In a quarter when nearly two-thirds of global venture capital went to just four companies, it’s easy to lose track of the many other companies getting funding to tackle interesting problems. Nonetheless, we spotted five companies in just the past month working on issues from cleaner ferries and trains to foundational AI for plants. Let’s take a closer look.

$55M for a mineral rights-backed credit card

Natural resources can be incredibly valuable financial assets, but you can’t exactly buy your weekly groceries with oil or water rights.

That’s an issue that a Dallas-based fintech startup aims to solve. recently raised $50 million in a debt round from to provide a credit card to U.S. households holding mineral rights to natural resources such as oil, natural gas, solar, wind or water.

“For the millions of mineral rights owners in the United States, these rights are one of the most valuable assets the family owns. But these families are just like the rest of Americans and often are carrying revolving credit card balances at more than 25% [interest],” Frontlands CEO said in a statement. “Historically, owners have had few options to access the value trapped inside their mineral rights without selling.”

Its AI system combines machine learning, production data, royalty payment histories, lease terms, commodity price forecasts, geologic data and traditional to automate the underwriting process, the company says. While it’s historically been difficult for traditional lenders to assess natural resources as collateral, Frontlands says its process typically delivers a same-day credit decision.

The company’s recent credit facility is in addition to a announced in December from venture investors including , , and .

Frontlands said its average credit line in early markets — Texas, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, North Dakota, Wyoming and Oklahoma — is more than $30,000. It plans to launch its credit card product this summer in partnership with Texas-based sponsor bank .

Frontlands said it also expects to raise a Series A round later this year.

“Our goal isn’t to pile on more debt,” Cotter said in a statement. “But the opportunity to help our customers move away from high-interest credit card debt — and provide a path toward greater financial stability — is compelling.”

Investment in fintech startups hit a multiyear high in 2025, Crunchbase data shows, though remains well below the peak. Many of the best-funded companies in recent quarters have brought AI to bear on traditionally more manual or cumbersome processes in the financial services industry.

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$32M for ‘flying’ electric commuter ferries

As of this writing, oil prices are hovering around $100 a barrel — down from an even greater peak a few weeks earlier, but still among the highest levels seen in years, as the U.S.-Iran war disrupts global energy markets.

So Swedish electric vessel maker ’s recent funding of €30 million (about $32 million) seems timely. The Stockholm-based company makes electric “flying” boats that are used as commuter ferries. They differ from traditional vessels by using computer-controlled hydrofoils to lift the hull above the water, an approach the company says dramatically reduces drag and cuts energy use by up to 80% — enabling faster, smoother, zero-emission travel compared to conventional diesel ferries that push through the water.

“From a physics perspective, ships have been essentially the same for hundreds of years,” Candela founder and CEO said in a statement. “We’re redefining waterborne transport by effectively creating a new category of vessel. This allows cities and municipalities to finally take full advantage of waterways — while escaping the fossil-fuel cost trap that has long prevented them from being used efficiently.”

Its P-12 vessels have already been deployed as commuter ferries in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo and Trondheim.

The new funding was led by ’s arm and included previous investors , , and .

The capital will primarily be used to fund a second factory in Poland. Candela says it has more than 65 vessels on order and planned deployments across markets including India — where a fleet of 10 of its P-12s will reportedly cut travel times from Navi Mumbai Airport to the city center from around two hours to 35 minutes —��the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The startup’s funding defies an overall downturn in clean-tech funding. Funding for clean-tech related startups totaled $26.9 billion in 2025, down 23% year over year and the lowest annual amount since 2020, Crunchbase data shows.

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$30M to electrify trains with batteries and microgrids

Let’s now turn from waterways to train tracks, with another company that recently raised significant funding aimed at giving centuries-old transportation systems a green overhaul.

, a Philadelphia-based startup, said last month that it raised $30 million in seed funding led by Australian mining company and Israeli venture firm to develop a new way of powering freight rail that avoids the high costs of traditional electrification.

The startup positions its technology as a way to decarbonize one of the world’s most efficient but still fossil-fuel-dependent transport systems. It’s targeting a major pain point for the rail industry: its heavy reliance on diesel. In North America alone, the six largest freight rail operators spend roughly $11 billion annually on diesel fuel, while full electrification of rail networks could cost more than $1 trillion, according to Voltify.

Instead of relying on overhead wires, Voltify says it’s building a system that combines battery-equipped railcars with technology that allows trains to recharge while moving. The goal is to help rail operators cut emissions and fuel costs without requiring massive infrastructure overhauls.

Its approach — using mobile batteries and distributed charging via microgrids — aims to sidestep those costs by retrofitting existing trains and building localized energy systems rather than rebuilding entire rail networks.

CEO and co-founder that the company has signed a paid pilot agreement with a Class 1 railroad, though she declined to name the customer, citing a confidentiality agreement.

She noted in a that raising funding for a transportation company in the current market was difficult. “Securing capital in the hardware space and traditional industries is challenging,” she wrote. “It is not the ‘in’ space; there is no FOMO at play, so we need to focus on metrics and execute quickly. With some of the top 5 largest rail companies globally and a large order pipeline, we are determined to keep moving at lightning speed.”

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$7M for foundation AI for biology

Funding to foundational model AI startups surged last quarter, reaching $178 billion, per Crunchbase data. But the vast majority of that funding went to AI giants like and that are building general-purpose GenAI models.

Such models are fundamentally lacking for hard sciences, argues , a startup based in Paris and Berkeley, California, that last month raised $7 million in seed funding to develop foundation AI for biology trained on DNA, RNA and data from other “” fields, rather than human text.

The company’s first family of transformer models is called Botanic and is trained on data from 43 plant species. Living Models noted that it’s starting with the commercial crop industry, a massive global market that has abundant data, well-established research infrastructure, and fewer regulatory concerns and faster commercialization timelines than the pharmaceutical industry.

“Plant biology combines three properties that make it an ideal first domain for biological foundation models: genomic data is abundant and largely unrestricted, the commercial need is acute and quantifiable, and the feedback loop between computational prediction and real-world validation is well established through existing breeding infrastructure,” the company said in a statement.

The global seed industry is also dominated by a handful of incumbents, it noted: , , , and —��companies that already spend billions of dollars a year on breeding research.

“Biology is an information problem at every scale, from a single cell to an entire ecosystem. The genomic data exists across many domains; what’s been missing is a model architecture capable of learning from it at scale,” , Living Models’ CTO and co-founder, said in a statement. “We start with plants because the data is rich and the breeding cycle is a clear bottleneck, but the same approach applies wherever sequence data meets slow, empirical discovery.”

The company’s recent funding was led by , , and . Other included and

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$2.1M for a brain-stimulating consumer wearable

Billions of dollars a year are spent on therapy and other mental-health treatments, yet measuring progress can be elusive.

That’s one of the issues that San Francisco-based aims to take on with a neuromodulation wearable headset that it says can reduce stress, improve attention span and mood, and more quantitatively measure mental health scores.

Mave’s device uses transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, a noninvasive technique that delivers a low electrical current to the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp, with the aim of modulating neural activity. The technology is when used by adults as directed in controlled settings.

The company last month raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by , with participation from individual investors including Autopilot AI lead .

Crucially, Mave says it does not plan to pursue medical-device approval for its product, which sells for $495. Instead, it is positioning the gadget as a wellness tool that consumers can use on a daily basis to improve their mental well-being and better measure the outcomes of talk therapy or other treatments.

“If you ask a psychologist how do you know if a person is making progress, their response to it is very standard, which is that it’s not about progress. It’s about process […] But for somebody with depression who is spending a lot of time in therapy, progress is important. So how do you know whether they’re making progress or not? And even these basic questions were not being answered,” co-founder .

Mave’s funding comes amid an overall downturn in investment for wellness and fitness-related companies, although select wearables makers including and have raised significant funding in recent years.

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Seed-stage investors have a different view. Over the past few months, two startups focused on the intersection of AI and biosecurity have raised good-sized initial rounds with among their investors.

, a developer of AI systems that identify biological threats and design countermeasures, last fall in its first known funding round. The New York-headquartered company counts and as backers, along with OpenAI.

Weeks later, , a self-described AI biosecurity company, secured $15 million in a seed round led by OpenAI and joined by investors including , and . The company’s operating thesis is that as AI capabilities advance, biological risks grow exponentially, so defenses must scale at the same rate.

On the nonprofit front, meanwhile, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based secured grant funding from multiple sources last year, $1.4 million from in December. The organization’s stated mission is to secure the future from catastrophic pandemics.

A drop in the AI bucket

Given all the capital that has poured into artificial intelligence of late, these are not comparatively large sums going to biosecurity. To put it in perspective, the two biggest seed rounds are less than one-tenth of a percent of the record-setting $110 billion financing OpenAI secured last week.

What’s more noteworthy than sums invested is these are relatively new areas for startups to scale.

Per Crunchbase data, the term “biosecurity” and similar terminology has cropped up in funded startup descriptions but not so much in the context of AI. Funded startups around this theme have also commonly focused on livestock.

The Australian startup , for instance, raised a few million two years ago, , with a focus on tracking biosecurity risks for cattle, pigs, eggs and poultry. And Nebraska-based last year for a business focused on swine disease surveillance.

Running in place

In addition to their AI focus, the latest crop of biosecurity seed-funded startups stand out for the dire scenarios they’re hoping to contain.

, it’s now faster to weaponize biology than to advance new cures, an ominous development that AI leaders have identified as one of the largest threats of our time. The company envisions a future where any threat to human health can be immediately identified and neutralized.

Red Queen Bio evokes a similarly alarming specter of threats, reflected in its nomenclature. The , a notion that evolution requires constant adaptation to ever-evolving threats, stems from a “Through the Looking Glass” passage. In it, the tyrannical Red Queen explains that in her kingdom, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

Running to keep in the same place seems a more broadly apt metaphor for the modern era in myriad domains, not just biosecurity. However, this is one of the spaces where not keeping up carries the potentially deadliest penalties.

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While AI startups continue to get the lion’s share of venture funding, this month most of the startups that caught our attention weren’t centered around artificial intelligence. Rather, they include a startup making a more environmentally friendly fertilizer, a mental health platform for new and expecting mothers, and a medical device company aiming to make a better insulin patch for people living with diabetes. Let’s take a look.

$85M for a cooler insulin patch

One of the companies that caught our eye this month is , a Dutch startup with an insulin patch pump designed to look and feel more like a trendy tech gadget than a medical device. The Netherlands-based company raised $85 million in Series D funding in early September.

Its round comes as diabetes is becoming more prevalent worldwide, with the insulin pump market projected to . Of that, patch pumps — small, tubeless devices that adhere directly to the skin and deliver insulin continuously without the need for external tubing — represent the fastest-growing market segment.

ViCentra makes , a small, sleek, waterproof insulin patch pump that comes in an array of bright, sparkly colors similar to iPhone hues. The device also integrates with a cloud platform where users can track their glucose levels, sleep, and diet and exercise insights that they can then choose to share with doctors or family members.

“Kaleido is a true disruptor — small, discreet, featherlight, and beautifully designed,” ViCentra CEO said in the funding announcement. “It empowers people with diabetes by offering a more personal and distinctive choice in both function and style. Built with empathy and precision, it honors those who live with diabetes every day. With this funding, we can now meet surging European demand and fast-track our entry into the U.S. market.”

The company’s Series D was led by new investor , with matching participation from existing investors and . Previous investors and also joined.

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Environmentally friendly fertilizer gets a $50M boost

We typically think of things like power plants, vehicles and industrial factories when we consider the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. A less commonly known culprit: agricultural fertilizers.

But fertilizers to grow crops —��traditionally done through what’s known as the —½����� to generate more than 2% of greenhouse gas emissions. The Haber process produces ammonia by reacting nitrogen from the air with hydrogen (usually from natural gas) under high temperature and pressure, using an iron catalyst.

Ammonia is the key ingredient in most nitrogen-based fertilizers, making the process critical for large-scale crop production worldwide.

But while traditional fertilizers have enabled mass food production, they also create a lot of negative externalities. Among them are high energy use and emissions, resource dependency on natural gas for hydrogen, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.

A San Francisco-based startup, , has a different approach. The company this month announced $50 million in Series B funding and broke ground on its new organic fertilizer plant in California’s Central Valley. There, it will use renewable power to produce its organic, nitrogen fertilizer liquid, called Ash Tea, made from recycled organic almond shells, air and water.

The company says Ash Tea is cost-competitive with other commercially available organic fertilizers, but is more environmentally friendly and free from pathogens and animal products. Field trials of the product have reportedly shown up to 30% increases in yield.

Nitricity’s pilot factory in Fremont, California, currently produces 80 tons of fertilizer per year, which treats around 80 acres of crops. The company says all of its current production is spoken for and it has $150 million in its sales pipeline. The new factory is expected to begin operation next year and will mark a 100x production increase, according to the company.

“This is an inflection point for Nitricity. We’re scaling across the U.S. and we’re very excited to expand into Europe in a serious and assertive way. The European market for our organic fertilizer is even larger than in the U.S., and demand is only growing against a backdrop of European governments looking to boost resilience and create circular agriculture economies,” Nitricity co-founder and CEO said in a statement.

Its Series B was co-led by new investor and returning investor . Other participants included ‘s Cultivate Next venture fund, , , and .

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$10.8M for a toothbrush that does the work for you

Toothbrushes haven’t changed much since the first electric one came on the market in the 1950s.

But is one of a handful of funded startups working on changing how we clean our teeth with oral cleaning devices designed to be customized, more efficient and more effective. The Palo Alto, California-based company this month announced $10.8 million in funding to launch what it calls “the world’s first full-mouth oral cleaning device.”

The brush is fully automated, “cleaning all 192 tooth surfaces simultaneously with custom-fit, 3D-printed mouthpieces and sonic-powered bristles.” The company claims that early testing shows its device removes nearly twice as much plaque in half the time of manual brushing.

ZeroBrush was founded by cosmetic dentist Dr. and product innovator . Its investors include and an unnamed “large CPG strategic,” angel investors and a senior executive, the company said.

“ZERObrush is not just an incremental improvement — it’s a completely new category of oral hygiene that brings professional-level cleaning to everyday routines,” Dr. Pai said in a funding announcement.

The company is one of several funded startups working on custom oral hygiene devices. Another is , which makes a full-mouth flossing device and has raised $15 million in funding.

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$8M for better maternal mental health care

While bringing a new baby into the world is for most people a joyous occasion, it’s also often one of the most difficult and challenging experiences of a mother’s life. It’s not just the physical recovery that follows childbirth, either: In fact, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders affect an estimated , making them the most common complication of childbirth.

And yet, of women diagnosed with postpartum mood or anxiety disorders never receive treatment, whether that’s due to perceived stigma, provider shortages, insurance limitations or other access issues. That lack of treatment can have devastating consequences: Suicide and overdose of maternal death in the U.S. in the first year postpartum.

This month, , a New York-based startup, said it has raised $8 million in new funding to expand its maternal mental health platform, focusing on treating women during fertility challenges, pregnancy, postpartum and early parenthood.

led the round. , , , , , , , and also participated.

The company, which has now raised $22.4 million, , said it already operates in 18 U.S. states and has partnerships with over 1,500 OB-GYNs. With the new funding, it plans to expand to more than 30 states by the end of 2026.

The company says it maintains in-network coverage with health insurers , , and , and has expanded coverage options including programs in a growing number of markets.

“We saw an opportunity to build something different by working directly within the healthcare system rather than working around it,” CEO and co-founder said in a statement. “Our provider-integrated approach ensures women get specialized care at the moment they need it most.”

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$1.5M for a robot that doesn’t try to be human

Robotics funding recently hit a multiyear high, boosted by a billion-dollar round for humanoid robotics startup .

But smaller startups working on robots — humanoid or not — are raising cash, too, many of them with industrial or workplace applications.

One of the latest is , which makes a tabletop robot designed to do repetitive manual work such as electronics assembly. The San Francisco-based company earlier this month announced $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from investors including co-founder and early and investor .

MicroFactory’s robots are priced around $5,000. Unlike the humanoid robots being developed by many funded startups, the company’s general-purpose bots are small enough to fit on a desktop, and in a compact-box-shaped frame.

Their robotic arms are precision soldering and screwing, cable routing, peeling adhesive films or plastic layers, and light-duty food processing and packaging.

“You don’t need a humanoid robot to automate tabletop work,” co-founder and CEO said in a statement. “Our robot design allows us to automate tasks with the current state of robotic AI models and hardware.”

Since they don’t need legs, complex human-like fingers, or batteries, MicroFactory’s machines are also much simpler — and cheaper —��to manufacture than their humanoid counterparts, according to the company.

MicroFactory says it has secured paid reservations from more than 100 customers in industries ranging from electronics assembly and textiles to food processing and laboratory automation. The first units are expected to ship in early 2026.

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Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. How are you today?

Kale: My nitrogen levels are a bit low this morning, so we’re monitoring them closely, but I feel well-lit and properly hydrated.

Great. So let’s get to it. Our data says VC investors plowed $4.5 billion into agtech startups last year, and 20% of that went to indoor farming startups. and raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Are you excited about your field’s success?

Kale: Oh, yes, we’re the future of food. Indoor farmers use AI to make granular adjustments to water, electricity and heat so we always feel nice and cozy.��

You do look very comfortable up there.

Kale: Plus, indoor farming saves on water and other resources, and you can grow us anywhere, saving on shipping costs. I’ve got family . Everyone seems to like it there — except for the cilantro, but those guys are total snobs.

Yes, you’re a real plant of the people. Ever think of growing outside?

Kale: What? What? (shudders with rustling leaves) Out there? With all that … weather?

Sure. Why not?

Kale: Excuse me, have you been outdoors? I’ve heard things: It’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too bright, it’s too cloudy … and don’t even get me started on the bugs.��

Kale’s a pretty hardy plant, right? You’d be fine.

Kale: Well, I won’t have it. I wasn’t optimally cultivated to be a mid-morning snack for rabbits. Here I’ve got my carbon-dioxide monitoring system, fan coil chiller and AI-enabled robots. That’s all I need. Plus my nutrient tubes, humidifiers and phyto-light system.��

Sounds like growing kale indoors can be challenging.

Kale: I’ll admit some of us can be a bit temperamental, but we’re worth every drop of enriched water. There’s more to life than butter lettuce.��

Clearly AI-assisted agtech as a whole has great potential, but I understand that indoor farming is mostly limited to herbs and leafy greens. Isn’t that a problem?

Kale: No. People should eat more salad.��

Maybe so, but indoor farming still seems expensive and hard to scale. Late last year, indoor farming only made up around 14% of total funding in agriculture.��

Kale: Oh, you make my leaves wilt with such talk. We’re finished. Quick, my nitrogen atomizer!

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September has come and gone and there’s a chill in the air as the days have gotten shorter.

Despite those shorter days, there were still plenty of interesting rounds that went to innovative startups this month, including faux pet food, more bug food and money for an AI-created virtual person.

A little creepy

There are a lot of real people in the world, but apparently some have moved on to virtual people now.

Montreal-based AI company closed a $5 million seed round led by the gaming company President as well as by “a prominent wealth adviser and by an international business magnate.” The startup has created —a virtual person created by AI which has a 3D presence with integrated movement and voice technology. She even has her own social media handles.

In the last year, the not-real Lia has garnered an audience of more than 300,000 and the company expects to use the new funding to grow that to more than 1 million by early 2023.

According to the company, Lia becomes increasingly smarter with every interaction she has with her fanbase, which can include discussing anything from math and philosophy to everyday chit-chat.

Although Lia27 points out she will “shy away from romantic conversations.”

Justice for all

There are few jobs as thankless as being a public defender (full disclosure, my father was a public defender for 30-plus years).

Most are overworked and underpaid, balancing several cases for those who have no other options and must face a justice system that can be daunting to even those familiar. The recently estimated that Oregon’s public defender workforce is sufficient to represent .

raised $2.2 million this month to ease some of the burden. The company—which the founders started as a school project while attending the —helps store, analyze and share video evidence, like police video. That includes transcribing video and making that text searchable, saving lawyers valuable time. The product is geared toward public defenders.

Irvine, California-based JusticeText, launched last year, now works with more than 50 public defender agencies.

The round included investment from the likes of , and even .

Better pet food

Two growing sectors right now are pet care and faux meat.

When you combine the two, you get Boulder, Colorado-based company closing a $17.5 million Series A which included investment from , and others.

The startup, which creates meat proteins through fermentation, previously had focused on plant-based pet treats but will use the new funding to push further into all pet food applications trying to reproduce the likes of chicken, fish and beef.��

Which is amazing since so many startups find it difficult to do just one of those right.

The company estimated the pet nutrition sales globally already top $100 billion and are growing at 4.5% a year, so it is not surprising the startup is looking to expand in the space.

The company will use the new cash to expand its meat protein portfolio and scale up production at a new 15,000-square-foot facility in Colorado.

Don’t smoke that

Let’s stay on plant-based meat for a minute.

Israel-based food tech startup closed a $10 million Series A led by this month to further push its cell-cultured meat closer to broad-scale production.

While a lot of companies are making faux meat, it is what BioBetter is using that caught our eye. BioBetter uses tobacco plants as “bioreactors” for creating the growth factors needed for the cellular development of cultivated meat.��

The startup said the princess could “significantly reduce the cost” of cultured meat, as well as help with its commercialization, as two of the biggest issues the industry faces are the steep costs and limited availability of growth factors.

With fewer people smoking than ever before, maybe this is good news for tobacco farmers?

More bugs

Last month, we talked about India-based , and the upcycling it does with insects, turning food waste into protein-rich animal feed.

This month, Paris-based —which also raises insects for animal and plant nutrition—raised a $250 million Series D led by . The company has raised a whopping $450 million to date, per the company.

Who knew there was so much money in insect farming?

Innovafeed also said it has already secured commercial partnerships for “volumes representing more than €1 billion over the next 10 years,” and will use its tech to develop ingredients for not just plants and animal food, but also human food.

The company will use the new funds to push geographical expansion, which includes the construction of a new production plant in Decatur, Illinois.

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