AI Infrastructure Startup Raises $100M in Series A Funding

Parallel Web Systems raised $100 million in Series A funding led by Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital, and existing investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, and Terrain. The company said the fresh capital will fuel its mission to keep the web “open, transparent, and competitive” by building infrastructure that enables AI agents, applications, and systems to access and reason with web data. FOUNDER: Parag Agrawal INVESTORS: Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital & Terrain AMOUNT: $100,000,000 HQ: #PaloAlto #California #VentureCapital #ParagAgrawal #ParallelWebSystems #KleinerPerkins #IndexVentures #SparkCapital #KhoslaVentures #FirstRoundCapital #Terrain #TradedVC

A great product won’t survive poor financial discipline. Most early-stage founders track revenue but ignore runway, burn rate, or contribution margin — until it’s too late. We assist startups in building investor-ready financial models and dashboards so they can plan, forecast, and fundraise with confidence. Remember: Investors fund clarity, not chaos. #StartupFinance #InvestorReady #FinancialModelling #CapitalCompanion

🌍 Rebellions welcomes new U.S. investors, Kindred Ventures and Top Tier Capital Partners, to our Series C round. Their participation marks Rebellions’ first investment from Silicon Valley venture capital firms, further strengthening our global expansion and presence in the U.S. market. Backed by leading investors from Asia, Europe, and now the U.S., we’re building what we believe will be the world’s most efficient AI inference infrastructure.

At AfroTech 2025, our Director, Ranesha Critton, joined industry innovators and tech founders to explore how financial clarity enables smarter, more strategic decision-making. In collaboration with The Us Space, we hosted a Lunch & Learn and joined a panel conversation focused on bridging the gap between finance and innovation, helping founders understand how outsourced CFO services and strategic financial planning can support scale, compliance, and investor readiness. From early-stage startups to scaling tech ventures, we shared how the right financial structure can turn vision into long-term success. Watch the highlights from AfroTech 2025 to see how Tarsus is helping companies grow through finance-led strategy and insight. #TarsusPro #AfroTech2025 #CFOservices #TheUsSpace

Public sector sales are getting a long-overdue upgrade. Starbridge is modernizing how the public sector buys technology, unifying fragmented government data into one AI-powered platform that helps vendors identify, prioritize and act on real opportunities. Congratulations to Justin Wenig and the Starbridge team on raising a $42M Series A led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Autotech Ventures, Owl Ventures and Commonweal Ventures. Public-sector innovation has always been viewed as slow and complex. Starbridge is proving it doesn’t have to be. Check out the TechCrunch story link in the comments for details.

In a recent nextNYC VC Best Practices panel, I asked "How can small funds still win in AI when mega funds anoint ‘the winner’ early?" and Kristin McDonald of Eniac Ventures hit the nail on the head. Big funds are preempting AI rounds with $50-$100M+ before the product is even mature. They’re basically trying to crown category winners and suffocate everyone else. If you’re writing early checks, your edge isn’t outspending. Your edge is backing “high slope, super-dynamic teams” that can keep adapting as tech and customer behavior keep shifting. And then you help them package that story for the later-stage capital you’re counting on. This is the new seed game. Thanks to our sponsors KPMG US, Cooley LLP and Stifel Financial Corp. for making this series possible! #EmergingManagers #AngelInvesting #SeedVC #FundraisingStrategy #AIStartups #nextNYC

Founders don’t need pitch polish. They need capital mechanics. Capital Readiness Is a Skill, Not a Slide Deck After seeing several of our companies and catching up with them this week, we have a pretty amazing pipeline of founders with traction, validated products, and data that prove capital readiness isn’t a slogan. It’s a skill. These portco’s are awesome. At the University City Science Center , we’re building an capital model built around structure. Defined terms. Clean governance. Optional yield mechanics for revenue-stage companies. Nothing theoretical, just founders ready for disciplined capital. Right now, we’re connecting with investors, strategics, and operator groups who want to shape new capital models that fit where early-stage healthtech is actually headed. If that’s you, drop us a note and DM me. We’ll show you the deal flow and the companies executing. #HealthTech #CapitalReadiness

Over the past few years, I've watched the smartest investors quietly tear up their old private market investment strategy papers. They're not chasing tiny seed rounds anymore or just sitting around waiting a decade for an IPO to crystallize their returns. They've shifted their focus completely to three things: structure, efficiency, and maturity. The truth is, the traditional venture timeline is completely broken. IPOs used to happen around the 5th year. But now it's closer to 13-15 years (if it even happens)! And the best private companies, like Stripe, Databricks, Canva, and Anthropic, aren't desperate to exit. They’re well-funded, cash-flow resilient, and firmly in control of their exit timelines. That shift has turned the "late-stage" segment into something entirely new: an asset class that behaves much more like public markets, with richer secondary market pricing and liquidity that's actually scalable. This is why allocators are starting to view exposure to private blue-chip tech not as a high-risk, one-off opportunity but as a core, systematic component of their portfolio. It’s rewarding to see, day by day, the industry move beyond the opaque and illiquid structures that once defined it. This is exactly the kind of institutional maturity we've been building toward, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

Shawn Carolan might be one Silicon Valley’s most underrated investors. He has quietly generated over $2B in returns for Menlo Ventures's LPs from investments like: ▪️ Uber (led Series B in 2011 – IPO) ▪️ Roku (led Series C — IPO) ▪️ Chime (led Series C – IPO) ▪️ Siri (led Series A in 2008 – acquired by Apple) What makes Shawn different is his clarity of thought in a space – consumer investing – often treated as more art than science. He invests in companies that serve the: Utilitarian Consumer Because basic human needs are persistent, he looks at how people are spending their money and time to assess the value and utility of a product or service. He breaks this down beautifully in our latest Startupable conversation From the logic behind Uber and Chime to what he’s watching next in AI and consumer apps. If you’re building anything consumer-facing, you’ll enjoy this one. To learn more from Shawn, click the link in the comments