Feb 16, 2026 Daily Roundup

Daily Funding Roundup:
Feb 16, 2026

Six disclosed rounds totaling $106M spanning semiconductors, quantum computing, defense tech, fintech, and real estate. OpenAI acqui-hires the creator of OpenClaw in a headline deal, Danaher nears a ~$10B medtech acquisition, and India hosts its landmark AI summit.

$106M
Total Raised
6
Rounds
4
Acquisitions

Key Themes

Deeptech and emerging markets lead the day. From AI chip power management in Bengaluru to autonomous defense drones in Abuja, today's rounds highlight capital flowing to hard-tech founders outside traditional Silicon Valley corridors. India, Nigeria, and the UAE all feature prominently.

AI infrastructure anxiety is growing. While startups keep raising, public market investors are questioning the $700B+ capex wave from hyperscalers. Memory chip shortages, Chinese competition, and a multi-trillion-dollar valuation correction suggest the "picks and shovels" thesis faces real scrutiny.

The Rounds

Stake Series B
Feb 16
$31M

The Dubai-based fractional real estate investing platform raised an oversubscribed $31M Series B to scale its regulated global property investment marketplace. With 2 million+ users across 211 nationalities and 250,000+ investments in Dubai and Saudi properties, Stake is proving that tokenized real estate has genuine consumer pull in the Middle East.

Emirates NBD (Lead) Mubadala MEVP Wa'ed Ventures Property Finder STV NICE GFH Partners Ellington Properties
Uptiq Series B
Feb 12
$25M

The McKinney, Texas-based AI fintech platform raised $25M to scale its Qore orchestration engine for lending, wealth management, and compliance workflows. Trusted by 140+ financial institutions and processing over $1B in transactions, Uptiq delivers up to 41% faster underwriting and 29% lower operational costs.

Curql (Lead) Silverton Partners 645 Ventures Broadridge Green Visor Capital Live Oak Ventures Epic Ventures Tau Ventures
Terra Industries Seed Extension
Feb 16
$22M
$100M valuation

Africa's first indigenous defense tech prime raised $22M (bringing total funding to $34M) to expand autonomous surveillance manufacturing. The Abuja-based company, founded by Nathan Nwachuku (22) and Maxwell Maduka (24), protects critical infrastructure valued at $11B across multiple African countries. New funding supports a joint manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia and expansion into sub-Saharan markets.

Lux Capital (Lead) 8VC Nova Global Silent Ventures Belief Capital Resilience17 Capital Jared Leto
C2i Semiconductors Series A
Feb 15
$15M

The Bengaluru-based semiconductor startup raised $15M to scale plug-and-play power management solutions for AI data centers. With a founding team from Texas Instruments, National Semiconductor, and Maxim Integrated, C2i designs configurable power architectures spanning grid to core, addressing one of AI infrastructure's biggest bottlenecks.

Peak XV Partners (Lead) Yali Deeptech TDK Ventures
Haiqu Seed
~Jan 13
$11M

The quantum software company raised $11M to build a hardware-aware quantum operating system that runs near-term quantum applications at up to 100x lower computational cost. Haiqu's middleware handles circuit optimization, error shielding, and orchestration, targeting finance, healthcare, aviation, and life sciences use cases.

Primary Venture Partners (Lead)
Endl Pre-Seed
Feb 13
$2M

The Dubai-based stablecoin-native neobank raised $1.5M to build infrastructure for international business payments. Endl offers a unified interface for multi-currency accounts, fiat-stablecoin conversion, and corporate cards, targeting businesses in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and India.

Also noted

  • AdZen secured an undisclosed round to build advertising infrastructure for conversational AI platforms.
  • ValleyNXT Ventures launched a Rs 400 Cr (~$48M) early-stage fund targeting deeptech startups in India.

Acquisitions

Danaher Masimo
~$10B

Nearing a deal for the medical device maker, valuing Masimo at a significant premium to its ~$7B market cap.

Doctrine Maite.ai

French legal tech platform acquired Spain's leading legal AI company, its fifth acquisition in three years. Now serves 27,000+ legal professionals across Europe.

Worldwide Clinical Trials Catalyst Clinical Research
~$500M

PE-backed CRO completing its acquisition of the oncology-focused clinical research firm, enhancing biometrics and FSP capabilities. Expected to close Q1 2026.

VB Spine Augmedics

The largest privately held spine company (created from Stryker's US spine business) acquiring exclusive rights to the xvision AR spine navigation system, the first FDA-cleared augmented reality platform for spine surgery. Augmedics raised $143M across four rounds.

News & Signals

OpenAI acqui-hires OpenClaw creator

Sam Altman announced that Peter Steinberger, creator of the viral open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw (198K+ GitHub stars), is joining OpenAI. Both OpenAI and Meta reportedly made offers in the billions. OpenClaw will remain open source under an independent foundation, with OpenAI providing sponsorship. The move signals OpenAI's strategic push into autonomous, multi-agent systems.

India AI Impact Summit

New Delhi hosts 20 world leaders (Modi, Macron, Lula) and top tech CEOs (Altman, Pichai, Amon, LeCun) to chart a global AI governance roadmap. OpenAI disclosed 100M+ weekly ChatGPT users in India alone.

Memory chip crisis warnings

Musk and Cook warn that surging AI demand is exacerbating global memory chip shortages, impacting plans across tech, automotive, and data center sectors.

Big tech valuation correction

Trillions wiped from hyperscaler market caps. Microsoft down 17% YTD (~$613B loss), Amazon down ~14% (~$343B), as investors question ROI on the ~$700B AI capex wave.

China's AI acceleration

Rapid advancements in Chinese AI models are "moving up the value chain" and threatening the US monopoly narrative, adding pressure on hyperscaler spending.

a16z hunting European unicorns

Andreessen Horowitz is actively expanding its European dealflow, looking for the continent's next breakout companies.

Methodology

Data sourced from company announcements, press coverage, and social media posts via Grok analysis of X. All funding rounds include linked sources in our database. Visit individual company pages to see source URLs. Acquisitions and signals are tracked for context but may not have dedicated database entries.

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