Participated · Series A · Aug 2026

Velaura AI develops energy-efficient digital design technology for AI compute, built on patented techniques applied at leading semiconductor process nodes. Its flagship product, Titan Core, is a proprietary chip IP and design platform that the company says delivers a 2x to 4x improvement in performance per watt on the mathematical operations used by AI accelerators without sacrificing performance. The underlying technology has been deployed across more than 30 million ASICs, and Velaura licenses it under an upfront fee plus a royalty tied to the power savings its customers achieve. The company says it is engaged with hyperscalers and chip partners at 3nm and 2nm nodes to integrate the technology into next-generation AI accelerators, and is extending the architecture into physical AI systems including robots, drones, and autonomous machines. Founded in 2022 as Auradine, a bitcoin mining ASIC designer behind the Teraflux miner series, the company rebranded to Velaura AI in March 2026 alongside a pivot to AI silicon, and is headquartered at 3200 Coronado Drive in Santa Clara, California. Financially, Velaura AI announced a $110M Series A in August 2026 at a valuation above $1 billion, led by Seligman Ventures; the articles do not state a cumulative total raised across its earlier rounds under the Auradine name.

Participated · Series B · Aug 2026

Mariana Minerals combines proprietary software and capital project execution to build and operate mines and refineries for critical minerals. Its MarianaOS platform integrates CapitalProjectOS, PlantOS and MineOS into a single AI and machine learning stack intended to compress multi-year project execution timelines and reduce commissioning time. The company operates active projects including Copper One, which is ramping toward 50,000 metric tons of refined copper per year, and Lithium One, a GWh-scale facility targeting commercial lithium production from oil & gas produced water in the first half of 2027. Mariana has raised roughly $400 million of parent and project capital to date, including the $310 million Series B. The company plans to scale to 10 commercial-scale projects in 10 years, using data from each project to improve its software and lower costs for subsequent builds.

Participated · Series C · Jul 2026

Antora Energy develops and deploys factory-built thermal batteries that store low-cost electricity as heat in insulated solid-carbon blocks and deliver that energy as heat or power on demand. The company says its systems can store energy for multiple days, avoid supply-constrained critical minerals, and be deployed faster than conventional multi-year projects. Antora recently brought one of the largest battery storage projects online—a 5 gigawatt-hour system in South Dakota that moved from construction to energy delivery in under 12 months—and expanded its San Jose factory into a three-building manufacturing campus. The company reports a growing pipeline of signed agreements with hyperscalers and industrial customers and states its deployments have created and supported hundreds of U.S. manufacturing and construction jobs. With the $550 million Series C, Antora plans to expand production capacity, establish a second U.S. manufacturing hub, and strengthen its domestic supply chain. The company positions its technology as a tool to deliver affordable, reliable energy at scale to industry, data centers, and the grid.

Participated · Series D · Jul 2026

Genius AI (formerly GlossGenius) is a New York-based technology platform for in-person service businesses, building software that automates the administrative work of running a business. Its flagship product, GlossGenius, handles booking, payments, marketing, staff management and client management for salons, spas and studios, and includes branded card-reader hardware alongside back-office tools for bookkeeping, inventory and expenses. The platform serves more than 125,000 service businesses across roughly half of all US ZIP codes. Following a July 2026 rebrand from GlossGenius, the company is extending beyond beauty and wellness into the wider in-person service economy, including health, with agentic AI products intended to run end-to-end workflows autonomously. Genius AI is approaching a $200 million annual revenue run rate and is headquartered in New York. Financially, the company states it has raised more than $125 million to date, most recently a $44 million Series D at a $1.15 billion valuation led by Lux Capital.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2026

Founded roughly seven months before the report and based in Santa Clara, Upscale AI develops a platform that integrates GPUs, accelerators, storage, and networking into a synchronized system for AI workloads. Its SkyHammer architecture is designed to scale networks at the rack level to reduce latency and bottlenecks for training and inference. The company emphasizes open standards such as ESUN, Ultra Accelerator Link, Ultra Ethernet, SONiC and the Switch Abstraction Interface as alternatives to incumbent networking systems. Upscale AI originated within Auradine, the AI- and blockchain-infrastructure company associated with one of the founders, and was publicly launched thereafter. Founders Barun Kar and Rajiv Khemani previously worked at and founded companies including Palo Alto Networks, Innovium and Cavium (later acquired by Marvell). Financially, Upscale AI has raised over $300 million to date, including a $100 million seed in September 2025 and an oversubscribed Series A of more than $200 million in January 2026.