Author: Jesse Landry

Every student knows the moment, cursor blinking on a blank page, deadline on your neck like it’s got rent due. And then comes the Google rabbit hole. Twenty tabs open, three hours gone, and your thesis is still vibing in the ether. That’s the pain. Litero AI is the answer. Today, Litero AI just dropped its first bag, $800,000 in pre-seed funding, and it’s not just a capital raise, it’s a declaration: the essay struggle is getting automated, intelligently. The round was led by the Pre-Seed to Succeed program (P2S), with a heavyweight lineup joining the room, AltaIR Capital, Yellow…

Let talk about Ostia Sciences Inc., who is quietly cooking up something that might just rewrite how we think about microbes, immunity, and the future of medicine, all from a nondescript lab space on Edward Street in Toronto’s Discovery District. Founded in 2020 as a University of Toronto spinout, Ostia Sciences Inc.’s not trying to win headlines. They’re too busy engineering the world’s first phosphorylated lantibiotic, yes, that’s real science, not sci-fi. The lead microbe? Salivaricin 10, produced by Streptococcus salivarius SALI-10. It targets pathogens with sniper-like precision while leaving the good bacteria untouched. This isn’t yogurt aisle fluff. This…

$55 million in seed funding just hit the Radical AI books, led by RTX Ventures, with a crew stacked deeper than an ISS launch manifest: NVentures (NVIDIA’s VC arm), Eni Next (of Eni S.p.A.), noa, Infinite Capital, and AlleyCorp. That’s not just a round, that’s a declaration. And the message is clear: materials science isn’t slow and academic anymore. It’s autonomous, atomically precise, and scaling faster than most folks can spell “interatomic potential.” Founded in 2024 and now running full throttle from Midtown Manhattan, Radical AI is rebuilding the entire scientific process from the molecular level up. Joseph F. Krause,…

If AI is the new electricity, then BrightAI just plugged into the transformer with $51 million in fresh Series A juice, led by Khosla Ventures and Inspired Capital, with BoxGroup, Marlinspike, VSC Ventures, Rsquared VC, and Cooley LLP rounding out the power grid, means BrightAI isn’t just lit, they’re actively rewiring how critical infrastructure stays online. We’re not talking about smart lightbulbs or Wi-Fi thermostats. This is edge-AI-meets-250,000-sensor-networks kind of scale. Think HVAC systems that don’t fail, power grids that talk back, pest control that’s smarter than the mice. Founded in 2019, BrightAI is the rare startup that skipped the…

Quantum computing’s been pitched like it’s still locked in a sci-fi novel, but BQP just walked in, shut the book, and started coding the future, line by line. This isn’t hype. This is high-stakes engineering, fused with quantum muscle, backed by real dollars from some of the sharpest operators in the venture game. Founded by Abhishek Chopra, Rut Lineswala, Jash Minocha, and Aditya Singh, BQP (formerly BosonQ Psi) is building a platform where quantum-accelerated simulation stops being an academic exercise and starts driving real-world decisions. Their flagship software, BQPhy®, doesn’t wait around for the perfect quantum machine, it runs now,…

Some infrastructure players walk into the AI boom like it’s a gold rush. GigaIO walked in with blueprints, soldering irons, and a composable fabric that makes hyperscale hardware play nice without the corporate hangover. Now they’ve secured $21 million in the first tranche of their Series B, and if you’re in the inferencing game and not paying attention, you’re doing AI on dial-up. Led by Impact Venture Capital, with CerraCap Ventures, G Vision Capital, Mark IV Capital, and SourceCode Cerberus jumping in, this round doesn’t just validate the tech. It confirms what the smartest players in the room already know:…

Some startups throw darts at the board and call it AI. Others? They build something that actually knows what’s coming before it hits. Empirical Security just raised $12 million in seed funding to do exactly that, make cybersecurity predictive, personalized, and finally, worth the hype. And this isn’t some fresh-out-of-bootcamp crew learning threat models on the fly. This is a veteran trio who built the foundation most of the industry now stands on. Let’s rewind. Empirical Security, out of Chicago, is the brainchild of Ed Bellis (CEO), Michael Roytman (CTO), and Jay Jacobs (Chief Data Scientist). If those names sound…

The energy world doesn’t sleep, and neither do the folks building the brains behind it. While most platforms are busy legacy systems and calling it innovation, Molecule Software has been quietly doing what real players do: scaling precision, not promises. This week, that work just got a serious voltage boost. The Houston-based ETRM platform just closed its Series B, amount undisclosed, but the signal is loud and clear. The round was led by Sundance Growth, a software-focused growth equity firm that doesn’t toss capital like confetti. This move isn’t just capital, it’s conviction. Founded in 2012 by Sameer Soleja, who…

Kilsar just secured $3.7M in seed funding. And no, this isn’t your average “AI startup raises money to build another chatbot” kind of story. This is about sweat, steel, and solving a very real, very old problem: how to keep critical know-how from disappearing the moment your best technician clocks out for the last time. You ever try replacing a 30-year veteran with a PDF and some PowerPoint slides? It’s like trying to fix a jet engine with a YouTube tutorial and a prayer. Kilsar’s founders, Brendan Lawlor and Zach Casey, didn’t need a whiteboard session to figure that out.…

There’s a quiet corner of the insurance world where the policies are weird, the risks are wild, and the tech has been stuck in a permanent ’98 screensaver. Specialty insurance distribution: necessary, complex, and until now, overlooked by serious innovation. Enter Loro Insurtech Inc., based out of Dover, Delaware, and moving like they’ve got nothing to lose and everything to build. They’re not trying to disrupt the middleman, they’re giving the middleman a jetpack. Founded in 2021 by Peter Tilbrook (CEO and Co-Founder), Loris Candylaftis (Co-Founder and Head of Technology), and Diego Silva Villalba (Co-Founder and Head of Sales and…