Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 163- May 23)
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. Exclusive: Ray Kurzweil’s humanoid robot startup in talks for $100 million investment
May 20 (Reuters) — A humanoid robotics startup co-founded by prominent artificial-intelligence futurist Ray Kurzweil said on Tuesday that venture capital firm Gauntlet Ventures will back its $100 million Series B funding round.
The company, Beyond Imagination, will be valued at $500 million, and venture capital firm Gauntlet Ventures will be the round’s sole investor.
Kurzweil is known for popularizing the term “the singularity,” when he predicted two decades ago that by 2045, artificial intelligence would surpass human intelligence and embark on a path of accelerating self-enhancement. These ideas, which once seemed like science fiction, are now viewed as mainstream by many technologists.
Beyond Imagination is co-founded by scientist, entrepreneur and filmmaker Harry Kloor. The company has developed a humanoid robot — the Beyond Bot — and accompanying AI models that it intends to deploy in industrial settings such as factories, pharmaceutical plants and chip manufacturing facilities, said Gauntlet Ventures co-founder Oliver Carmack.
The company has been testing its robots and is now looking for large enterprises into which they can be deployed, Carmack said, adding that he chose to back Beyond Imagination because of its potential to revolutionize U.S. manufacturing and address the projected global shortage of skilled labor.
2. Bonsai Robotics Secures $15 Million in Series A Funding to Advance Its Physical AI Solutions for Agriculture Applications
“We have made significant progress building our AI model and data set for autonomous orchard management since our seed round of funding a year ago, so this additional funding is strong validation of the incredible work our team has accomplished and our future growth prospects,” said Tyler Niday, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bonsai Robotics. “Additionally, this capital will allow us to continue to expand our partnerships with manufacturers and growers by delivering innovative physical AI technology solutions that address the most pressing challenges in agriculture today.”
With its flagship product, Visionsteer™, Bonsai provides technology designed to meet grower needs, offering data insights, crop analysis, notifications, job planning, and autonomous vehicle control. The Company is currently partnered with multiple equipment manufacturers and has deployed over 40 units with its integrated autonomous solution for tree nut orchard applications both in the U.S. and Australia. Furthermore, the Company has collected data from operations on over 500,000 acres, enabling it to provide leading physical AI technology that is helping a variety of orchard growers reduce operating and capital equipment costs, increase yields, and gain unparalleled insights not available before.
“Bonsai represents exactly what we look for at Bison — founders who combine deep technical expertise with industry knowledge to solve critical challenges,” said Tom Biegala, Founding Partner at Bison. “Their vision-based approach to agricultural automation has the potential to transform how specialty crops are grown, addressing the urgent labor and efficiency challenges facing growers while building toward a more sustainable future for agriculture.”
Bonsai is at the forefront of re-thinking basic autonomy from a first principle perspective for agriculture applications and is addressing some of the industry’s most urgent challenges including climate change, food security, labor shortages and rising grower costs.
About Bonsai Robotics Inc.
3. Robotics Industry Report 2025: Market Set to Hit US$ 8.28 Billion by 2033 — AI and Machine Learning Transforming the Landscape
The United States automotive robotics industry is on a path of significant growth, with forecasts indicating a rise to US$ 3.31 billion by 2024 and US$ 8.28 billion by 2033, driven by a CAGR of 10.74% from 2025 to 2033. This surge is propelled by advancements in automation, increased AI adoption, and the precision demands of automotive manufacturing. Key factors include the evolution of electric and autonomous vehicles, AI-driven robotic innovations, and increased demand for advanced sensors and controllers. Despite obstacles like high initial costs and workforce transition challenges, industry investment continues, underscoring the U.S. commitment to robotics in automotive production.
Automotive robotics integrate advanced technologies to automate processes like manufacturing, assembly, and quality inspection. Robots perform tasks such as welding, painting, and material handling with high precision and speed, supported by AI and machine learning, which increase production capacity, reduce errors, and enhance workplace safety. U.S. manufacturers, including industry leaders and suppliers, apply these technologies to maintain global competitiveness, meet the evolving demands of electric and autonomous vehicles, and utilize collaborative robots (cobots) for improved manufacturing flexibility. Investments in Industry 4.0 are driving U.S. automakers to integrate robotics for predictive maintenance, real-time data analysis, and tailored production, resulting in heightened efficiency and quality.
Automation plays a crucial role in enhancing the U.S. automotive production process, offering increased efficiency, precision, and cost-effectiveness. Automakers deploy robots for welding, painting, material handling, and assembly, ensuring consistent quality and minimizing waste. The shift towards electric vehicles (EVs) prompts substantial investment in advanced robotics to optimize production and maintain global competitiveness. For example, the Massimo Group announced the incorporation of a new automated assembly robot line in Texas to enhance ATV and UTV production. AI and machine learning are transforming automotive robotics in the U.S., enabling predictive maintenance, workflow optimization, and reduced downtime.
Advanced machine vision technology further enhances quality assurance by identifying minute imperfections in vehicle parts, solidifying AI’s role in boosting the efficiency and safety of automotive robotics. NVIDIA’s release of the NVIDIA CosmosT platform in January 2025 exemplifies this advancement, offering enhanced capabilities for autonomous vehicles and robotics. The burgeoning demand for electric and autonomous vehicles propels the need for sophisticated automotive robotics. EV production relies heavily on precision processes such as battery fabrication and lightweight material handling, and robots adeptly meet these requirements. As the EV and self-driving technology markets expand, robotics becomes integral to optimizing production and meeting consumer demands.
4. RevenueCat raises $50M as it expands beyond mobile app monetization
RevenueCat , a company so tied to the mobile economy that now one-in-three new subscription apps launch with its software under the hood, is preparing to expand its business. Capitalizing on its market position, which now includes powering the subscriptions in over 70,000 mobile apps, RevenueCat’s growth plan will focus on using its understanding of the mobile industry to solve more of the common problems that mobile developers face.
To fuel its growth, RevenueCat has raised $50 million in Series C funding in a round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Returning investors, including Index Ventures, Y Combinator, Adjacent, Volo Ventures, and SaaStr Fund, also participated.
“With where we’re at, this gives us room to grow… I think we can build a public-scale company,” Eiting tells TechCrunch.
Key to the company’s growth are the next products RevenueCat has on its roadmap.
Having initially concerned itself with making it easier for developers to implement subscriptions without needing to write as much code, RevenueCat’s future involves solving a broader set of problems facing mobile developers.
Eiting compares the next phase of the company’s growth to something like Shopify’s e-commerce platform. Initially, Shopify offered tools to run an online storefront with its subscription-as-a-service offering, but later expanded to be a broader e-commerce business that included things like fulfillment, lending, an app marketplace, and more.
“We know a lot about this industry,” explains Eiting, of the app economy. “There are a ton of commonalities between all these businesses… common problems that go unsolved. We’re in a position to solve those now.”
Within its core business, RevenueCat is working to improve point-of-purchase acquisition to help developers turn their customers into paid subscribers. The company also launched new tools like a drag-and-drop paywall editor and new tools for apps offering virtual currencies.
Today, the tool competes with Stripe, Recurly, Chargebee, and others, but is built specifically to meet the needs of mobile app developers.
Currently, just over 2,000 developers are trying out RevenueCat’s billing service.
The company isn’t just providing the tools to help developers adopt the new technology, it’s also offering the insights as to whether they should.
These tests can provide the industry (and Apple itself, perhaps), with data about what in-app purchases (IAPs) are really worth. It may turn out that the commissions Apple charges wouldn’t even need a big discount down from the standard 30%, depending on what the data indicates.
“I’m just happy that we can actually do the experiment, because I don’t think Apple’s done it,” Eiting tells TechCrunch. “I’m excited to finally get some data, finally settle the debate — or at least enrich the debate.”
Another area impacting RevenueCat’s business is AI.
In addition to providing payment infrastructure to customers like OpenAI for its ChatGPT app and other AI model providers, RevenueCat is facing an explosion of “vibe-coded” apps — apps built by developers who leveraged AI technology to handle the coding process. Eiting recalls telling a kid at a school’s career day about vibe coding and a month-and-a-half later, the kid shipped a basic app on the App Store.
“The kid can’t program, but in two months built an app,” he says. “When I think about what my journey was to get to that point — his was massively compressed. And that’s going to have effects on the economy in ways we can’t really even understand at the moment.”
This shift in how apps are built could see RevenueCat working with companies that provide AI-powered coding tools.
The new funds will also help RevenueCat build its next products, hire, and fuel merger and acquisition efforts to accelerate growth.
“I think we’ve actually gotten pretty good at building targeted engineering and product teams to go after things. And we want to scale that as much as possible,” Eiting says.
5. Defense Tech Startup Shield AI Hits $5.3B Valuation Mark
The direct hits just keep coming for the defense tech sector.
Just a day after anti-drone tech startup raised a , defense and aerospace startup $250 million Series D locked up a $240 million F-1 strategic funding round at a $5.3 billion valuation.
The new valuation is nearly double the company’s previous $2.7 billion valuation after it raised a $200 million Series F in October 2023 (it later added another $300 million in debt and equity to the round).
San Diego-based Shield AI creates an array of intelligent, autonomous systems for the defense sector. Its software, for instance — Hivemind Mind — enables aircraft to operate autonomously in high-threat environments.
The new funding received what the company called “major participation from strategic investors” Hanwha Aerospace and , as well as participation from existing investors including L3 Harris Technologies , Andreessen Horowitz and . US Innovative Technology Fund Washington Harbour Partners
Big dollars for defense
If rounds such as those for Shield AI and Epirus keep up, defense tech should easily blow past last year’s venture numbers.
Funding to VC-backed startups in defense — defined here as the industries of military, national security and law enforcement — hit $3 billion in 2024, per Crunchbase . That’s a slight 11% uptick from 2023, which saw $2.7 billion raised.
Just last month, autonomous surface vessels maker locked up a $600 million Series C led by investor that valued the startup at $4 billion. Based in Austin, Texas, Saronic designs and manufactures autonomous surface vehicles — basically drones for the that move along the water’s surface.
6. Alt Carbon scores $12M seed to scale carbon removal in India
The journey began in May 2020 with a bittersweet homecoming. Siblings Shrey and Sparsh Agarwal drove 16 hours from the eastern state of Kolkata to Darjeeling — a city known for tea farming in the leafy foothills of the Himalayas — expecting to bid farewell to their family’s tea estate, Salem Hill, which was facing bankruptcy. Instead, that farewell visit planted the seeds for Alt Carbon, which they officially launched in late 2023.
Initially, they explored carbon markets as a way to revive their family business and support other tea estates in the region by generating supplementary income. But during their exploration, they discovered enhanced rock weathering as an approach that could transform Darjeeling’s legacy from being at risk of climate change impact to a frontier of climate action.
“Within carbon markets, our realization was that a lot of the projects in India, which are more avoidance-based, are of very low quality, and they produce junk credits,” Sparsh said in an exclusive interview.
Last year, Alt Carbon started its pilot around the Agarwals’ family tea estate on about 500 acres of land, which they later scaled up in North Bengal, expanding their scope from tea farms to those of rice and bamboo. The startup aims to expand to 500,000 hectares of land.
By 2030, the startup aims to remove 5 million tons of carbon from the region, Sparsh told TechCrunch.
Alt Carbon deploys enhanced rock weathering using waste basalt rock dust from mines and quarries in the volcanic igneous province of Rajmahal Traps, located in eastern India. The rock dust, a waste product from the construction industry, is spread on farm fields, where it reacts naturally with rainwater to remove carbon dioxide and add micronutrients to the soil to improve its fertility and health and enhance crop yields. When rainwater containing carbon dioxide interacts with basalt dust, it forms stable bicarbonate ions. These are stored in the soil and eventually flow through rivers to the ocean, where they settle as calcium carbonate, locking away carbon for over 10,000 years.
7. Defense startup Kela raises $60 million, reaches $100 million in first-year funding
Kela’s rapid fundraising trajectory-an $11 million Seed round, a $28 million Series A, and now this latest infusion-places it among the most heavily capitalized early-stage defense startups. The company has declined to comment on the new raise.
8. Lithuanian SpaceTech startup Astrolight raises €2.8 million for laser communications platform
The funding round was led by frontier tech investor Balnord, other key investors were EIFO (The Export and Investment Fund of Denmark), Coinvest Capital, and existing investors 3NGLS and Rita Sakus.
Astrolight was founded in 2019 by an ex-Founder and CTO of Kongsberg Nanoavionics, Laurynas Mačiulis, together with Co-founders Julijanas Želudevičius (Center for Physical Sciences and Technology of Lithuania), Dalius Petrulionis (Light Conversion), Martynas Milaševičius and Andrius Stankevičius (Vilnius Tech University.)
Astrolight aims to provide end-to-end optical connectivity solutions by building complete and self-contained hardware for ground and space operational domains. Astrolight designs and manufactures advanced optical communication terminals for space-to-Earth, space-to-space, ship-to-ship, and ground-based links in aerospace and defense applications, leveraging full vertical integration of its technology stack to ensure optimal performance.
They are developing a dual-use communication architecture that can handle both space-to-space and space-to-ground optical links. The company’s goal is to offer optical communication as a service, connecting Astrolight’s and other providers’ optical terminals with its own ground infrastructure.
Mačiulis revealed the future plans, which include deployment of the first operational optical ground station and demonstration of a hybrid space-to-ground and space-to-space optical terminal, which would be based on the company’s existing ATLAS-1 modular design.
“ We are incredibly excited to lead this investment round in Astrolight. We believe their experienced team has developed a truly groundbreaking optical communication technology that is essential to solving the rapidly approaching data bottleneck in space. Their high-speed, jam-resistant solutions are not only critical for the growing satellite market but also represent the kind of frontier innovation that will define the next generation of space infrastructure ,” shared Jarek Pilarczyk , Operating Partner at Balnord.
Earlier this year, Astrolight launched a Danish subsidiary to strengthen collaboration across the Nordics and deliver secure laser communication solutions for space assets in the Arctic region.
“ This is a strategically important investment in a company whose technology plays a vital role in strengthening European space capabilities and resilience. Ground station in the Arctic is a milestone that EIFO is pleased to support as an investor, particularly given the region’s strategic importance to Denmark and EIFO ,” said Louise Flyger , Investment Manager at EIFO.
Viktorija Trimbel , Managing Director at Coinvest Capital, added: “ Our investment in Astrolight reflects our strong belief in the company’s potential to become a global leader in laser communication technologies. The team has demonstrated exceptional technical expertise, a clear vision, and the ability to execute in a highly demanding deep-tech space. We are proud to support their journey as they revolutionise secure data transmission in space and beyond .”
While many players in the space sector focus solely on laser communication between satellites, Astrolight claims to have been targeting the “ missing link between space and Earth “ since its establishment.
According to Goldman Sachs Research , more than 70,000 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites are expected to launch in the next five years. Along with these constellations, the demand for space-to-ground connectivity is increasing. Lasercom is becoming a competitive option to RF, providing more robust links and up to 100 times faster data rates.
Astrolight’s upgraded platform will reportedly allow for greater flexibility in integrating with existing satellite systems and will support on-demand laser communication links, including inter-satellite relays and direct-to-Earth downlinks.
The team emphasises that it does not aim to compete with other constellations or networks but rather to integrate as a complementary infrastructure layer.
9. Dublin-based Kota closes €12.8 million to build the internet’s employee benefits infrastructure
The round was led by Eurazeo, along with existing investors EQT Ventures, Northzone, Frontline Ventures and new investors in 9Yards and Plug and Play. Alongside their Series A, they are also announcing that they’ve obtained their Central Bank of Ireland Authorisation, reportedly making it one of the few technology platforms to be regulated.
Luke Mackey , Founder and CEO said: “ Employee benefits, which can make up 25% of total compensation, are systematically undervalued and expensive. I experienced this as a Founder and a GM — managing benefits in email, between brokers and insurance companies, completely disconnected and alien from anything else in the business. It’s entirely out of date. Ultimately, no one on the team connected or engaged with them, no matter how much we invested. It’s not surprising. Insurance benefits are delivered in clunky portals or in PDFs, which is so unengaging compared to the financial experiences employees are used to.
“Kota integrates directly with insurance companies so we can control that experience and make it easy to roll out and run benefits, no matter who you are or where your team is. This means that employees can quickly understand, enrol, access coverage, retirement plans, or other benefits, and actually value them .”
First launched to customers in 2023, Kota aims to build the internet infrastructure for employee benefits. Empowering modern businesses to offer their employees insurance and retirement benefits more easily and affordably through their platform, app and embedded insurance offerings.
Kota looks to deliver a modern, user-first experience for employee benefits. It integrates directly with insurers and pension providers, giving employees real-time access and control, and HR teams a single platform to manage everything.
The funding will be used to expand the Kota team, increase the variety of insurance carrier partners in its products, and accelerate customer acquisition.
Elise Stern from Eurazeo said “ Kota really stood out to us. With a tech-first approach, they’ve built a robust technical and financial infrastructure: deep integrations with insurers across dozens of countries, visibility across the benefits stack, and a seamless API that allows partners — from HRIS to payroll — to embed benefits natively. Having backed companies like Swile, PayFit, Peakon, and Qonto at Eurazeo, we’ve been long-term believers in the power of tech to reshape the way people work. Kota fits right into that vision, and we’re excited to welcome them to the portfolio .”
Last year, they launched Kota Embed, their embedded insurance offering for HR platforms to make insurance benefits available to their customers without leaving their HRIS or Payroll tool, with customers like Remote, Helios and insurance companies like Irish Life Health as customers.
10. Redesign Health raises $175M fund to back healthcare startups
Redesign was founded in 2018 by CEO Brett Shaheen, first an investor at Goldman Sachs, then a private equity investor at Carlyle and hedge fund Lone Pine Capital. Shaheen helped start dental company Candid in 2017, where he became interested in healthcare venture funding.
The healthcare venture builder has incubated more than 60 companies such as Scriptology, UpLift, Vivid Health and Baton. The new fund is expected to cultivate 20 additional companies that will address topics like healthy aging, expanding sites of service and interoperability.
The new fund contains $25 million more than its last fund, which it raised in 2021. The fund is expected to last for several years, Neil Patel, head of ventures at Redesign, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview. The new fund was backed by Declaration Partners, Euclidean Capital and True North Advisors.
Redesign prides itself on its hands-on mentorship of the fledgling startups it supports.
“We have positioned ourselves as the premier platform for those healthcare founders, or would-be healthcare founders, to be able to partner with us to take the research that we’ve done around specific pain points that exist, relationships with healthcare stakeholders and incumbents that we developed over the years,” Patel said. “Our value proposition is really to try to accelerate their ability and improve their odds of building a sustainable and potentially world-changing company.”
The company has eight investing themes it supports across all of its ventures: addressing the healthcare labor shortage, accelerating value-based and longitudinal care, advancing healthcare interoperability, preparing for an aging population, eliminating barriers to health equity, expanding sites of care, growing the insured population and driving healthcare personalization and consumerization.
Redesign also looks for a startups’ use of technology and how it intersects with their investing themes.
Patel said the fundraise is one indication that investors still want to tackle the $4 trillion healthcare industry.
“I view this as one indication that investors still fundamentally believe that there is a lot of wood to chop here; there’s a lot of problems to solve … it’s a large healthcare market,” Patel said. “There’s tremendous opportunities to innovate, and I see this as a signal of investor confidence in our approach.”
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