The Founders Panorama Brief — week of 26 October 2026
$853M raised in the week's biggest rounds, 8 companies added to our directory and the events ahead.
By The Editors·Oct 30, 2026
Eight notable funding rounds totaled about $853 million this week, led by South Korea’s FuriosaAI with a $620 million Series D, followed by Collective’s $100 million round and U.S.-based AI assistant Wabi’s $55 million seed round. Eight companies were also added to the directory, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Stripe. Coming up on 1 November are AI Expo Europe, alongside AI in Retail and AI in Finance in London.
The biggest rounds
- FuriosaAI raised $620M (Series D) — South Korea. Investors: Cisco Investments, DSC Investment.
- Collective raised $100M (Undisclosed).
- Wabi (AI assistant) raised $55.0M (Seed) — United States. Investors: Amazon Alexa Fund, Andreessen Horowitz.
- Bites raised $40.0M (Series A) — United States. Investors: Horizon Capital, PeakSpan Capital.
- StrollMe raised $24.5M (Other) — Germany. Investors: Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen, Growth Credit Partners.
- ALLOX raised $10.5M (Seed) — Spain. Investors: Asabys Partners, CDTI.
- VUSE XR raised $1.3M (Pre-seed) — Germany. Investors: IACD.
- Urologic Design raised $1.2M (Pre-seed).
Added to the directory
- Anthropic — Building large-scale AI systems focusing on safety and reliability. · San Francisco, United States
- OpenAI — AI research and development.
- Stripe — Online payment processing for internet businesses.
- Replit — Online coding environment.
- Kalshi — Predictive markets platform.
- GitLab — DevOps life cycle tool.
- Twitch — Live streaming platform for gamers.
- Airbnb — Online marketplace for lodging.
On the calendar
- AI Expo Europe — 1 Nov–2 Nov · website
- AI in Retail — 1 Nov, London · website
- AI in Finance — 1 Nov, London · website
- AI in Critical Infrastructure — 1 Nov, London · website
- AFROTECH Conference 2026 — 2 Nov, Houston, United States · website
- Humanoid Robots Summit North America 2026 — 3 Nov, Chicago, United States · website
- Pitch to The 300 — 3 Nov · website
- TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 — 4 Nov, Boston · website
Worth reading
- MENA startups raised 3400000000 in venture capital in the first nine months of 2026 — Dealroom
- Qatar builds a layered startup funding system — facebook.com
- Startup Qatar Investment Program offers technology startups up to $5.5 million — instagram.com
- The AI marketing platform to win AI Search — Profound
- Cybersecurity Awareness Month: New videos, games, and ready-to-use resources — Adaptive Security
- Take 5 minutes to find out where your defenses fail
See the full picture in our rankings, the directory and the events calendar. A new brief is published every Monday.