Top stories.
- Accenture acquires Japanese AI and DX provider, Aidemy Inc.
- Cerebras Systems raises $1.1 billion in Series G round.
- Vercel raises $300 million in Series F round.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Accenture is set to acquire Japanese AI and DX support provider, Aidemy Inc. With this acquisition, Accenture is looking to further strengthen its LearnVantage service. Additionally, Accenture noted that this acquisition will enhance the consulting company's ability to provide end-to-end support for clients "by leveraging Aidemy's expertise in developing, implementing, and operating AI systems for a wide range of tasks and industries."
AI-powered customer relationship management platform, HoneyBook, acquired Fine.dev, a startup that specialized in AI-assisted coding and application development. With this acquisition, HoneyBook aims to grow its AI talent, improve product innovation, and develop new tools. Oz Alon, the CEO and co-founder of HoneyBook, noted that "by bringing in the Fine.dev team, we're adding unique AI expertise that will help us build and deploy new capabilities faster than traditional development allows." HoneyBook launched its AI-powered business management solution in March 2025 and has since added capabilities, including automated email drafting, automated daily task lists, and business analysis and reporting.
San Francisco AI DevOps platform provider, Harness, acquired US-based AI vulnerability detector, Qwiet AI. Jyoti Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Harness, stated that "with Qwiet AI, [Harness is] extending [its] robust application security portfolio to secure code from the first step." This acquisition further builds upon the company's merger with Traceable earlier this year.
Chinese smart cloud platform provider Taoping, Inc. has acquired Skyladder Group Limited for approximately $21.3 million. Once completed, Taoping will wholly own Skyladder Group. The company plans to leverage AI technology to help fuel growth and expand the scope of its smart elevator services and smart IoT strategy. Taoping Chairman and CEO, Mr. Jianghuai Lin, stated, "we are pleased to have successfully moved from our original non-binding letter of intent...to the formal share purchase agreement.
Austin-based AI technology consulting company, Liatrio, has acquired SuperOrbital's intellectual property. With this acquisition, Liatrio aims to expand its capabilities to provide scalable training in conjunction with its consulting services. SuperOrbital specializes in hands-on training in critical technologies, including Kubernetes, Docker, and GitOps. Liatrio's CEO, Chris Blackburn, stated that "by bringing SuperOrbital into Liatrio, we're combining world-class consulting with world-class training, creating a transformation experience."
Investments and exits.
California-based Cerebras Systems raised $1.1 billion in its Series G round, which was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Atreides Management with significant participation from Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, and 1789 Capital alongside participation from existing investors Altimeter, Alpha Wave, and Benchmark. With this round now closed, the company is valued at $8.1 billion. With this significant fundraising, Cerebras aims to expand its technology portfolio with inventions in AI processor design, packaging, system design, and AI supercomputers, alongside expanding its US manufacturing and data center capacities. Andrew Feldman, the co-founder and CEO of Cerebras, stated, "from our inception, we have been backed by the most knowledgeable investors in the industry."
California-based Vercel raised $300 million during its Series F round, bringing its post-money valuation to $9.3 billion. The oversubscribed round, co-led by Accel and GIC, was joined by new investors from funds managed by BlackRock, StepStone, Kholsa Ventures, Schroders, Adams Street Partners, and General Catalyst. Existing partners GV, Notable Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Tiger Global also participated. The funding will be used to expand Vercel's AI cloud platform and invest in scaling v0, the company's AI development agent. This fundraising comes after Vercel doubled its user base over the past year with an 82% top-line growth YoY, alongside v0 reaching more than 3.5 million unique users. Guillermo Rauch, CEO and founder of Vercel, stated that "this investment accelerates our ability to provide the secure, scalable foundation enterprises need as AI agents become integral to their workflows."
California-based Descope finished its Seed round, having raised a total of $88 million. The original round was extended to bring in an additional $35 million. The extension was made available only to existing investors, which included Notable Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Unusual Ventures, Cerca Partners, and Triventures. The drag and drop external IAM platform aims to use this new funding to further R&D investments into agentic identity, expand its platform to new regions, and grow its engineering, product, and customer experience teams.
California-based Zania raised $18 million in an oversubscribed Series A round, which was led by New Enterprise Associates. The round also included participation from Anthology Fund, Palm Drive Capital, and a group of senior executives from Amazon, Airbnb, PayPal, ByteDance, Reddit, Roblox, and PwC. Zania will use the capital to meet surging market demand by tripling its engineering and go-to-market teams while also growing its agentic AI platform. Since its debut, Zania has had significant momentum, achieving 10x ARR growth in the last six months.
San Fransico Agentic Vulnerability Management firm, Mondoo, raised $17.5 million in additional funding led by HV Capital, with participation from new investor T.Capital and existing investors Atomico, Firstminute Capital, and System.One. The company plans to use this funding to accelerate the advancement of the company's next-generation agentic platform. Dominik Richter, the CPO and Co-Founder of Mondoo, stated that "this funding will accelerate our mission to make Agentic Vulnerability Management the gold standard for organizations worldwide."
Florida-based Gelt raised $13 million in a Series A round led by Zvi Limon of the Rimon Group, Vintage Investment Partners, and TLV Partners. The funding will be used to accelerate platform development and aid in expanding into new markets. Additionally, the funding will also be used to triple the team by hiring new CPAs, engineers, and client experience professionals.
California-based Longeye has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Andressen Horowitz's American Dynamism Fund. The AI investigation platform raised this funding alongside successfully deploying its platform with the Redmond Police Department.
Washington, D.C.-based Hupside has raised $1.7 million in its pre-seed round led by Ruxton Ventures, with participation from strategic angel investors. This funding will aim to grow Hupside's Hupchecker, which is an assessment platform that will help teams utilize and optimize AI tools.
Tennessee-based Clearwater, one of the largest pure-play providers of cybersecurity and compliance solutions in healthcare, raised a strategic investment from Sunstone Partners for an undisclosed amount. Clearwater aims to use this investment to continue scaling its managed services, consulting, and defense industrial base clients. Sunstone Partners has acquired the majority ownership of the company from Altaris, LLC.
California-based InOrbit.AI successfully closed its Series A funding round for an undisclosed amount. The round was co-led by L'ATTITUDE Ventures and Globant Ventures. With this capital, the company aims to accelerate the development of its robotics software platform and expand its market presence in key industries, such as manufacturing, logistics, retail, and hospitality.
Executive moves.
CBTS has appointed Arrian Mehis as President for US sales. As President, Arrian will oversee enterprise field sales, inside sales, channel sales, solution engineering, and sales enablement.
Gelt has appointed Yoram Tietz, former Managing Partner at EY and current Senior Advisor at General Atlantic, as Chairman of the Board.
Descope announced the appointment of an advisory board composed of customers, partners, and industry leaders. These members will come from companies including GoFundMe, Databricks, GoodRx, and MongoDB.