Funding rounds for AI training, fintech AI, robotics services and biotech firms. Recent Series A and later-stage financings across AI, robotics and biotech illustrate capital allocation to specialised training environments, fintech decisioning, outcome-based automation and RNA-based therapeutics. Artificial intelligence. Synapse Analytics, an Abu Dhabi-based AI company that provides agentic decision-making infrastructure for regulated lenders, raised $13 million in a Series A led by Paris-based Partech, with participation from Cairo's Algebra Ventures and Silicon Badia. The funding lifts total capital to $17 million and will be used to enlarge the engineering team, accelerate product development for credit-risk decisioning, and expand the firm's presence across the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, where it reports a more than five-fold revenue increase since its 2025 relaunch. [6] Anew Labs, the AI-driven drug-discovery unit spun out of ByteDance, completed a Series A valued at $290 million according to Dealroom, with the round led by HSG, IDG Capital and Hillhouse Investment and co-lead by 5Y Capital, alongside participation from Gaorong Ventures, Primavera Venture Partners and several state-backed funds. The financing will support development of its structure-prediction and protein-design models, Protenix and PXDesign, and advance four drug candidates, while ByteDance retains a 56 percent stake. [5] Robotics. Extend Robotics, a UK-based embodied-AI firm that sells completed factory work rather than robots, closed a £2.6 million early-stage round led by Skyworks Venture Capital Fund, with participation from Neo Venture (Europe) and Zip Capital. The money will be used to scale its Result-as-a-Service offering across the UK and Europe, expand its remote-operator network and grow the AMAS platform that lets non-robotics specialists control robot arms or humanoids via an immersive 3D interface, with AI handling routine task portions. [1] Tangent Robotics, a New York spin-out of Columbia University's Robotic Manipulation and Mobility Lab, raised $4.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Fly Ventures and Toyota Ventures. The capital will support development of its fine-motor-skill layer that combines light-based touch sensors, human-motion-tracked robotic hands and machine-learning-driven motor learning, targeting high-precision assembly, threading and connector-mating tasks in manufacturing. Co-founders Pedro Piacenza and Matei Ciocarlie highlighted the aim to reduce robot skill acquisition time from days to hours. [2] RobotPlusPlus (ROBOT++) completed a Series C described as "hundreds of millions of RMB (tens of millions of USD)" led by Qianggang Capital Fund, with participation from GIG Capital Group, Sealand Innovation, Juntong Capital and an increased stake by Fosun RZ Capital. The round will fund global expansion of its special-purpose industrial robots, including hull-derusting fleets deployed in over 100 shipyards, and further embodied-AI development for hazardous tasks across shipyards, oil-and-gas sites, wind farms and building façades, leveraging its R&D-heavy model that has amassed over 2 million operating hours. [3] Genetic engineering. Innovate UK announced the Engineering Biology Investor Partnerships Round 1, offering up to £8 million in grant funding to UK-registered SMEs developing engineering-biology products and services, with the requirement that applicants secure aligned investment from a lead investor in the programme's pool. Grants range from £250 000 to £2 million for projects of 24-month duration, aiming to support late-stage experimental development and commercialisation of engineering-biology technologies, with additional commercial expertise provided by participating investors. [4] Encoded Therapeutics, a South San Francisco company that creates one-time precision genetic medicines for severe neurological disorders, raised $275 million in a Series F co-led by GV and a healthcare fund, with participation from ARCH Venture Partners, Braidwell, Farallon Capital Management, Illumina Ventures, Invus, Janus Henderson, Matrix Capital, Nolan Capital, RTW Investments, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Venrock. Proceeds will fund a pivotal study of ETX101 in infants and children with SCN1A-positive Dravet syndrome, an expansion study up to age 18, scale-up of GMP manufacturing and advancement of ETX301 toward a 2027 IND submission for post-amputation neuroma pain. [5]

Encoded raises $275m for Dravet therapy and other financings. Right after reporting encouraging data with its Dravet syndrome gene therapy, Encoded Therapeutics has raised an impressive $275 million to take the programme into a pivotal trial. At the European Epilepsy Congress (EEC) this week, Encoded showcased results of the phase 1/2 POLARIS trial of ETX101 in Dravet syndrome associated with mutations in the SCN1A gene, including a big reduction in seizure frequency - compared to historical controls - in the 12 months after the one-shot therapy. Dravet syndrome is a severe form of developmental and epileptic encephalopathy that begins in infancy and causes prolonged seizures that do not respond well to current anticonvulsant drugs, as well as behavioural and developmental delays. Treatment with ETX101 was also associated with "encouraging" developmental gains among subjects in POLARIS, according to the South San Francisco company. The new financing, co-led by GV and another unidentified healthcare fund, will also fund the scale-up of manufacturing for ETX101 for forthcoming trials, as well as development of a second drug candidate - codenamed ETX301 - that Encoded has in preclinical testing for post-amputation neuroma pain. The financing was also supported by ARCH Venture Partners, Braidwell LP, Farallon Capital Management, Illumina Ventures, Invus, Janus Henderson Investors, Matrix Capital Management, Nolan Capital, RTW Investments, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Venrock. Other recent financing rounds. Also this week, Seattle start-up Brainchild Bio closed a $116 million Series A round earmarked for clinical trials of its CAR-T therapies for central nervous system cancers, headed by BCB-276, a B7-H3-targeted therapy for rare and aggressive paediatric tumour diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). The therapy is currently in the phase 2 ILLUMINATE study, with results due in 2028. An undisclosed private family fund and foundation led the round, with participation from the company's seed investor, Seattle Children's Hospital, and new investor WRF Capital. Meanwhile, south San Francisco-based Moonwalk Biosciences, which specialises in RNA interference drugs for obesity and cardiometabolic diseases, added to its coffers with a $70 million second round co-led by Alpha Wave and YK Bioventures and backed by Eli Lilly, Gaorong Ventures, and existing investors ARCH Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Future Ventures. Armed with the new cash, Moonwalk plans to take its lead drug, MW101 for obesity, into phase 1 testing before the end of next year. The drug, which uses adipose-selective delivery chemistry licensed from China's Suzhou Siran Biotechnology, acts via an undisclosed, non-incretin mechanism that could differentiate it from GLP-1 agonist therapies for weight loss. TwoStep Therapeutics raised $62.5 million in a Series A, providing the resources needed to take its lead peptide-drug conjugate programme, TS-104, into clinical testing for solid tumours. According to San Carlos, California-based TwoStep, TS-104 uses a polyspecific integrin-binding peptide (PIP) that binds to multiple integrins found on solid tumours, delivering a cell-killing MMAE payload. Insight Partners and Medical Excellence Capital acted as co-lead investors, with Merck KGaA's VC arm M Ventures and Pfizer Ventures also taking a prominent role, with existing backers NFX, 2048 Ventures, and Stanford University also participating. Kura Oncology has spun out a new biotech, Caspian Therapeutics, that will develop its menin inhibitor technology outside cancer with the help of $50 million in financing from BVF Partners, supported by Eli Lilly, the T1D Fund, Invus, Montanova Capital, and Kura - which is retaining a half-share in the start-up. Caspian's lead asset is KO-7246, a menin inhibitor currently in preclinical development that could have potential in type 1 and type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic disorders by encouraging the expansion of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. The new San Diego biotech said it plans to file for approval to start human trials of KO-7246 "as soon as practicable." Finally this week, New Haven, Connecticut's Cloverleaf Bio has emerged with $33 million in seed financing and a mission to develop a novel class of engineered transfer RNA (tRNA) based payloads for cancer. Its lead programmes - both in preclinical development - are CLB-001, an inhibitory tRNA asset targeting hepatocellular carcinoma, and an antibody-tRNA conjugate (ATC) asset for colorectal cancer. The round was led by 4BIO Capital with backup from AbbVie Ventures, Eli Lilly, and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, alongside Draper Associates, Mission BioCapital, and American Cancer Society BrightEdge. 11 September, 2026