Today's pick
Warhound
A genetics and hardware company that engineers and clones working dogs for the military, law enforcement and emergency responders, then outfits them with Anduril sensor gear.
- Problem
- 6
- Traction
- 3
- Founders
- 9
- Market
- 6
- Novelty
- 9
Why today
Today's pick is Warhound, which emerged from stealth on October 22, 2026 with 200 million dollars in funding from In-Q-Tel, Sequoia and 8VC at a 1.2 billion dollar valuation. The company, conceived by Colossal Biosciences founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, genetically engineers and clones working dogs for the US military, law enforcement and first responders, then layers on Anduril-built vests and sensors for situational awareness. The same 24 hours brought a dense slate of smaller European rounds, including Swiss robotics startup Enact's 30 million dollar pre-seed backed by Mistral's Arthur Mensch and Yann LeCun, Portuguese drone maker Beyond Vision's 28 million euro raise, Oxford quantum spinout QuantrolOx's 12 million euro Series A, and industrial cybersecurity firm Indurex's 7 million euro round. Warhound stands out for sheer novelty and founder pedigree: no other team is combining gene editing, cloning and defense-tech hardware to rebuild a supply chain the Pentagon says is more than 80 percent dependent on European breeders, even though the company has yet to place a single dog in service.
Problem
More than 80 percent of working dogs used by the US military come from Europe, and fewer than half of the dogs that enter training are ultimately fit for service. Lamm says many washouts trace back to genetic predispositions such as poor eyesight, cancer risk, hip dysplasia and muscle atrophy, rather than a shortage of trainers or handlers. The result is a defense-critical supply chain for roles like bomb detection and search operations that the Pentagon cannot source domestically at scale, leaving it reliant on a shrinking pool of foreign breeders even as demand for detection and security dogs keeps rising.
Product
Warhound starts from the cell lines of the two top-performing working breeds, Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds, stored in a biobank, then edits their genes to add traits the company wants and remove ones it does not, aiming to improve health, longevity, speed, agility and scent sensitivity for bomb detection. Cloning is handled by Viagen, a fellow Colossal-owned company with an established track record cloning endangered species. Anduril then layers on protective vests and sensor-equipped goggles that relay data to handlers, which Lamm describes as enhancements built 'on top of the dog, not in the dog.'
Traction
Warhound has no dogs in service yet: the first cloned and incubated batch is expected to be born in early 2027, with Lamm targeting entry into service within two years. Pricing has not been set. The company says it has briefed numerous government groups, including the Department of Defense, military service branches and police forces, as prospective buyers, but reports no contracts or formal approvals. It is also working with the American Humane Society to certify its training program and to route retired dogs into that organization's Military Working Dog Reunification Program.
Team
Warhound was conceived roughly a year before launch when Ben Lamm, chief executive of de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, met Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey at a conference where Luckey raised the idea of doing more for working dogs in the US military. Luckey is a partner on Warhound but holds no equity in it, while Colossal owns equity and licenses its gene-editing and cloning technology to the new company. Lamm has previously founded Hypergiant Industries, Chaotic Moon Studios, Team Chaos and Conversable, giving him a long track record building and selling technology companies before Colossal.
Funding
Warhound raised 200 million dollars in funding announced October 22, 2026, from investors including In-Q-Tel, the CIA's non-profit venture arm, alongside Sequoia and 8VC, valuing the company at 1.2 billion dollars as it exits stealth. The article disclosing the round did not specify a formal round label or identify a single lead investor among the three named backers. In-Q-Tel's involvement signals early US intelligence and defense community interest, consistent with Warhound's stated plan to brief government groups as it works toward Department of Defense and law enforcement contracts.
Competitors
No company is known to be gene-editing or cloning dogs for defense use, so Warhound's most direct competition is the status quo: European breeders who supply most current military working dogs, and the Department of Defense's own in-house breeding effort at Lackland Air Force Base, which has been shifting toward producing more of its own breeding dogs rather than buying overseas. A separate, non-commercial effort, the AKC Reunite and Theriogenology Foundation-backed Working Dog Project at the Broad Institute, is studying genetic variation to improve selective breeding, but it is a research initiative rather than a company fielding engineered or cloned dogs.
VC lens
Would YC fund it? Yes for the founding team and the demonstrated willingness of defense-focused investors like In-Q-Tel to back it, but this is a long-horizon bet on regulatory, military and animal-welfare approval cycles rather than a fast product-market-fit story.
Biggest risk: Warhound has no dogs in service, no priced product and no disclosed contracts, so its 1.2 billion dollar valuation rests entirely on founder reputation and investor conviction; it also faces the ethical and regulatory scrutiny that comes with gene-editing and cloning animals for lethal and security work, which could slow military and police adoption regardless of how well the technology performs.
Runners-up
Enact
A Swiss robotics startup building touch-and-force-sensing technology for general-purpose robots that raised a 30 million dollar pre-seed round backed by Mistral's Arthur Mensch and Meta's Yann LeCun. (Oct 22)
Beyond Vision
A Portuguese maker of AI-powered defense and security drones that raised over 28 million euros co-led by Índico Capital Partners and Lince Capital to scale production and global expansion. (Oct 22)
QuantrolOx
An Anglo-Finnish Oxford University spinout building software that automates tuning quantum computers that raised a 12 million euro Series A led by IW Capital. (Oct 22)
Indurex
An industrial cybersecurity company protecting cyber-physical systems in energy, oil and gas and manufacturing that raised a 7 million euro round led by Contrarian Ventures. (Oct 22)
Archive
42 reports · click a row to open it| Date | Winner | One-liner | Runners-up | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-23 | Warhound | 200 million dollar round at a 1.2 billion dollar valuation from In-Q-Tel, Sequoia and 8VC, as Colossal Biosciences founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey launch a company that genetically engineers and clones working dogs for the military and arms them with Anduril sensor gear | Enact, Beyond Vision, QuantrolOx, Indurex | |
| 2026-10-22 | Legora | 550 million dollar Series E at an 8.8 billion dollar valuation led by Atreides Management, as the legal AI company's annual recurring revenue doubled past 200 million dollars in six months while US in-house legal teams became its fastest-growing customer base | Pigment, Opply, Photon Bridge, Blacksmith | |
| 2026-10-21 | Daytona | 60 million dollar Series B at a 1 billion dollar valuation led by FirstMark, as the AI agent sandbox company's revenue run rate rose twenty-five fold in nine months on a customer list including Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, Cursor, Cognition and Meta | Blackwall, Vessla, Linkener, Coherence Quantum | |
| 2026-10-20 | Tenstorrent | 1.5 billion dollar round at a 6.2 billion dollar valuation, more than doubling its 2024 mark, as chip architect Jim Keller's inference-chip startup turns down Intel and Qualcomm buyout interest to keep challenging Nvidia independently | Town, Hunar.AI, Rabot Energy, Otter Health | |
| 2026-10-19 | Modal Labs | 750 million dollar Series D led by Accel at a 15.75 billion dollar valuation, as the AI infrastructure startup says its annualized run rate crossed 1 billion dollars with usage tripling in five months, built on serverless GPU access for inference, training and agent sandboxes | OMass Therapeutics, Scanntech, North.cloud, Fortem Technologies | |
| 2026-10-18 | Mueon | 65 million dollar Series A led by Maverick Silicon, as the Portland semiconductor startup founded by two Intel veterans scales Cubelets, modular 3D blocks bundling compute, memory, power and cooling to cut AI data center power and density limits, already in use by AI chip startup d-Matrix | Estuary Biotherapeutics, Fission, Otter Health, HyLight | |
| 2026-10-17 | Chariot Claims | 10 million dollar Series A led by Silverton Partners, as the rebranded ClaimClam legal-tech platform scales automated matching of consumers to mass arbitration and class-action claims over hidden fees and hard-to-cancel subscriptions, building on more than 65,000 claims already processed toward an estimated 92 million dollars in settlements | Marklo, Siena, Rein Security, Peppermint | |
| 2026-10-16 | Salience Labs | 125 million dollar oversubscribed Series B led by Bullhound Capital, as the Oxford-spun-out photonics company wins new backing from AMD Ventures and Intel Capital for all-optical circuit switches meant to break the power and latency ceiling facing electronic switches as AI GPU clusters scale toward tens of thousands of chips | Navra, Type One Energy, Oratomic, Gallatin AI | |
| 2026-10-15 | Soufflé Therapeutics | 135 million dollar Series B led by Juvia Group, as the MIT bioengineer Robert Langer-founded biotech works to deliver RNA medicines to muscle and heart tissue, a problem that has stalled the entire siRNA drug class, backed by more than 3.5 billion dollars in big pharma partnerships before any program has reached the clinic | ICON, Pluto Security, Nous Research, Atomic Machines | |
| 2026-10-14 | Vitalize | 31 million dollar Series A led by Oak HC and FT, as the Y Combinator-backed startup unifying hospital staffing, scheduling, patient flow and capacity management expands after enterprise customers reported cutting manual scheduling work and premium labor spend | Gallatin AI, byteXL, Desible.ai, Credfix | |
| 2026-10-13 | Universal Quantum | 100 million dollar Series A co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures, a record raise for a UK quantum computing company, as the University of Sussex spinout races to prove its modular trapped-ion chiplet interconnect can out-scale newly public rivals Quantinuum and IonQ | Atlas Atomics, Type One Energy, Sabi, Catalyst | |
| 2026-10-12 | Manus | 500 million dollar funding round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, the general AI agent's first raise since China blocked Meta's 2 billion dollar bid for the company and barred its founders from leaving the country, as Manus pursues a reported 4 billion dollar valuation on roughly 125 million dollars of annualized revenue | Oratomic, Matchpoint Therapeutics, Oxide Computer, Stuut | |
| 2026-10-11 | Arena | 200 million dollar Series B co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures at a 3.1 billion dollar valuation, as the company behind the Chatbot Arena leaderboard nearly doubles its valuation in ten months on roughly 100 million dollars of annualized revenue from selling AI evaluation and alignment benchmarking to labs and enterprises, while Scale AI's new Seal Showdown contests its neutral-referee position | Gallatin AI, Rein Security, Rivercell, TeddyHoldings.AI | |
| 2026-10-10 | Multiply Labs | 75 million dollar Series B led by Patrick Soon-Shiong's NantWorks with new investors AstraZeneca, Lingotto, Teradyne and Strange Ventures, as the decade-old biologics-manufacturing robotics company passes 100 million dollars raised on the strength of its first commercial sale, an up to 85 million dollar deal with Retro Biosciences, while competing against well-funded rivals Cellares and Ori Biotech to automate cell and gene therapy production | Zomint, Parakeet Health, OuterSignal, Efficient Computer | |
| 2026-10-09 | RougeTx | 58 million dollar Series A led by BioGeneration Ventures and Angelini Ventures with the European Investment Bank's Aurea facility and Kurma Partners also investing, as the Leiden University Medical Center spinout launches the first disease-modifying candidate for hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, a bleeding disorder with no approved therapies, built on more than two decades of pericyte research | GMI Cloud, Varda Space Industries, doxx.net, Beyond Appliances | |
| 2026-10-08 | General Medicine | 120 million dollar Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz with Eli Lilly and Mercy Health joining, as the PillPack founders' online healthcare marketplace brings total funding to 152 million dollars less than three years after launch on hundreds of thousands of customers and an 80 Net Promoter Score | Noah, Nous Research, Buntar Aerospace, Monid | |
| 2026-10-07 | Vinci | 250 million dollar Series B at a 1.5 billion dollar valuation co-led by Advent, Temasek and Xora Innovation, as the Palo Alto physics foundation model startup jumps from a 46 million dollar seed and Series A disclosed last December to a tenfold valuation leap less than a year later, aiming its technology at chip design incumbents Cadence and Synopsys | Spiko, Hadrian, WhiteLab Genomics, Inbolt | |
| 2026-10-06 | Pandektes | 13.5 million euro Series A led by Munich's Alstin Capital, as the Copenhagen legal-research startup grows revenue sixfold and wins customers switching off LexisNexis, Westlaw, Beck and Karnov with an API-first legal data platform | OneByZero, Fleuret AI, Laki Power, RobCo | |
| 2026-10-05 | PaleBlueDot AI | 200 million dollar Series C at a 3.2 billion dollar valuation led by ComputeCore, as the Palo Alto AI compute platform nearly triples its valuation in under nine months on more than 5 billion dollars of signed customer contracts | Simple Energy, Elio Mortgage, Menos AI, SedMed | |
| 2026-10-04 | Flow Engineering | 50 million dollar Series B at a 750 million dollar valuation co-led by Valor Equity Partners and Atreides Management, as the AI-native systems-engineering platform for hardware teams grows to over 100 million requirements managed and adds General Motors, Anduril and Intuitive Machines as customers less than a year after its Series A | Miter, Kanu AI, Beltic, Satlyt | |
| 2026-10-03 | EliseAI | 350 million dollar round at a 4 billion dollar valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, as the housing and healthcare conversational AI company nearly doubles its valuation in thirteen months on 200 million dollars of ARR and five straight years of 100 percent revenue growth | Kahua, Breye Therapeutics, Amara, Kuro | |
| 2026-10-02 | Armadin | 255.5 million dollar Series B co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel at a 2.5 billion dollar valuation, as Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia's agentic attacker-swarm security platform runs live attack campaigns for Fortune 500 and government customers seven months after stealth | Foundational, Seeds Fincap, Numeral, Chamelio | |
| 2026-10-01 | General Intuition | 220 million dollar Series B at a 6.2 billion dollar valuation, nearly tripling in three months, as the AI foundation model startup trains action models on billions of gameplay clips from its own sister company Medal | Varda, Jeeves, Sand.ai, Arivihan | |
| 2026-09-30 | Tiny Health | Oversubscribed $33M Series B led by B Capital as the at-home microbiome testing company posts 1,624% three-year revenue growth and quadruples its practitioner-facing business | Modulate, erad, Baselayer, Ande | |
| 2026-09-29 | Instinct | $1B Series C led by Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue at a $10B valuation, a roughly 4x jump in five weeks, as its text-message AI agent passes 100,000 users with 10% daily compounding growth | SiMa.ai, Quartermaster, Outmarket AI, Humanos | |
| 2026-09-28 | Solcoa Industries | $75M seed ($45M equity led by Bain Capital Ventures plus $30M JPMorgan-anchored debt) to build a 500-tonne Nevada plant using a novel rare-earth metalmaking process, aimed at breaking China's 95% grip on metallization | Clastix, Prevision Medicine, Spiich, Barq | |
| 2026-09-27 | Ultraviolette | $85M Series E led by Yali Capital and TDK Ventures; Bengaluru performance EV motorcycle maker plans US entry by 2027 on 4-5x revenue growth | Micro1, Kasvu Therapeutics, HIFI, Dextr AI | |
| 2026-09-26 | Island | $400M Series F led by Evolution Equity Partners at a $6.4B valuation, more than doubling its 2024 valuation as the enterprise browser expands into governing AI agents | Cyera, Confido, Heidi Health, Firecrawl | |
| 2026-09-25 | Ema | $77M Series B led by Creaegis, more than quadrupling its valuation as every existing backer doubled down and Wipro scales its AI Employees to 240,000+ workers | Ando, Kasvu Therapeutics, HIFI, Nuvah | |
| 2026-09-24 | TEKEVER | $580M Series D led by UC Investments and Baillie Gifford; Ukraine-proven AI surveillance drone maker hits $6.4B valuation on a new 400M pound UK Army contract | Enveda Biosciences, Basecamp Research, Numeral, Brahma AI | |
| 2026-09-23 | Verda | $189M oversubscribed Series B led by Emergence Capital; profitable Nordic GPU cloud crosses $1B valuation on $165M ARR | Snorkel AI, Nexstrom, MacroCycle, Demoverse | |
| 2026-09-22 | BCI-Sonics | RMB 200M (~$30M) Pre-Series A led by HSG and Yunqi Capital; non-invasive ultrasound brain-computer interface racing China's invasive BCI leaders and OpenAI-backed Merge Labs | Spott, HighLife, CellPoint, Benford | |
| 2026-09-22 | Amber Electric | €49M Series E led by Morgan Stanley's 1GT; automates 50%+ of Australia's home batteries, expanding VPP software into Europe via E.ON | Corridor, Paymob, Unit1 Studio, Drivn | |
| 2026-09-18 | TypeSafe AI | $40M seed led by DCVC; "System One" model returns typed decisions for software, not chat — built by RLHF co-inventor Diogo Almeida | Space Epoch, Facilo, Treble Technologies, DheyaTech | |
| 2026-09-17 | Exein | $270M Series C at $1.7B valuation (30x in 2 yrs); kernel-level security layer for robots, drones and autonomous machines | Anew Labs, Delos Data, CADDi, AIUC | |
| 2026-09-16 | Euclyd | €200M+ Series A; Samsung-backed (investor + manufacturer) AI inference chip built to out-efficiency Nvidia, chaired by ex-ASML CEO | Profound, Flam, ENCOS, Nutshell Therapeutics | |
| 2026-09-15 | Fortaegis | $50M oversubscribed Series A; quantum-safe security rooted in silicon, chaired by Quantinuum founder Ilyas Khan | Qupital, Tandem Health, Atomarine, UniqYou | |
| 2026-09-11 | Positron AI | $875M Series C at $5B valuation; memory-first inference chips challenging Nvidia's HBM lock-in | The Boring Company, Mach Industries, Rogo Technologies, Swish | |
| 2026-09-10 | Cognition AI | $2B+ Series E at $48B valuation; Devin autonomous coding agent nears $900M run-rate | DigitalPaani, Algomatic Dynamics, Limetax, Fundly.ai | |
| 2026-09-09 | Bluecore Energy | Floating nuclear reactor barges for ports; $50M seed just 2 months after stealth launch | QNu Labs, ARC Ride, Circolife, Hope Care | |
| 2026-09-08 | Pixxel | $100M Series C, India's largest spacetech round; building orbital AI data centers | Nua, Navana.ai, GalaxEye, Atoms (Kalanick) | |
| 2026-09-07 | Medulance | GPS-dispatched ambulance network raises ₹24 Cr Series A-2 | Comet, Mokobara, Kit (Speakeasy), XDOF |
Sources
- TechCrunch — Ben Lamm raises $200M for Warhound to engineer war dogs and arm them with Anduril gear
- Tech.eu — Mistral boss and Yann LeCun back Swiss robotics startup Enact in $30M pre-seed round
- Tech.eu — Portuguese drone maker Beyond Vision raises over €28M to scale production and global expansion
- Tech.eu — Anglo-Finnish Oxford University quantum spinout QuantrolOx raises €12M
- Tech.eu — Indurex raises €7M to strengthen cybersecurity across critical infrastructure