12 Silicon Valley Startups Raised $598M Last Week
Parallel Raised $100M Series B led by Sequoia Capital
Happy Monday!
Parallel
Founded by Parag Agrawal, (former CEO & CTO of Twitter), Parallel just announced it has raised $100M Series B, led by Sequoia Capital bringing its valuation to $2 billion.
Parallel, which has developed a web API and platform for AI agents to search the web, has about 50 employees. Its prior funding round was a $100M Series A last November (6 months ago), which valued the company at $740M. The startup has raised $230M in total.
There is a belief that agents will use (search, pay, social) the web a lot more than humans, and therefore will need their own infrastructure to access it. What’s more?
Shapes
Founded by Anushk Mittal (Georgia Tech dropout) in 2021, Shapes just announced its $8M seed led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Designed for Gen Alpha and Gen Z, Shapes allows users to group chat with friends and AI entities called “Shapes.” As of March 2026, the platform had over 400,000 monthly active users, with many spending between two to four hours per day in the app.
I believe Gen Alphas will grow up with AI as a core part of their lives, and socializing with AI alongside human friends could become the norm. I can certainly see brands establishing a presence on the platform to target this specific market.
Scout AI
Founded by Colby Adcock (board member of Figure) and Collin Otis (ex-Kodiak Robotics), Scout AI just raised $100M Series A led by Align Ventures and Draper Associates.
Scout AI is developing Fury — a foundation model for unmanned warfare developed to translate commander intent into coordinated autonomous action enabling layered orchestration for command and control systems across air, land, sea, and space.
It’s quite interesting to see investors continuing to commit substantial capital to the defense tech industry bolstered by Andreessen Horowitz announcing their American Dynamism Fund in January 2026 to focus specifically on this sector.
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Last week a total of 12 startups raised $598M in funding, 1 exits:
$468M goes to 7 Enterprise startups
$100M goes to 1 Defense Tech startup
$15M goes to 1 Gaming startup
$8M goes to 1 Consumer startup
$7M goes to 2 BioTech startups
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Edith
X, LinkedIn
Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)
Enterprise
Hightouch (data and AI for marketing) raised $150M Series D led by Bain Capital Ventures, Goldman Sachs Alternatives
Netomi (enterprise agentic customer experience platform) raised $110M Series C led by Accenture Ventures
Parallel (search for AI agents) raised $100M Series B led by Sequoia Capital
Standard Intelligence (artificial general intelligence research) raised $75M Series A led by Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital
Featherless AI (open source AI model) raised $20M Series A led by Airbus Ventures, AMD Ventures
OpenObserve (AI-native observability platform) raised $10M Series A led by Dell Technologies Capital, Nexus Venture Partners
Lumian (AI-native Amazon agency) raised $3M Seed led by Bowery Capital
DefenseTech
Scout AI (foundation model for unmanned warfare) raised $100M Series A led by Align Ventures, Draper Associates
Gaming
GGWP (AI-powered game community moderation platform) raised $15M Series A led by Headline Asia, Korea Investment Partners, Smilegate Investment
Consumer
Shapes (AI social app) raised $8M Seed led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
BioTech
Sapho Bio (rapid microbiology testing platform) raised $5M Seed
Fermeate (fermentation with light) raised $2M Seed led by Newfund Capital
IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)