Jun 11, 2025
Kaley Ubellacker
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$2.9M
10
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
THE RISE OF THE EMP(AI)RE
AI & Data is unstoppable, dominating both deal flow and total capital raised. In May, startups in the sector hit a 5-year high, surpassing its 2022 peak by 5%. The only industry that came close was fintech, but even that trailed 28% behind. Meanwhile, healthtech investments saw a sharp pullback, with investment activity hitting a 5-year low.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
An analysis of 42,000+ funding rounds from 2018 to 2024 revealed that July, long considered a dead zone for fundraising, actually accounts for 8.4% of annual deals, above the 8.3% expected monthly average.
Serenity Power is redesigning solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), devices that turn fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction instead of combustion, to be smaller, faster, and more efficient.
Despite political chaos and regulatory headwinds, North America continues to rake in the most AI venture funding.
For the less rushed reader …
Suns out, funds out
As it turns out, summer fundraising isn’t a beach after all. An analysis of 42,000+ funding rounds from 2018 to 2024 revealed that July, long considered a dead zone for fundraising, actually accounts for 8.4% of annual deals, above the 8.3% expected monthly average. Summer months overall made up more than a third of all venture activity, and the real dead zone is January and February with just 6.8% and 6.9% of deals, respectively. Even December, dreaded by startups trying to raise capital during the holiday season, outperformed every month with a whopping 10.8% share. For founders, this analysis flips the script, turning summer into a prime opportunity for fundraising, especially with July inching closer. Hot deal summer is just around the corner.
I got a fueling
This is a power play most people aren’t paying attention to … yet. Spun out from University of Toronto research, Serenity Power is redesigning solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), devices that turn fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction instead of combustion, to be smaller, faster, and more efficient. Traditional versions are slow to start and bulky, limiting their use. Serenity’s design uses thinner, metal-supported components and new materials that prevent clogging, allowing their cells to power up quickly and run on multiple fuel types. The startup’s current prototype is the size of a sticky note, and they’re working on scaling it into a compact, clean generator that could replace diesel units in remote locations or even power food trucks. Serenity’s SOFCs could quietly become one of cleantech’s most important enabling tools, and fossil fuels are looking more prehistoric by the second.
Red, wh-AI-te, and blue
The AI billion-dollar machine isn’t going on vacation to Europe anytime soon. Despite political chaos and regulatory headwinds, North America continues to rake in the most AI venture funding. Between February and May 2025, U.S.-based AI startups pulled in a staggering $69.7B across 1,528 deals, accounting for 86.2% of global AI VC funding: a share that’s growing, not shrinking. This comes as a bit of a surprise, given Trump’s second-term policies gutting federal AI research support, tightening immigration for foreign AI talent, and sowing uncertainty across the sector. Europe and Asia, despite their rhetoric and big-name startups like Mistral and DeepSeek, aren’t seeing the VC surge one might expect in this climate. Even in an unstable policy environment, it’s clear that VCs are still betting on the U.S. to lead the world’s next wave of AI innovation. In other words, no red tape in the U.S. can stop AI startups from printing green.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
fintech
Up 'n Go - No pain payments.
Up 'n Go raised $2.1 million. Up ‘n Go is developing a comprehensive payment solution for restaurants, where guests scan a QR code to pay. No more awkward negotiations to split the check.
AI
mAI Edge - Our favorite member of the brand.
mAI Edge raised $177k from Gluon Syndicate. mAI Edge is creating an AI-powered platform for content creation that is always consistent, on-brand, and maintains its “human feel.”
AI
Interactly.ai - An appointment with destiny.
Interactly raised funding from Afore Capital, SeedToB Capital, and angel investors. Interactly is building an agentic AI platform for healthcare administration, automating a range of front- and back-office tasks.
Outro🚪
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