AI consolidation is setting the pace today — but it’s a split screen. Cohere and Aleph Alpha are reportedly pairing up, while smaller rounds are chasing developer cloud, crypto trading, and even iMessage.
This is Startup Fundraising. Today: a major AI funding push, a $72 million developer-cloud round, a mobile trading seed deal, and two students trying to build an AI social network.
Sunday stack. Let’s go.
Yep — and we’re starting with the AI deal that kind of frames the whole day.
From Maria Deutscher at SiliconANGLE:
Artificial intelligence startups Cohere Inc. and Aleph Alpha GmbH today announced that they intend to merge. The transaction is backed by Schwarz Group GmbH, Germany’s largest retailer. It plans to lead a funding round into the combined company by making a $600 million “structured financing commitment.” CNBC reported that the Series E deal, which is also expected to draw other investors, will close later this year.
That’s consolidation with a very European accent: sovereign AI, regulated industries, and a giant retailer writing the check. The pitch is pretty clear — the biggest model doesn’t automatically win; the trusted one actually gets deployed.
Next up, from Arabiatomorrow:
The recent $72 million Series C funding round secured by Belfast-based Cloudsmith underscores a confluence of strategic priorities among global institutional investors, particularly in the high-growth realms of AI-driven software development and supply chain security. Led by TCV, a firm renowned for catalyzing ecosystem value through sustained capital deployment and operational rigor, the investment reflects a broader appetite for technologies that fortify resilience amid accelerating digital transformation.
Artifact management used to sound like plumbing. Now investors hear AI infrastructure, supply-chain security, enterprise compliance — all bundled into one very fundable category.
Now to VC Tavern:
Liquid, a New York City–based financial technology startup blending mobile trading, yield generation and artificial intelligence, has raised $7.6 million in a seed funding round aimed at accelerating the expansion of its perpetual decentralized exchange aggregation platform. The funding was secured in late 2025 and marks a major early milestone for the company as it seeks to redefine how traders interact with decentralized finance markets.
Mobile-first DeFi makes sense. Most crypto trading already feels phone-native. But “AI plus yield plus perps” is also a very crowded bingo card. Liquid’s challenge is making decentralized trading feel safer and simpler — not just faster and shinier.
And from Kenneth Green at Tech Weekly:
Series, a social networking application, has secured a $5.1 million pre-seed funding round from notable figures including Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail, Pear VC, Reddit's CEO Steve Huffman, and GPTZero founder Edward Tian. The company, which was founded by Yale students Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, offers unique features that operate exclusively through iMessage.
The pitch is basically: what if the next social network didn’t make you download another app? Smart wedge. But if you build on iMessage, you’re living in Apple’s house — and Apple can rearrange the furniture whenever it wants.
If you want to dig deeper, we’ve got links to every story from today’s briefing in the show notes. Take a look, and follow the ones that matter most to your fundraising week.
That’s Startup Fundraising for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.