Config Leads a $227.2M Week
40 early-stage AI startups raise across 14 countries
Hey,
AI agents, infra, and enterprise software soaked up $227.2M last week in early-stage AI. Here’s a look at the key numbers and some promising startups I discovered.
Hunting AI startups to pitch? I’m now pulling custom curated lists from over 15k AI startups I’ve tracked, filtered to your ICP. Get a free sample.
May 10-16: Top Line Numbers
40 early-stage AI deals | $227.2M raised | 14 countries | Median: $3.5M
The split: 26 Seed, 8 Pre-Seed, and 6 Pre-Series A early-stage AI deals.
The number that matters: 62% of this week’s deals came from outside the US.
Biggest round: Config ($27M Seed in Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure). Total seed funding was down by over 30% week-over-week.
The Signal
1/ Software seeds are getting $2–4M; physical AI Seeds are getting $10M+. Robotics averaged $11.7M (4 deals, $46.7M). Manufacturing & Industrials vertical averaged $13.7M (4 deals, $54.7M).
2/ Bay area keeps gettin’ AI love: The week had 28 unique metros, top 5 = 64.2% of dollars, top 10 = 82.5%. SF leads with $58.5M.
3/ Picks-and-shovels still dominate the platform layer. Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure: $64.2M (19.7% of $) on 7 deals. Enterprise Software: $55.7M (17.1%) on 8 deals. Per-deal: $9.2M vs $7.0M.
Breakout Early-Stage AI Startups
1/ Config raised $27M Seed in San Jose. Their core technology transforms human motion data into a format that is optimized for how robots move and interact with their environment. Samsung Venture Investment led, with ZER01NE, LG Technology Ventures, and others participating.
2/ Ciridae raised $20M Seed in San Francisco. They partner with enterprises to map, redesign, and automate end-to-end workflows so software (with human oversight) can execute work in production as mission‑critical infrastructure.
Accel led, with Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and others participating.
3/ Synthetic raised $10M Seed in San Francisco. They plan to do autonomous accounting for startups. By connecting to a company’s financial systems, such as banks, payroll, billing systems, and inboxes, they generate clean, accrual-basis books.
Khosla Ventures led, with Basis Set Ventures, Tobi Lütke, and others participating.
4/ Sprouts.ai raised $9M Pre-Series A in the San Francisco Bay Area. It provides a unified intelligence layer that discovers ideal customer profile (ICP) accounts, enriches contact data with high accuracy, identifies real-time buying signals, and automates multi-channel outreach. True Global Ventures and Accel led.
5/ Origin Lab raised $8M Seed in San Francisco. This approach provides a legal and rights-cleared alternative to scraping video content, ensuring data is source-controlled and designed for model training. Lightspeed Venture Partners led, with SV Angel, Eniac Ventures, and others participating.
6/ Yiren Technology raised RMB100M Pre-Series A in Shanghai. Has developed a proprietary large model called “Xinghan Spacetime” to provide end-to-end data services. Backed by Shanghai Digital Chain Fund, Guofang Venture Capital, Zigong Artificial Intelligence Fund, and others.
7/ White Circle raised $11M Seed in Paris. Functions as a control layer for AI, unifying safety, evaluation, and optimization by checking all inputs and outputs against custom policies. Backed by Romain Huet, Dirk Kingma, Guillaume Lample, and others.
8/ Twin Prime raised $10M Pre-Seed in London. Focuses on creating systems that can natively reason on data from a large number of sensor modalities found in the physical world, such as those used in military and security operations. Expeditions led, with Theon International participating.
9/ Elephant Company raised €5M Seed in Berlin. Its platform includes a mobile app, an AI assistant for on-the-spot answers, an AI course builder that turns internal processes into interactive micro-learning modules, and a central hub for managing content and teams. EnBW New Ventures and Wepa led.
10/ PANTA raised €3.4M Seed in London. Addresses the inefficiencies of the index industry, which often relies on manual workflows, spreadsheets, and outdated systems. Fuel Ventures led, with Innovate UK participating.
11/ SoBanHang raised $3.8M Pre-Series A in Ho Chi Minh City. Operated by parent company Finan, it is a business management platform designed to help micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Vietnam digitize their operations. Hong Leong Bank led, with OSK-SBI Venture Partners, FEBE Ventures, and Antler participating.
Hunting AI startups to pitch? I’m now pulling custom curated lists from over 15k AI startups I’ve tracked, filtered to your ICP. Get a free sample.
12/ Alphadroid raised ₹360M Pre-Series A in Noida. Specializes in creating conversational AI and robotics solutions to automate repetitive tasks in industries such as healthcare, retail, hospitality, and logistics. Alkemi Growth Capital led, with Shree Vasu Logistics Limited participating.
13/ Kaizan raised £2.5M Seed in London. Its AI agents are built to identify signs of client dissatisfaction, suggest actionable steps, and uncover potential upsell opportunities for account management teams, processing communications in over 30 languages. Pembroke VCT led, with Velocity Capital participating.
14/ NanoStruct raised €2.6M Seed in Würzburg. Technology combines nanostructured sensor chips, optical measurement, biotechnology, and machine learning to reduce the detection time for dangerous foodborne pathogens from several days to just a few hours. High-Tech Gründerfonds, Bayern Kapital, and AUXXO Female Catalyst Fund led.
15/ Fresh People raised €2.6M Seed in Valencia. Their system provides personalized recommendations and action plans, helping companies measure the business impact of their leadership initiatives through data-driven talent management. Inveready led, with Archipiélago Next, Successful Fund, and Paloma Tejada participating.
16/ Nivasa Finance raised $3M Seed in Bangalore. Nivasa partners with various banks, small finance banks, housing finance companies, and NBFCs to connect borrowers with formal credit options. Prime Venture Partners led, with Blume Ventures and Whiteboard Capital participating.
17/ Flo Mobility raised $2.5M Pre-Series A in Bangalore. The robot is designed to navigate the unstructured and complex environments of job sites, including rough terrain and multi-floor operations, to transport heavy materials. Mela Ventures and Arali Ventures led.
18/ Lyrie.ai raised $2M Pre-Seed in Dubai. They have developed the Agent Trust Protocol (ATP), an open cryptographic standard designed to provide AI agents with identity verification, scope enforcement, and tamper detection.
Which of the above startups seems the most promising? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks,
Chintan