Funding roundup: The week’s top startup scores

From AI-enabled eCommerce to workplace wellness, marketing automation, and Asia-Pacific growth lending, indigenous startups are acquiring huge deals and enormous cheques.

Here’s this week’s fundraising announcements:

Aussie retail tech startup Flagship secures $3.75m seed funding

Flagship, creators of the first global digital visual merchandising platform, has marked key milestones in its growth journey. The startup recently secured a significant partnership with one of the largest and fastest-growing U.S. performance apparel brands.

Additionally, Flagship successfully completed a $3.75M USD seed funding round, led by Coreline, Veridical Ventures, Tidal Ventures, and Macdoch Ventures. This funding will support Flagship’s ongoing U.S. market expansion and international growth.

Space solar power startup Aetherflux raises $50M in Series A funding

Aetherflux, a U.S.-based space solar power startup, has raised $50M in its Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Index Ventures and Interlagos, with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and NEA. Notable individual investors, including Vlad Tenev, Dan Gallagher, Jared Leto, and luxury watchmakers Laurent and François-Paul Journe, also participated.

This new funding brings Aetherflux’s total capital raised to $60M. Founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood Markets, Aetherflux is developing a technology using small satellites to transmit power through infrared lasers.

SoftBank and OpenAI announce $40 billion investment

SoftBank’s announcement of its $40 billion investment in OpenAI has set a new record in the startup financing world. This unprecedented deal dwarfs all other startup funding rounds, including Microsoft’s $10 billion financing for OpenAI in 2023, which was structured as a strategic partnership rather than a traditional funding round.

The investment marks SoftBank’s largest-ever startup financing. In recent months, Databricks also raised a $10 billion round, confirming its $62 billion valuation.

Quantum startup IQM in talks to raise over €128m

Finnish quantum hardware startup IQM is set to raise more than €128M in its next funding round, following a series of technical breakthroughs in the sector. Founded in 2018, IQM is currently Europe’s second best-funded quantum hardware company, excluding Big Tech.

The company has raised a total of $210M from investors including Tencent, World Fund, and MIG Capital, and is rapidly scaling to capitalize on the increasing demand for quantum computing innovations.

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