A quiet but meaningful shift is happening in the semiconductor world, and today’s announcement from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and imec feels like one of those milestones that will look even bigger in hindsight. UMC is licensing imec’s iSiPP300 silicon photonics process—built for 12-inch wafers and ready for co-packaged optics (CPO)—essentially giving UMC the … [Read more...] about UMC and imec Push Silicon Photonics Into Its Next Act
Wizerr AI Unveils Agentic BOM Engine, Ushering Hardware Into Its Long-Awaited AI Era
The debut of the Agentic BOM Engine almost feels like a long exhale from an industry that’s been quietly drowning in datasheets for decades. Hardware teams have always worked inside a maze of PDFs, half-remembered tribal knowledge, and isolated tools that rarely speak the same language. Wizerr steps straight into that chaos with something that, frankly, feels overdue: a … [Read more...] about Wizerr AI Unveils Agentic BOM Engine, Ushering Hardware Into Its Long-Awaited AI Era
ZincFive Secures $30 Million to Support AI-Era Data Center Resilience
ZincFive closed an oversubscribed $30M Series F to expand production of its zinc-based battery systems for mission-critical data centers. As AI workloads drive unprecedented demand for power density and uninterrupted uptime, next-generation battery technologies are becoming essential to stabilizing data center operations. ZincFive positions its technology as safer, more … [Read more...] about ZincFive Secures $30 Million to Support AI-Era Data Center Resilience
Ply secures $8.5M to automate inventory for the trades, partners with Ferguson Ventures
What stands out in this raise isn’t the number itself—$8.5 million is tidy but not flashy—it’s the signal. When Ferguson Ventures leads a round, it’s basically the industry’s quiet way of saying: enough with clipboards, text-message purchase orders, and the “did anyone reorder that?” chaos that still defines too many job sites. Ply slots right into that tension. The trades live … [Read more...] about Ply secures $8.5M to automate inventory for the trades, partners with Ferguson Ventures
LizzyAI Secures $5M to Rebuild the Interview From the Ground Up
LizzyAI just pulled in a fresh $5 million seed round, led by NEA with Speedinvest and Zero Prime Ventures joining in, and the timing feels spot-on for a hiring market that’s still tripping over its own inefficiencies. The money is heading straight into expanding engineering and go-to-market firepower, tightening integrations, and pushing its AI interview engine into deeper, … [Read more...] about LizzyAI Secures $5M to Rebuild the Interview From the Ground Up
When Open Source Meets Custom Silicon: Red Hat and AWS Shift the AI Infrastructure Game
Red Hat and Amazon Web Services (AWS) just tightened their partnership in a way that hints at where large-scale AI is actually heading, especially for companies that need stability, cost control, and flexibility rather than hype. The short version: Red Hat is making its AI platform fully compatible with AWS’s custom AI chips — Inferentia and Trainium — so enterprises can run … [Read more...] about When Open Source Meets Custom Silicon: Red Hat and AWS Shift the AI Infrastructure Game
Sokin Secures $50M Series B to Scale Global Payments Ambitions
Sometimes a funding announcement lands that feels less like another step in the fintech hype cycle and more like a company finally hitting the moment it’s been building toward — and today, that note belongs to Sokin. The company revealed it has closed a $50 million Series B round led by Prysm Capital, joined by Watershed Ventures and existing backers including Morgan Stanley … [Read more...] about Sokin Secures $50M Series B to Scale Global Payments Ambitions
Tutor Intelligence Raises $34M to Scale Human-Like Warehouse Robots
Something about this story feels like a milestone — not hype, not sci-fi polish, but one of those subtle turning points where an idea stops being futuristic and simply becomes part of how things work. Tutor Intelligence, the MIT-born robotics company teaching warehouse robots to think and adapt more like people, has closed a fresh $34 million Series A led by Union Square … [Read more...] about Tutor Intelligence Raises $34M to Scale Human-Like Warehouse Robots
Harmonic Reaches Unicorn Status as Mathematical Superintelligence Moves Into the Real World
There’s a certain shift happening in AI right now — one that feels quieter than the hype around chatbots and image generators, yet arguably far more consequential. Harmonic, the company pushing the frontier of Mathematical Superintelligence, just crossed the unicorn threshold after securing a $120 million Series C round at a $1.45 billion post-money valuation. The round was led … [Read more...] about Harmonic Reaches Unicorn Status as Mathematical Superintelligence Moves Into the Real World
CoPlane Raises $14M: Reinventing the Most Boring — and Most Expensive — Part of Enterprise Software
There’s a certain irony in how much money the world spends on software that barely anyone loves. ERP systems are the backbone of industrials, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing — practically every enterprise sector we rely on — but they’ve barely evolved in decades. They’re rigid, consulting-heavy, and astonishingly expensive to maintain. Yet companies don’t really … [Read more...] about CoPlane Raises $14M: Reinventing the Most Boring — and Most Expensive — Part of Enterprise Software