500 Global

Congratulations to Eric Cheng, Jiun Ee Teoh, and the @CarsomeMy team for their US$30M+ strategic fundraise! With support from with participation from Hong Kong Investment Corporation Limited (HKIC), the team will further strengthen their integrated platform spanning car trading, financing, and ownership, as well as focus on accelerating the application of data and AI to enhance operational efficiency and customer experience. This balanced approach, combining strong marketplace fundamentals with targeted use of AI, is increasingly how leading platforms are scaling in real-world industries. Proud to see the team's continued progress in improving outcomes for customers with meaningful use of AI. Read the full story: news.carsome.com/news/carsome-r… @christine_tsai @TonyW @vishalharnal @atxfrench @leoclee

Deep Infra and NVIDIA are working together on NVIDIA NemoClaw - an open-source stack that simplifies running OpenClaw always-on assistants, more safely, with a single command. As part of the @nvidia Agent Toolkit, it installs the NVIDIA OpenShell runtime - a secure environment for running autonomous agents, and open-source models like NVIDIA Nemotron. nvidia.com/nemoclaw

When AI can already write code, the real challenge is making sure that code actually works in the real world. That’s the problem Crafting is tackling. The company has raised $5.5M in seed funding to build infrastructure for AI-driven engineering, enabling AI agents and human engineers to build, test, and ship code inside production-like environments that mirror complex enterprise systems. The new funding will go toward further developing this infrastructure layer, designed to support the next generation of AI-first engineering teams. As AI moves deeper into the software development lifecycle, the infrastructure that enables humans and agents to collaborate safely will become a critical part of the stack. Congratulations to Sumeet Vaidya, Yisui Hu, and the Crafting team on this milestone! Full story here: thesaasnews.com/news/crafting-… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

The most universal (and frustrating) customer experience is waiting for support. For decades, scaling customer service meant hiring larger teams, but AI agents are beginning to change the equation. @intercom recently raised $250M in debt financing to accelerate a new generation of AI customer agents. The first release is expected as early as next month, with more rolling out throughout the year. Co-founder & CEO @eoghan describes these agents as sellers, advisers, teachers, and experts that are capable of delivering customer experiences that would be impossible for human teams alone. At the center of this push is @fin_ai, Intercom’s AI customer agent, which the company continues to advance as AI becomes core to the support stack. The momentum is clear: the company recently reported over $400M in ARR and is expanding globally, with new hiring across engineering, product, and AI research. Congratulations to Eoghan, @destraynor, @ciaran_lee, and the Intercom team! Read the full story here: ventureburn.com/intercom-raise… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

We are excited to launch @NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super on DeepInfra! Built for complex multi-agent applications, this open hybrid MoE model with 120B/12B active params delivers up to 5x faster inference and supports a 1M-token context window — all optimized for efficient single-GPU deployment. Available now on DeepInfra OpenAI-compatible API at $0.10 input / $0.50 output / $0.04 cached per 1M tokens.

As digital ecosystems expand, intelligent, always-on risk visibility is becoming foundational. @UpGuard has raised $75M to expand its AI-powered cyber risk platform by accelerating product development, scaling global go-to-market, and strengthening its enterprise capabilities. The platform processes more than 100 billion risk signals daily, helping organizations manage internal and third-party cyber exposure. Today, UpGuard is trusted by 50,000 organizations across 90+ countries, with over 2,000 customers supported by a distributed workforce across 14 countries with localized support. Congratulations to @mikebaukes, Alan Sharp-Paul, and the UpGuard team on this milestone! Read the full story here: upguard.com/press/upguard-… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

We’re thrilled to celebrate Index Robotics $1M seed round alongside Futureplay and Bass Ventures! In a world where automation demands precision, responsiveness, and real-world durability, Index Robotics is building high-precision actuators and upper-body prototypes that can meet industrial requirements today and grow into autonomous systems tomorrow. This is where the physical AI narrative becomes powerful: motion data collected from real-world deployments doesn’t just validate hardware performance — it feeds a roadmap for gradually expanding AI-driven autonomy over time. Each deployment compounds intelligence. We’re excited to back Seunghoon Shin and the Index Robotics team as they help position Korea at the forefront of the physical AI movement. Full story here: en.wowtale.net/2026/02/20/233… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

We’ve partnered with Samsung to bring Perplexity directly into the upcoming Galaxy S26. Every new S26 will ship with Perplexity built in as a system‑level AI, with its own wake word: “Hey Plex.”

We are pleased to announce a strategic investment from Citi! sakana.ai/citi/ This milestone marks Citi’s first such investment in a Japanese company. The investment reflects their high regard for our advanced technical capabilities and our proven track record of implementing AI within the financial sector. We are focused on developing new enterprise-grade AI solutions using nature-inspired intelligence. Our goal has consistently been to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and practical business applications. Building on our work developing highly specialized AI agents for financial domains, we are ready to take the next step. Through this partnership, we aim to accelerate our international expansion and drive innovation in global financial services, originating from Japan.

Introducing Perplexity Computer. Computer unifies every current AI capability into one system. It can research, design, code, deploy, and manage any project end-to-end.

Autonomy is becoming a structural advantage in modern logistics. @mightyflydrone’s $10M financing — bringing total funding to $15M — marks an important step toward scaling autonomous hybrid eVTOL cargo aircraft for expedited commercial and defense delivery. Purpose-built for middle-mile and last-mile B2B logistics, MightyFly’s platform can carry 100–500 pounds across 600–1,000 miles, execute multi-stop routes, and operate with minimal infrastructure dependency. With 400+ autonomous flights completed, three full-scale aircraft developed, over $1M in revenue generated, and close to a total of $300M in contracts, the team is demonstrating that autonomy in aviation is moving from prototype to real-world deployment. Congratulations to @ManalHabib12 and the MightyFly team on these achievements and milestone! Full story here: verticalmag.com/press-releases… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leocle @tchae

AI design is becoming fully generative, dynamic, and motion-first. When @canva relaunched the all-new Affinity suite in 2024, it surpassed 5 million downloads. Now, with the acquisitions of @cavalry__app and MangoAI, Canva is expanding further into motion and performance-driven creativity. Cavalry brings high-end motion design tooling into the fold, while Mango AI is adding algorithmic depth to Canva’s growing AI stack. The appointment of Canva’s first Chief Algorithms Officer signals that AI is no longer a side feature — it’s core infrastructure. AI-native creativity is here, and platforms with global reach are turning breakthrough research into tools used by hundreds of millions worldwide. Full story here: canva.com/newsroom/news/… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

When frontier technology meets a legacy industry, even the most stubborn systems get a revamp. @KIN's FY2025 results make that clear: revenue climbed 29% to $201.6M, alongside a record 49% baseline operating margin, demonstrating that a tech-first insurance platform can drive both growth and efficiency at scale. By combining direct distribution with data-driven underwriting and pricing, Kin is building structural advantages in a market long defined by complexity and intermediaries. As they expand their product suite and deepen customer relationships, they’re showing how modern infrastructure can unlock durable performance in one of the world’s largest financial sectors. Excited to see the momentum continue! Full report here: kin.com/news/kin-fy-20… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

@SpotHero’s industry-leading parking reservation experience will soon be integrated directly into the Uber app ecosystem! The acquisition enables users to find and book parking at more than 13,000 garages, lots, and valets across 400+ cities in the U.S. & Canada with ease. Since 2011, SpotHero has built the most trusted digital parking marketplace in North America, helping millions of drivers access affordable parking and generating over $2 billion in parking reservations along the way. ‌ This acquisition is a leap toward reducing friction in daily transportation and strengthening the role SpotHero plays as a core part of the mobility stack. We’re incredibly proud of Mark Lawrence, Larry Kiss, and the entire team and excited for the next chapter as SpotHero’s technology scales alongside Uber’s global reach. Full story here: cnbc.com/2026/02/23/ube… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee

We’ve opened our U.S. office to scale quantum sensing and AI for critical minerals and subsurface intelligence. We’re building the future of mining with our AI Geologist & field-ready quantum gravimeters. A huge shoutout to our partners & the incredible team for this milestone!

We are thrilled to announce investment from @Salesforce! 🤝 Salesforce Ventures values our world-class research capabilities and our deep understanding of Japanese enterprise needs—bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI and implementation. Our proven track record in mission-critical domains, such as finance and defense, was a key driver for this collaboration. We will evaluate potential integration of Sakana AI’s enterprise technology into Salesforce’s global platform offerings.

Ironclad has surpassed $200M in annual recurring revenue, a clear indicator that enterprise AI contracting is moving from experimentation to mission-critical adoption. This milestone underscores how deeply organizations are leaning into AI to streamline how contracts get done and reduce legal risk. What’s especially notable in this phase of growth is how fast Ironclad’s AI legal assistant, Jurist, is catching on: it delivered nearly 6× year-over-year ARR growth, and about 1 in 3 new Ironclad customers in the past 6 months adopted it. That kind of traction shows that AI assistants for legal workflows are becoming an essential part of contract operations. Congratulations to the Ironclad team! Exciting to see real enterprise impact as AI tools like Jurist gain genuine customer momentum. Read the full story: prnewswire.com/news-releases/… @christine_tsai @vishalharnal @atxfrench @TonyW @leoclee @claytonwbryan

@makethedot Takes Its Product-First Case to the Runway With Supima: sourcingjournal.com/topics/technol…

This year, be a fire horse. 🔥🐎✨

DeepInfra x @NVIDIA Blackwell x @latitudeio Latitude runs large-scale MoE models on our Blackwell-powered inference platform with NVFP4 and TensorRT-LLM — powering AI Dungeon (1.5M monthly players) and their upcoming Voyage AI RPG platform. "DeepInfra on NVIDIA Blackwell gives us the performance we need at a cost that actually works at scale." — Nick Walton, CEO, Latitude deepinfra.com/blog/nvidia-bl…