This is a monthly column that runs down five interesting startup funding deals every month that may have flown under the radar. Check out our May entry here.
Funded startups that caught our eye this month ran the gamut from the heartwarming (a cute robotic puppy companion for seniors), to the solemn (software for planning military operations), to the hopeful (faster drug discovery without animal testing), but AI was again an inescapable theme. Let’s take a closer look at five interesting startups that announced funding in June.
Military software startup launches to unicorn valuation
Collaboration software isn’t as shock-and-awe-inspiring as a B-2 bomber, but is arguably just as critical to a successful military operation as the most sophisticated warplane or precision bomb.
Enter Onebrief, a Honolulu-based military planning software startup that this month raised $20 million in new funding at a $1.1 billion valuation — just three months after its Series C, which valued it at $650 million. The new round was led by Battery Ventures.
“Onebrief’s technology consolidates several key elements of war planning into one platform,” Battery Ventures general partner Michael Brown said in a statement. “It’s an intuitive model that has been organically adopted in a viral, bottom-up manner in many corners of the U.S. military, including four of the seven geographic combatant commands and other important units in the critical Indo-Pacific region.”
Onebrief says it plans to use the new funding to build out its cloud-based collaboration and operational planning software to be used simultaneously by 100,000 users across the military and to remain operational under adversarial conditions.
Even before the U.S. joined Israel’s war on Iran last weekend, global venture funding to defense tech startups was on a tear this year.
While venture investors have historically been squeamish about funding technology used by the military, that’s changed in recent years, and funding to VC-backed startups in defense — defined here as the industries of military, national security and law enforcement — hit $3 billion in 2024, per Crunchbase data. This year is well on its way to top those figures, with nearly $5.8 billion invested in defense tech so far this year, our data shows, including a $2.5 billion round for defense tech unicorn Anduril Industries earlier this month.
Robotic companion dog for seniors fetches $6.1M
And now for something decidedly warmer and fuzzier.
Tombot, a startup making a realistic-looking robotic puppy companion for seniors or others who may struggle to take care of a live animal, raised $6.1 million in funding. The round for Santa Clarita, California-based Tombot was led by health tech investor Caduceus Capital Partners and joined by new and existing investors.
The company’s Jennie robot is modeled after a 3-month-old Labrador puppy and is designed to serve as an alternative to an emotional support animal for seniors or others who are unable to care for a live pet.
“Tombot is entering a high-demand, underserved market at the intersection of mental health and assistive technology,” Tombot CEO and co-founder Tom Stevens said in a statement. “Over 300 million seniors around the world with dementia and mild cognitive impairment are unable to care for a live animal at a time when they need the companionship of a pet more than ever. Millions of other individuals suffering from mental health adversities are in a similar predicament.”
Stevens reportedly got the idea for the startup after his mother was diagnosed with dementia and her beloved dog had to be rehomed, causing a rapid decline in her mental and emotional well-being.
The company says Jennie is designed to respond to human touch and voice commands with movement and realistic sounds. The robot pup, which apparently already has 7,500 pre-orders from hospitals, care facilities and families, will initially sell for $449.
Nuclear fuel startup emerges from stealth with $42M
Standard Nuclear this month emerged from stealth and said it has raised $42 million in funding thus far to develop TRISO nuclear fuel, an advanced nuclear fuel designed for high-temperature reactors.
Its funding was led by Decisive Point with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Washington Harbour Partners, Welara, Fundomo and Crucible Capital.
The Oak Ridge, Tennessee-based startup is producing TRISO — short for TRi-structural ISOtropic — fuel, which is central to the design of several advanced reactor concepts. The company said it’s “the country’s first and only independent TRISO fuel manufacturer without reactor development operations of its own.”
“TRISO particles cannot melt in a reactor and can withstand extreme temperatures that are well beyond the threshold of current nuclear fuels,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense, which is among Standard Nuclear’s customers.
The company said it counts commercial and government organizations including Radiant Industries, Antares, Nano Nuclear Energy, Jimmy Energy, The U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories and the DoD among its customers.
“We are rapidly scaling TRISO fuel production to advance our mission of securing the domestic supply chain and achieving energy independence,” Thomas Hendrix, general partner at Decisive Point and executive chairman of Standard Nuclear, said in a statement.
The company’s funding and emergence from stealth follows another large round for a nuclear startup this month. Last week, Bill Gates-founded TerraPower announced it had raised $650 million in fresh funding from Gates, HD Hyundai, NVentures and existing investors as it develops a 345-watt nuclear power plant at the site of a retiring coal plant in Wyoming. The funding deals come as the rapid rise of power-hungry AI data centers sparks fresh interest in new energy technologies.
Biotech raises $21M for human-first drug discovery
Parallel Bio raised a $21 million Series A funding led by AIX Ventures for its platform designed to replace animal testing with human-first, AI-powered drug discovery.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Parallel’s funding comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is phasing out animal-testing requirements for certain drugs in favor of New Approach Methodologies, or NAMs, which include cell cultures, computational models and organoids — miniature, lab-grown 3-D models of human organs.
Advocates of the new approaches say they could lead to faster, more effective drug development with lower R&D costs.
“With these milestones, we are closer to making human-first drug discovery the new industry standard,” Parallel CEO and co-founder Robert DiFazio said in a statement. “For too long, the reliance on lab mice to model human biology has come at a high cost: 95% of drugs fail in human trials even after succeeding in animal studies. We’re turning that on its head by using organoids and AI to discover drugs in true-to-life human models from the start.”
Existing investors Metaplanet, Humba Ventures, Atypical Ventures, Undeterred Capital and Jeff Dean joined the round. New investors included Amplo and Salesforce 1 founder and CEO Marc Benioff.
Parallel said eight pharmaceutical companies are testing more than 50 drugs and immunotherapies using its organoid-based immune system platform. They include Centivax, which used Parellel’s technology for its first preclinical testing for its universal flu vaccine candidate, now headed to human trials.
Sports AI startup scores $3.2M
Boston-based sports AI company SportsVisio said it raised $3.2 million in new funding, bringing its total raised to $9 million. The company’s technology is used by amateur and youth sports teams — currently volleyball and basketball — to analyze player performance and provide real-time stats and video highlights.
The latest round includes funding from existing investors Sapphire Sport, Hyperplane AI and Sovereign’s Capital. Mighty Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Alumni Ventures, Waterstone Impact Fund and new strategic angels also joined.
“At Sony Innovation Fund, we invest in technologies with the potential to reshape industries — and SportsVisio is a perfect example of that,” Austin Noronha, managing director of Sony Ventures in the U.S., said in a statement. “Their AI-driven platform delivers professional-grade tools to youth and amateur athletes, transforming how sports moments are captured and shared. We’re excited to back a team that’s expanding access to high-quality sports content and empowering the next generation of athletes.”
SportsVisio said the new funding will be used for sales and marketing initiatives as it scales its offerings across basketball and volleyball. It also plans to add new sports including baseball for amateur, youth and professional sports teams. It says its product is currently used by more than 150 leagues, clubs and teams in 16 countries.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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