-stage vehicle, Psalion VC Fund III. The platform creates onchain digital twins for physical goods, giving them programmable, tradable and composable features across different scenarios. It uses gamified mechanics to turn physical-asset trading into an interactive consumption experience. The new capital will be used for global expansion.
Birdai Labs raises $4 million seed round
Onchain execution infrastructure company Birdai Labs said it closed a $4 million seed round led by Castle Island Ventures, with follow-on backing from Metalayer Ventures and The Venture Dept.
Birdai Labs focuses on infrastructure that measures, verifies and optimizes execution quality for high-performance public blockchains. Its stated goal is to reduce the value lost between order placement and execution as a result of ordering and propagation, and return more of that value to traders and market makers. The team comes from traditional finance firms including Franklin Templeton and Citadel, and is expanding senior engineering and quantitative research hires to adapt to execution competition under multi-proposer architectures and provide verifiable standards for fair and transparent execution as institutions enter digital asset markets.
Web3 and AI
Axis Robotics raises $12 million seed round
Physical AI data engine company Axis Robotics raised a $12 million seed round led by Hack VC, with participation from Nomad Capital, Pi Network Ventures, 10K Ventures and others.
Axis plans to build a global data engine at scale with humans in the loop to address shortages in robot training data, generalization challenges and compatibility across different hardware. Its platform covers task generation, simulated remote teleoperation, mobile ego-data collection and automated cleaning and labeling pipelines. The company said it now has more than 100,000 active data contributors, generates about 1,200 hours of simulation data and 20,000 hours of real-world data each month, and has already reached commercial partnerships with hardware and industrial customers including Booster Robotics and Geely Auto.
Perceptron Network raises $6.5 million strategic round
Decentralized AI data network Perceptron Network completed a $6.5 million strategic financing round with participation from Sigma Capital, Selini Capital, QCP Capital, P2 Ventures, CoinDCX Ventures, Momentum6, DeFi Capital, Walrus Foundation, Aethir, Colosseum, GuruDev Capital, Tempo Finance, NewTribe Capital, Digital Consensus Fund and CodeCraft Capital.
The funds will support the launch of a data exploration platform. Over the longer term, Perceptron said it aims to build a fully integrated network with 5 million nodes so that everything AI companies need is available on a single platform and supply and demand can be balanced.
ALPHEA raises $5 million
ALPHEA said it raised $5 million to accelerate the buildout of its next-generation distributed AI infrastructure. According to the project, participating investors included MH Ventures, IBC Group, Titans Ventures, Becker Ventures and Yellow Labs. The funds will be used to expand its distributed AI compute network, launch new products for developers and enterprises, and add core team members across engineering, research and ecosystem roles.
M&A
Metaplanet acquires Siiibo Securities
Japan-listed Metaplanet acquired Siiibo Securities, which holds a Type I Financial Instruments Business license, giving it approval to design and sell securities in Japan.
Research firm Benchmark said the market generally viewed the roughly JPY 2.1 billion, or about $13 million, acquisition as a small-scale expansion. But Metaplanet actually plans to use it as a base to issue Bitcoin-backed bonds called “Bitbonds” with annualized yields of around 4% to 6%, then move them onchain and settle via stablecoins, gradually forming a secondary market.
Metaplanet’s goal is to let companies that want to adopt a Bitcoin treasury strategy issue debt on its platform to buy BTC. Under its “Project Nova” roadmap, the company wants to build a new kind of financial institution centered on Bitcoin. It currently holds about 43,000 BTC, making it the world’s third-largest public corporate Bitcoin treasury, according to the source material.
Fanatics acquires regulated exchange and clearing assets
U.S. sports company Fanatics said it will acquire Water Street Labs and CX Clearinghouse from BGC Group, obtaining federally regulated exchange and clearinghouse licenses so it can manage the listing and settlement of prediction market contracts on its own.
The acquisition is expected to speed up the launch of new event contracts and put Fanatics in more direct competition with Kalshi and Polymarket. The two sides also plan to jointly develop a new class of data products that combines prediction-market trading data with traditional financial market data. Fanatics’ Markets platform launched at the end of 2024 and currently covers 23 U.S. states and four overseas territories.
Selected AI and robotics deals
Amazon says total OpenAI investment has reached $50 billion
According to Cailian Press, Amazon disclosed in its 10-Q filing that it has completed a total of $50 billion in investment in OpenAI. In the first quarter, Amazon invested $15 billion in OpenAI Series C preferred shares and committed to purchase another $35 billion. In the second quarter, it invested $13.7 billion of that commitment into OpenAI Series C preferred shares. After the reporting period, Amazon invested the remaining $21.3 billion of its commitment into the same class of shares.
Amazon invested $11.3 billion in Anthropic and $13.7 billion in OpenAI in Q2
Amazon also disclosed that in the second quarter it invested $10 billion in non-voting preferred shares of Anthropic and $1.3 billion in convertible notes. Under the financing agreement, it can provide up to $20 billion in capital to Anthropic, and that agreement expires 30 months after Anthropic’s initial public offering. In addition, over the six months ended June 30, Amazon invested $28.7 billion in OpenAI Series C preferred shares, including $13.7 billion in the second quarter.
Moonshot AI reportedly raises $3.5 billion
According to Jin10, citing market information, Moonshot AI recently completed a funding round that raised more than expected, bringing in $3.5 billion at a $35 billion valuation.
Simile raises $200 million Series B at $2 billion valuation
AI startup Simile completed a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation just five months after raising a $100 million Series A. Greenoaks led the round, with Index Ventures, Hanabi, Bain Capital Ventures, A*, Factory, Definition and CVS Health Ventures also participating. CVS is also a major customer of Simile.
Simile was founded by Stanford PhD Joon Sung Park, whose doctoral project “Smallville” let AI agents simulate human life. The company said it aims to “accurately and honestly simulate all 8 billion people on Earth” and use simulated users for marketing and product research.
Fish Audio raises $50 million seed round
Fish Audio, an AI voice startup based in Palo Alto, California, said it raised a $50 million seed round led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today, with participation from 359 Capital, Parable, Play Time, Alphalist Partners, Bayhouse Ventures, Carya Venture Partners and HF0.
Since launching last year, the company said more than 8 million users have used its open-source or hosted voice models. It reported annual recurring revenue of $21 million and has released four voice-generation models and one speech-to-text model. Its latest model, S2.1 Pro, is available only through a paid API and already serves enterprise customers including HeyGen, Sanas and Plaud. Fish Audio said it plans to release an audio-understanding model and a speech-to-speech model as it competes with ElevenLabs and Speechify.
Modus raises $10 million seed round
Enterprise AI infrastructure company Modus raised a $10 million seed round from investors including Insight Partners, Soma Capital, Bullet Ventures, Eyal Kishon, Wix and Dazl executive Nadav Avrami, Cyera co-founders and the Epsagon founding team.
Modus introduced a “Context Warehouse,” which learns how enterprises actually use data warehouses, BI systems, codebases and collaboration tools, along with permission relationships, and then arranges only the most relevant context for each AI interaction. The company said this can cut retrieval and token costs by as much as 10x and includes built-in security and governance for large-scale deployment of AI agents.
Pangram raises $9 million
New York-based AI detection startup Pangram raised $9 million in a round led by Menlo Ventures, with Haystack, ScOp, Script Capital and Cadenza also participating. Pangram also released its next-generation text detection model, Pangram 4, and image detection model, Pangram Image. It said the text model can reach more than 99% accuracy when detecting purely AI-written or mixed human-AI writing, and can identify “AI polishing” as well as humanizing tools built to evade detection.
The system was trained on tens of millions of human documents and corresponding “synthetic mirrors,” and determines whether content is AI-generated based on differences in style and wording rather than watermarks. Pangram already sells through web subscriptions, a Chrome extension and APIs to customers including Substack, Quora, universities and publishers.
RoboStrategy leads Standard Bots’ $200 million Series C
RoboStrategy said in a post on X that it led the $200 million Series C financing of robotics company Standard Bots at a post-money valuation of $1 billion.
RoboStrategy said industrial robotic arms were invented in the U.S., but the country has lost leadership in the sector. It said existing product architectures have remained frozen since the 1980s and are poorly suited for real-time AI control and variable scenarios. Standard Bots, by contrast, redesigned the robotic arm from scratch, with each component optimized for AI. The company said this includes joint-level torque sensing, a 2 kHz real-time feedback loop and enough ease of use for workers to teach tasks within a day, all while relying on a U.S.-based supply chain.
Its lineup includes Spark, Core, Thor and the dual-arm robot Bolt, which is in testing. Thor has a 30-kilogram payload and a 2-meter working radius. Compared with FANUC CRX and UR10e, Core delivers higher payload and tighter repeatability at a lower price, according to the source material. The company’s goal is to account for 10% of new industrial robot deployments in the U.S. within a year, and it expects fully U.S.-based manufacturing from raw metal to finished robot by 2027.
Quantum Dynamics raises more than RMB 100 million in seed funding
Physical AI platform company Quantum Dynamics recently completed a seed round of more than RMB 100 million, jointly backed by Yunqi Capital and SenseTime. The company’s founder previously served as CTO of Cainiao Group and led technology for Alibaba’s international digital commerce business.
The funds will be used mainly for core Physical AI technology research and development, talent-building and global market expansion, with the stated goal of accelerating a full-stack buildout from foundational models to real-world deployment for intelligent systems in the physical world. Quantum Dynamics was established in the first half of 2026 and focuses on deep integration between AI and the real physical world, developing a Physical AI base platform for multiple industries.
Enigma raises $71 million seed round
AI robotics company Enigma completed a $71 million seed round led jointly by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Conviction Partners and individual investors from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, xAI, Cognition and Wiz.
Founded 11 months ago, the company said this is one of the largest seed rounds in physical AI. The money will go toward expanding research and engineering teams, improving compute infrastructure and increasing real-world deployments. Enigma has developed more than 100 proprietary robotic systems operating in California and Israel, and has opened remote interaction to collect training data. The company said the biggest obstacle to broad robot adoption is human-machine interaction, and its platform follows a hardware-agnostic strategy that works with robots from different manufacturers.
Related sectors
Antares Nuclear raises $470 million Series C
Nuclear startup Antares Nuclear closed a $470 million Series C led jointly by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital, with participation from Industrious Ventures, Point72 Ventures and Shine Capital. The round included $370 million in equity and $100 million in debt.
Antares is developing small modular reactors, or SMRs, with power output ranging from 100 kilowatts to 1 megawatt using TRISO fuel. The company is one of three finalists in a U.S. Department of Defense advanced nuclear power installation program and plans to bring its first power-generating reactor online next year, with deployment at U.S. military bases in 2028. Antares previously raised a $96 million Series B last December, bringing cumulative funding to $604 million. Its first SMRs are expected to enter service in the early 2030s at an estimated cost of about $214 per megawatt-hour, higher than most new-build power plants other than the most expensive gas turbines.
Spur Intelligence raises $200 million
Bot-detection startup Spur Intelligence raised $200 million in a round led by Insight Partners. Founded in 2017, the company develops technology that helps businesses distinguish real users from hidden bot traffic and identify fake users and threats.
Cloudflare said in a report last month that internet bot activity had exceeded human activity for the first time by mid-2026. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said agent traffic is growing much faster than expected. Spur said the rapid rise of anonymization infrastructure such as criminal VPNs and residential proxy networks has created a blind spot where companies can see activity but cannot see the infrastructure behind it.
Jump Capital raises $350 million AI fund
Jump Capital has raised a $350 million fund for AI investments. In 2021, the firm spun out its cryptocurrency team into Jump Crypto, the digital-asset division of Jump Trading.
KB Financial to set up a roughly $102 million unicorn fund
South Korea’s KB Financial Group plans to establish a KRW 150 billion fund, roughly $102 million, called the “KB Kookmin Growth Unicorn Scale-up Fund,” focusing on unicorns in AI, semiconductors and robotics. The fund will be fully financed by KB Financial subsidiaries and managed by the growth investment division of KB Securities PE.
At the same time, KB Financial said it will increase financial support for physical AI, AI data centers, power infrastructure and semiconductor companies.