Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 154- February 15)
Welcome to Startup Monday, my weekly newsletter that recaps the week in the global startup ecosystem. To have this newsletter emailed to you, you can sign up here.
Top startup news to follow this week:
1. Boston biotech Bambusa banks $90M for next-gen bispecifics
After forming in May 2024, the young startup has quickly grown and will use the new funds to support lead programs through phase 1 clinical trials.
Bambusa’s lead candidate, known as BBT001, is a bispecific antibody designed to uproot current standard-of-care treatments in a range of undisclosed dermatological conditions, according to the biotech. The asset is currently in phase 1 testing.
The company has also finished preclinical studies for another bispecific that can be used to ask the FDA to launch in-human studies. Dubbed BBT002, the candidate is created to have applications across respiratory, dermatology and gastroenterology areas, according to Bambmusa.
The biotech has two earlier-stage candidates, called BBT003 and BB004, that may potentially be tested in inflammatory bowel diseases and rheumatological indications, respectively.
“The next wave of therapeutics for patients with I&I disorders will be both more efficacious and convenient than currently available options,” RA Capital partner Derek DiRocco, Ph.D., said in the release. “The Bambusa Therapeutics pipeline fits this profile, as their half-life extended bispecific antibodies were designed to target complementary disease-driving signaling pathways, affording the potential for a best-in-disease profile for patients.”
The biotech is led by founder and CEO Shanshan Xu, M.D., Ph.D., who previously held leadership roles at BioNTech and Berenberg Capital Markets.
2. VC funding in European defence and security tech surges to record $5.2bn
Big funding rounds for software developer Helsing and drone maker Tekever defy broader downturn in venture investing.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of and . Email Copyright Policy to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be . licensing@ft.com Nato Innovation Fund was launched in 2022 to help fill a gap in funding for companies working on military and commercial capabilities amid concerns that European start-ups lacked the financial muscle of their US peers. Venture investors, in particular in Europe, had long been wary of backing defence tech companies over ethical concerns but that has begun to change since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lengthy government procurement cycles in defence are also seen as a challenge for smaller companies. Chen said the fund was trying to “open up procurement channels”. This is “the chicken and the egg problem”, added Chen. Faster procurement was needed in order for the burgeoning sector to attract more private capital. “For this industry to grow we need more private capital. It won’t just be government grants and public money,” she added. https://www.ft.com/content/6c21daac-1a07-4fe2-bd32-7237a8285717The
3. Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, said to be in talks to raise $10B
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is said to be in talks to raise $10 billion in a round that would value xAI at
Bloomberg reported Friday that xAI is canvassing existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Valor Equity Partners for the round, which would bring xAI’s total raised to $22.4 billion, according to Crunchbase. Bloomberg also noted that discussions are ongoing and that the terms of the fundraising round may change.
4. Phase raises $13M to speed up the UX design process with its no-code platform
UX and UI designers work closely with engineers throughout product development to build and implement design concepts and wireframes for functional user interfaces. Regular communication, feedback, and testing are required for the collaboration to work smoothly and deliver a user experience that aligns with the intended design goals.
“Implementing UI is an expensive, time-consuming manual process involving designers, product managers, and engineers,” Budden said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. “Comprehensive user testing is also delayed until after that process is complete.”
Budden said Phase’s product is much easier for a UI/UX designer to use than other tools like Adobe After Effects or Figma. “The key differentiator to Figma is the completeness of the prototype. So in Figma, you can build a prototype that does, maybe 20% or 30% of what the real website does, and then the other 70% or 80% that the prototype doesn’t do; you then have to communicate with the engineers, product managers, and people have to figure that out,” Budden said. “Our product is being built to do 100% of what a real website or app does.”
This is supposedly the first in a series of launches, and there are plans to introduce three more UI design and code tools of its WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) platform this year and next year to streamline all the manual work required for UI/UX design, Budden told TechCrunch. The three new features will be UI advanced prototyping, UI design, and UI code export.
5. Apptronik, which makes humanoid robots, raises $350M as category heats up
“What 2025 is about for Apptronik and the humanoid industry is really demonstrating useful work in these applications with these initial early adopters and customers,” CEO Jeff Cardenas tells TechCrunch. “And then true commercialization and scaling happening in 2026 and beyond. That’s what this raise is designed to do.”
Apptronik’s humanoid work dates all the way back to 2013, three years prior to its founding. It was then that members of the University of Austin at Texas’s Human Centered Robotics Lab competed in the NASA-DARPA Robotics Challenge , an effort that centered around a humanoid robot called . Since then, the space agency has maintained a partnership with Apptronik as the company has readied its own generation of humanoids, including its current humanoid, .
Cardenas points to that decade-plus of humanoid experience as a primary differentiator between Apptronik and competitors like Figure, 1X, and Tesla. Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics have long histories as well, but Apptronik is a seasoned veteran in the category compared to much of the competition.
6. Drone Defense Startup Hidden Level Locks Up $100M in Two Rounds
Another day and another big round for a defense tech firm.
The Syracuse, New York-based startup said the new cash comes six months after it raised a previously unannounced $35 million Series B.
Hidden Level’s passive radar systems allows users to detect and track drones and other objects in the air — a more common tactic in modern warfare. The passive radar systems cannot identify approaching aircraft without being detected.
The company has contracts this year to support deployments for the , , U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Air Force , U.S. Indo-Pacific Command , U.S. Northern Command and other federal, state and local agencies. U.S. Central Command
Hidden level is just the latest startup to collect a big check — or two — from VCs interested in defense tech.
Just last week, El Segundo, California-based , a defense manufacturer developing long-range hypersonic strike weapons, raised a in a mix of debt and equity. $100 million Series A led the equity portion. Lightspeed Venture Partners
7. Archer Aviation doubles down on defense aircraft with $300M raise
Escalating geopolitical tensions and a new administration with a hawkish defense agenda have led many startups to embrace dual-use strategies to secure revenue through military applications. It’s a trend that is already heating up in aerospace.
Take Archer Aviation, a California-based startup building eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles). Until very recently, Archer’s go-to-market strategy was an air taxi network across several cities in the U.S. and abroad.
Archer’s focus is now more acutely on defense, and it has attracted fresh capital to further that mission.
The company, which went public in September 2021 via a special purpose acquisition merger (SPAC), on Tuesday announced a from institutional investors like BlackRock and Wellington. The raise brings Archer’s total funding to around $3.36 billion. This fresh capital comes off the back of a $300 million equity raise in December to fund its new Archer Defense program.$430 million round
As part of that program, Archer signed an exclusive deal with weapons manufacturer Anduril to jointly develop a hybrid gas-and-electric-powered VTOL aircraft for critical defense applications. Together, the two are targeting a program of record from the Department of Defense, which is a budgeted acquisition program with guaranteed funding over a set period.
“As we dug into the work we were doing on the defense front, we realized that the market was a lot larger than we initially expected, both in terms of scope as well as timing,” Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch.
“We’re the only company in the space that I think is targeting a sizable defense program of record,” Goel continued. “So we really want to be strategic with the investments we’re making and go full steam ahead on this.”
Rivals in the space like Joby Aviation and Beta Technologies also have military contracts to test their aircraft for surveillance, logistics, and reconnaissance missions. Archer has such contracts with the military, but what it’s chasing now via the program of record is guaranteed funding, a path to scale, and a serious competitive moat.
Goel confirmed that the $300 million from investors will mainly be used to accelerate the work Archer is doing with Anduril to build a hybrid craft (VTOL), though he didn’t share any updates on the company’s bid with the DOD.
Archer’s decision comes at a moment of industry momentum.
8. Six months after raising $29M, Candid Health nabs another $52.5M to ease medical billing
Each insurance may require slightly different information on medical claims, even for the same procedure. Incorrectly filed claims can lead to denied coverage, requiring manual resubmission and delayed payments.
After five years at Palantir, Perry co-founded Candid Health in 2019 with the goal of simplifying medical billing by automating claims submissions and eliminating manual work for billing teams.
Perry built the company by drawing on his Palantir experience, where he witnessed the power of data analytics firsthand. Medical billing is ultimately a data engineering problem, he told TechCrunch.
Cruising at 300 feet, Archer Aviation’s electric aircraft, Midnight, makes less noise than a passing car on the highway. In an urban environment, it blends into other transportation sounds in a way that helicopters cannot.
“The sound profile is why we are so well positioned to [build aircraft] for defense,” Goel said. “If you look at the traditional helicopters that the defense industry uses, they’re very loud and have very noticeable heat signatures. And so that makes helicopters not a great fit for more discreet missions.”
Archer’s Midnight is built with 12 sets of engines and propellers — six in the front, six in the back. That distributed propulsion among smaller rotors that spin slightly slower — rather than a single large main rotor and tail rotor that operate at high speeds — creates much less noise.
VTOLs are also designed to transition from a vertical lift to a winged horizontal flight like an airplane. When in forward flight, the Midnight generates all the lift from the wing, rather than from downward thrust, which also reduces overall rotor noise, Archer’s CEO and founder Adam Goldstein told TechCrunch during a recent flight demonstration.
9. OneID secures €19.1 million to transform digital identity verification
The funding round was led by ACF Investors and more than 200 UK, Swedish, and U.S. Angel Investors.
Paula Sussex , CEO of OneID, says, “ At OneID, our goal is to make the world safer by making digital identity verification more efficient and accessible for businesses and users. We’ve had a tremendous year in 2024 across several use cases. With our integration with Adobe set to go live with leading high-street banks in the UK, we are proving our ability to solve urgent business problems against the toughest standard-setters. The funding from ACF Investors is a strong vote of confidence in us as a business, and we look forward to working with the team to supercharge our growth in 2025. “
Founded in 2018 by Robert Kotlarz, OneId is provides digital, real-time identity services that create “ absolute certainty “ between a business and a customer. Their digital ID services use advanced counter-fraud measures to help protect banks, businesses, and consumers from online identity fraud. Helping businesses reduce operational costs, increase sales, and improve customer engagement by streamlining existing ID processes, including payments, direct debits, onboarding, and more.
As the only UK Identity Service with access to bank-verified data, approximately 50 million UK users are already set up to use OneID for real-time verification. The technology requires no registration process, does not store any personal data, and removes the need for scanning passports or taking selfies to authenticate your identity online.
This approach enables a document-free digital identification process that can be completed within twelve seconds.
According to OneID, the Department of Science and Technology’s proposed Digital ID for age verification and the Online Safety Act of 2023 require more than 100k online service providers to adopt stringent identity and age assurance measures. OneID’s bank-based identity and age verification solution ensures compliance with the Act whilst maintaining user privacy.
The funding follows a period of growth and implementation of the company’s technology with a growing customer base, including NatWest and Adobe. OneID will use the funding to enhance its product offering, expand its operations into new market sectors and deliver its services to new and existing customers.
10. Germitec raises €28.8 million for UV-C High-Level Disinfection in ultrasounds
Germitec, a Bordeaux-based MedTech startup specialising in UV-C High-Level Disinfection solutions, has announced the successful closing of a €28.8 million financing round to accelerate its development in the U.S. and continue advancements in UV-C infection prevention technologies.
The round was led by European investment group Eurazeo through its Nov Santé Actions Non Cotées fund. Existing shareholders also participated in the round. Combined with prior funding from the European Investment Bank in 2023, this financing positions Germitec for sustained growth over the next two years, with profitability on the horizon.
“ We are thrilled to welcome Eurazeo as a strategic investor and are equally grateful for the continued support from our existing shareholders ,” said Vincent Gardès , Chief Executive Officer of Germitec. “ This funding marks a significant milestone for Germitec as we expand our footprint in the U.S. and maintain our commitment to developing cutting-edge disinfection solutions that enhance patient safety and operational efficiency .”
Founded in 2005, Germitec’s flagship product line offers healthcare facilities fast, effective, and chemical-free solutions to prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) and improve the standard of care.
According to Germitec, the infectious risk is associated to the quality of hygiene practices surrounding the ultrasound procedure (hand hygiene, maintenance of the medical environment, ultrasound gel, and protective sheaths for probes), to the management, and the disinfection of the probes themselves.
As per figures on their website, 13% of vaginal probes used with sheaths test HPV positive after disinfection with wipes, 70% of HAIs can be prevented by implementing new infection control interventions, and that 15% of patients in low and mid-income countries will acquire at least one HAI during their hospital stay.
With global demand for infection prevention on the rise, Germitec’s solutions are well-positioned to address critical needs everywhere ultrasounds are performed: Fertility (IVF), gynaecology, cardiology, and Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) among other specialties. Thanks to the UV-C technology and its availability in 40 countries, 2.2 million patients are addressed across the world every year.
With an FDA De Novo granted in August 2024 and a market opportunity of 60k units in the U.S., Germitec is poised to quickly capture market share and “ double its revenue every year .”
“ One of Eurazeo’s key pillars is to invest in major public health challenges. We are therefore extremely proud to support Germitec with its UV-C High-Level Disinfection solutions for ultrasound probes, and its mission to revolutionise infection prevention ,” said Arnaud Vincent , Managing Director — Healthcare, Eurazeo. “ Germitec’s innovative UV-C technology aligns with our commitment to foster transformative healthcare solutions that improve patient outcomes and system sustainability .”
The proceeds from this financing round will be allocated to scaling U.S. operations, accelerating commercial adoption and investing in research and development to expand Germitec’s product portfolio. The company’s efforts aim to set new standards for disinfection efficiency and safety in the healthcare industry.
