The company says its system replaces traditional marketing agencies with a network of AI agents that manage SEO, paid advertising, GEO and website optimisation end-to-end, helping businesses grow without the cost and complexity of agency support.

The funding round was led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Atreides, SignalFire and Kearny Jackson. The round also drew backing from WNBA stars Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum and Nneka Ogwumike.

Brooklyn-based Mega says it is targeting a long-standing problem faced by smaller businesses trying to compete in the digital marketplace.

Many SMB owners rely on marketing agencies but usually find it hard to see clear returns. Agencies can be expensive, results vary widely, and campaigns typically require manual execution and long turnaround times.

At the same time, the rapid growth of AI marketing tools has created another challenge, where many platforms still require business owners to learn complex software before they can see results.

Mega says its platform is designed to remove that limitation by delivering marketing execution directly through software.

The company’s core product is an AI-powered growth engine built for businesses generating between $500,000 and $20 million in annual revenue. It operates through a network of specialised AI agents that handle SEO, paid advertising, generative engine optimisation (GEO) and website management.

According to the company, the system plans, executes and continuously optimises campaigns while generating performance reports automatically. In practice, Mega says a business can sign up and still see its marketing run in the background even if the owner never logs into the platform.

The company’s entry into the marketing technology space happened almost by accident. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the founding team had been building a video game company. When ChatGPT launched, they began experimenting with AI tools to improve their own marketing efforts.

The results were striking. Organic traffic to their projects increased more than 100-fold, while paid customer acquisition costs dropped by around 80%.

When co-founder Lucas Pellan shared the tools with other founders, demand quickly followed.

“We realised early that business owners do not want another AI chat tool that requires hours of prompting,” Pellan said. “What they want are customers. So we built a system that actually does the work. Our AI agents execute marketing tasks end-to-end and continuously improve performance so SMBs can achieve predictable growth.”

Mega says about 55% of its marketing work is fully automated, while 35% is mostly automated with human oversight and the remaining 10% handled entirely by human specialists. The company says this hybrid approach allows it to scale operations while maintaining quality control.

Each campaign also feeds data back into the system, allowing the platform to improve ad targeting, creative generation, bidding strategies and optimisation across its entire customer base.

The company’s own growth has been fast. Mega says it expanded from zero to $10 million in revenue within 10 months. Its customers include home services companies, law firms, healthcare providers, ecommerce brands and software businesses.

In one case, Mega helped a Texas-based medical spa increase search traffic by 174 times, while a personal injury law firm saw its search visibility grow 243 times, pushing several key terms into the top three search rankings.

A direct-to-consumer health brand using the platform generated $120,000 in website revenue and surpassed its sales performance on Amazon without increasing advertising spend.

Darin Chase, a home services business owner who uses the platform, said the system has simplified his company’s marketing operations.

“Since working with Mega we finally have a predictable flow of leads,” he said. “We’re also able to focus on other projects because Mega handles the marketing side.”

Mega believes the opportunity in the SMB market is huge. Tens of thousands of marketing agencies currently serve smaller businesses across North America, however, many companies still see difficulty with inconsistent lead generation, limited transparency on results and weak returns on marketing spend.

With digital marketing channels becoming more competitive and expensive, the company argues that AI-driven automation can help narrow the gap between small businesses and large enterprises.

“Mega represents a fundamental shift in how SMBs approach marketing, moving from paying for effort to paying for measurable, repeatable growth,” said Vivek Subramanian, partner and chief product officer at Goodwater Capital.

“We’re excited to support Lucas and the team as they build an AI-native growth engine that businesses can deploy easily.”

With the funding, Mega plans to expand its platform beyond SEO, paid advertising and websites. The company is developing tools to manage the full revenue engine for SMBs, including email marketing, outbound campaigns, organic social media, lead qualification, sales operations and reporting.

Its long-term goal is to provide a fully automated growth infrastructure that allows small and mid-sized businesses to compete with enterprise-level marketing capabilities without the associated cost and complexity.

The raise, led by Andreessen Horowitz with backing from Activant Capital, Khosla Ventures and several others, brings new board members on deck as the company prepares for a wider commercial sprint.

The funding gives Stuut room to enhance six core functions it already targets, including collections, payments, cash application, deductions, credits and disputes. These are the areas where companies with heavy transaction volumes often struggle the most.

Many still depend on staff who spend long days chasing customer payments, combing through portals and matching records by hand. For some firms, that drag can wipe out up to 5% of EBITDA.

Rather than treating accounts receivable as a set of tools that still rely on humans, Stuut built its platform as a worker that completes each step itself. It reads customer patterns, manages outreach, resolves disputes and pulls information from different systems without waiting for someone to guide it. 

Many firms have promised speed, but Stuut’s assertion is different. The company says it removes manual steps entirely.

Tarek Alaruri, co-founder and chief executive said the underlying technology only recently became possible. “The technology to actually automate this work didn’t exist 18 months ago when we started Stuut,” he said. “We can now handle exceptions and complexity, learn from each interaction, work across disconnected systems, and execute tasks end-to-end. Previous solutions help humans click buttons faster. We eliminate the clicking entirely and are helping brands collect millions more in previously lost revenue.”

The company says implementation takes days rather than the six-month to 18-month rollouts common with older software. Early adopters such as ZoomInfo, Bishop Lifting, Honeywell and PerkinElmer are already using the system, with reported reductions of 40% in overdue balances and cuts of up to 70% in manual workload.

Honeywell’s Head of Quote to Cash, Razvan Bratu, said the impact is immediate. “Stuut is transforming our accounts receivable operations on a daily basis. We’re collecting faster from the in-scope customers, our cash flow is improving, and our team has more time to focus on white gloves service for top customers,” he noted. “The platform handles the routine work so our people drive increased real business value.”

Venture supporters say Stuut Technologies is moving the industry towards fully autonomous financial operations. “Accounts receivable is one of the finance functions still dominated by manual work. Stuut changes that by replacing repetitive AR tasks with software that actually does the work–and does it better,” said Seema Amble of Andreessen Horowitz. She added that the company’s early results show clear returns for clients.

Activant Capital’s Steve Sarracino said this is a good difference in how businesses will run their finance stack. “We backed Stuut because they’re redefining AR as an autonomous system of intelligence that learns, executes, and compounds value over time. This is an exciting move from tool-centric software to results-centric operations.”

With new capital and pressure on companies to speed up cash recovery, Stuut is changing the slow processes and ageing tools in the sector.

The company seeks to replace outdated government systems with efficient, accessible, and user-friendly technology.

Led by NEA, with participation from 776, Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, and Carpenter Capital, the round follows an $11 million seed funding co-led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism practice, bringing Kaizen’s total funding to $35 million.

Kaizen’s technology is already in use across more than 50 government agencies in 17 states, reaching over 30 million residents. From state parks and DMVs to court systems and tax portals, the company is bolstering how people access essential services. 

Instead of fragmented systems that charge taxpayers billions through maintenance contracts and outdated software, Kaizen offers a single, unified platform. Governments can deploy new services within weeks, and residents can interact with them through a modern, intuitive interface.

“Kaizen is focused on the most fundamental American services that we use every day – the parks, transit, licensing, the everyday systems that quietly hold our communities together. 

“That clarity of mission has accelerated their growth and embodies exactly what the American Dynamism movement stands for to ensure our government is working at the speed of technology and serving our national interests,” said Katherine Boyle, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

For Kaizen’s CEO and co-founder, Nikhil Reddy, the company’s mission is a personal one. He believes Americans have settled for less when it comes to public service technology. 

“American citizens have been worn down into accepting second-class solutions when it comes to public service technology,” Reddy said. “Think about it, when was the last time you had a delightful experience booking a DMV appointment or reserving a campsite at a state park?”

He added, “If we raise our expectations of what public service technology can and should be, we can transform not just someone’s day or weekend, but how millions of people experience the impact of their taxpayer dollars.”

The timing of Kaizen’s rise coincides with a national push for digital reform. The federal government recently established a National Design Office to oversee a $10 billion effort aimed at modernising more than 25,000 public service portals. 

Kaizen’s tools align closely with this agenda, providing governments with the digital infrastructure to serve citizens with the same ease as private-sector platforms.

“In so many places around the world, public services run on technology that’s every bit as good as what we use in our daily lives — sometimes better. There’s no reason America shouldn’t aim just as high,” said Alexis Ohanian, founder and general partner at Seven Seven Six. 

“Kaizen is building the backbone for public services that reflect the beauty, ambition, and potential of the society they serve.”

Co-founder KJ Shah, who began his career in mergers and acquisitions, saw how legacy systems affected public-sector efficiency. “For decades, public servants have been forced to use stagnant software built through acquisitions, not product innovation. Our agencies need and deserve a platform built natively and designed to grow with them,” he stated.

Kaizen’s results are already visible. In Maryland, the company launched a new state park day-pass system in less than two months, a full month ahead of schedule. 

On Independence Day weekend, state parks operated at full capacity without major check-in delays, eliminating long-standing traffic jams and cutting overtime costs. Wildlife even began returning to calmer park environments.

“As a career public servant with 30 years at the Department of Natural Resources, I can say without hesitation that this initiative is one of the most meaningful changes we’ve implemented to expand and safeguard public access while ensuring equitable access to our public lands,” said Paul Peditto, assistant secretary of Land Resources, Maryland DNR.

Since early 2024, Kaizen’s customer base has expanded tenfold, while annual recurring revenue has surged ninefold year-on-year. The company has recently partnered with Maricopa County, Arizona; San Bernardino County, California; Suffolk County, New York; and the Cherokee Nation. 

Its workforce is expected to grow from 30 to 50 by early next year as it targets federal agencies and new sectors such as courts and licensing.

“Kaizen is tackling one of the toughest areas in technology and doing it with precision and purpose,” said Amit Kumar, partner at Accel. “Nikhil sees opportunity where others see complexity, and his team is proving that public services can be modern, efficient, and built around the people they serve.”

Andrew Schoen, Partner at NEA, added: “Public services impact hundreds of millions of people every day in the US alone, yet their technologies often lag far behind the seamless digital experiences modern consumers expect. We’re thrilled to back Nikhil, KJ, and the Kaizen team as they bring streamlined, thoughtfully-designed, AI-native experiences to government services, already reaching more than 30 million residents across 17 states and 50 agencies.”

Kaizen’s long-term goal is to become the primary technology partner for public institutions, one that creates reliable, beautifully designed systems citizens can trust.

The funding comes only six months after its $5 million seed round, pushing its total capital raised to $30 million.

At the heart of FurtherAI’s mission is a goal to put an end to the inefficiencies that have long burdened insurance professionals. For decades, underwriters, brokers, and claims handlers have relied on outdated systems and manual processes, spending hours sifting through spreadsheets, PDFs, and disconnected databases. 

FurtherAI wants to change that by automating workflows across underwriting, claims, and compliance, giving insurers the freedom to focus on risk management and client service rather than administrative tasks.

“Insurance is the backbone of the economy, but the people running it have been stuck with outdated tools,” said Aman Gour, co-founder and CEO of FurtherAI. “With this funding, we’re doubling down on building AI workflows that give underwriters, brokers, and claims teams superpowers — freeing them to focus on the work that truly matters.”

The Series A round, which also saw participation from Nexus Venture Partners and Y Combinator, reiterates the current interest in specialised technology in the insurance space. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its catalogue of insurance-specific workflows, strengthen integrations with major carriers and brokers, and scale its go-to-market efforts amid accelerating demand.

The insurance industry, estimated at $7 trillion globally, faces a convergence of challenges, from climate risk to regulatory pressures and a shortage of skilled professionals. Many insurers have attempted to deploy generic automation tools, only to find them inadequate for the industry’s complex documentation and compliance needs. 

FurtherAI provides what it calls an insurance-native workspace, designed to integrate seamlessly with existing systems while delivering precision and scalability.

Sashank Gondala, co-founder and CTO of FurtherAI, explained the company’s hands-on model: “We’re excited to partner with the insurance industry to unlock real value with AI — automating the busy work and opening new avenues of growth. With our forward-deployed engineering model, insurance teams work side-by-side with an AI engineer to ensure impact at scale.”

Already, the firm’s technology processes billions in premiums annually, powering submissions, policy comparisons, and compliance checks for major industry players such as Accelerant, MSI, and Leavitt Group. Early adopters report measurable improvements, including a 15% boost in submission-to-quote ratios, over 95% accuracy in policy comparisons, and up to tenfold faster proposal generation.

“The FurtherAI team has been a fantastic partner in rapidly standing up complex enterprise workflows,” said Venkat Raman, chief bizOps officer at Accelerant. Similarly, Laurie Flanagan of Leavitt Group noted, “Implementing FurtherAI has been game-changing — faster turnarounds, higher accuracy, and a platform we can keep expanding.”

For Andreessen Horowitz, the investment shows FurtherAI’s potential to boost the sector. “FurtherAI is redefining how insurance gets done,” said Joe Schmidt, Partner at a16z. “Aman and Sashank are technical founders whose customers see them as true AI partners, not just AI tools. Their early traction signals a generational opportunity to transform insurance.”

With this latest funding round, FurtherAI appears well-positioned to boost digital transformation in insurance, as efficiency and expertise finally go hand in hand.

Co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and ICONIQ, with participation from Sequoia, Oak HC/FT and earlier investors, this round comes just 10 weeks after Rillet announced a $25m Series A round from Sequoia, now bringing the company’s total funding raised under a year to over $100 million as it races to replace outdated systems like NetSuite and Intacct.

In conjunction with the new funding, Andreessen Horowitz General Partner, Alex Rampell and ICONIQ General Partner, Seth Pierrepont are joining the board.

Since launch, Rillet has signed over 200 customers and doubled its ARR over the past 12 weeks. The rapid growth has also resulted in strategic partnerships with many of the nation’s top accounting firms like Armanino (top 20) and Wiss (top 50).

The investment accelerates the company’s mission to rebuild enterprise accounting from the ground up, giving finance leaders the ability to scale multi-billion dollar companies with teams a fraction of the size.

“As US CEO of N26, I experienced firsthand how frustrating it was to wait weeks for critical business metrics,” said Nicolas Kopp, CEO and co-founder of Rillet. “My finance team was world-class, but simple requests took weeks because the systems were stuck in the past. I knew there had to be a better way.” 

That conviction led Kopp to partner with Stelios Modes, the technical architect behind N26’s payment infrastructure, to completely rethink what enterprise accounting could become.

The transformation they envisioned is now a reality. PostScript, a unicorn with over $100 million in ARR and global operations, closes its books in just three days using Rillet. Windsurf, one of the fastest-growing companies in recent memory, runs its entire finance operation with a lean team of two people.

Customers consistently report cutting their close times to just a few days while implementing Rillet as fast as 4 weeks vs the 12 months required in traditional systems.

Rillet’s breakthrough lies in how it redefines financial systems architecture. Legacy ERPs are, at their core, “limited databases”. They store transactions, but the real work happens in spreadsheets and bolt-on analytics tools.

Rillet flips that model. It starts with native integrations, which enable structured data to flow into their smart general ledger.

AI is then applied directly within the system, empowering finance teams to collaborate in real time, automate workflows natively and get insightful reporting the moment something happens, not days or weeks later.

Although accounting is the single biggest category in enterprise software –  a $500B+ global market that nearly every company on Earth depends on –  the space is dominated by incumbents owned by slow-moving conglomerates: NetSuite by Oracle, Intacct by Sage, Dynamics by Microsoft. Even more recent players like Acumatica are being folded into private equity portfolios. 

Rillet is a clean-slate rethink for this new era – built for speed, intelligence, and scale. And unlike those legacy platforms, Rillet is built by accountants.

Its Chief Product Officer is a former EY controller; the Head of Customer Success came from PwC; and the VP of Implementations is a CPA and former customer. This DNA shows up in every workflow, every implementation, and every customer result.

“Finance teams deserve the same AI advantages that have revolutionised sales, engineering, and legal,” said Alex Rampell, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. 

While Seema Amble, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz added: “Rillet is delivering that transformation by rebuilding ERP infrastructure specifically for the AI era. We’re excited to support their vision as they scale to serve the next generation of high-growth companies.” 

“In our view, Rillet is not just modernising accounting software, it’s redefining what finance teams can achieve when freed from outdated systems,” said Seth Pierrepont, general partner at ICONIQ. 

“Their AI-native approach can give companies a clear edge: faster insights, leaner teams, and smarter decisions. We believe Rillet will become foundational infrastructure for the next generation of category-defining businesses.”

The timing here is critical. The accounting industry is facing a major talent crunch, with 75% of accountants expected to retire in the next 15 years. At the same time, 80% of routine financial operations could be automated according to Accenture. 

Rillet sits right at this crossroads, creating a new platform shift in how humans and AI work together in finance. The result is transformative: finance teams get more done with fewer people, while shifting their focus from manual grunt work to strategic analysis that actually moves the needle for their business.

Looking ahead, Rillet’s plan is to expand its AI capabilities and deepen integrations across the financial technology stack. The team’s ultimate vision extends far beyond automation; they’re building towards a collaborative platform where AI agents and human expertise work together to transform how businesses understand and manage their financial performance. 

“Our customers are building the companies that will define the next decade of business,” Kopp concluded. “We’re building the infrastructure that will take them there and redefine what’s possible when finance teams have truly modern tools.”

With several customers expected to go public on Rillet’s platform in the next 6-12 months, the company is set to prove that today’s most ambitious businesses can scale from startup to IPO on truly AI-native financial infrastructure – signaling the first major shift in years in how companies run, and win, with finance.

Coming from 97 investors, though their identities remain undisclosed in the filing, the investment round attracted companies including Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Fidelity, Kingdom Holdings, and Nvidia, among others. 

xAI later confirmed that these funds have brought its total capital raised to $12 billion, following a previous $6 billion secured earlier this year. Reports reveal xAI is targeting a valuation of $50 billion, double its worth from six months ago.

xAI, founded in 2023, has been focused on integrating its flagship AI model, Grok, into various applications. Grok powers a range of features on X (formerly Twitter), including a chatbot for premium and select free users. 

Known for its unconventional style, Grok is marketed as a “truth-seeking” AI with fewer biases, although it has been criticised for its limitations and occasional inaccuracies.

The model has also been embedded in other functions on X, such as image generation, news summarisation, and analytics enhancements. xAI recently launched an API allowing third-party developers to integrate Grok into their platforms and introduced a standalone app for iOS.

While xAI continues to grow, the company is working to tackle challenges from rivals and regulators. Musk’s company has accused OpenAI and its collaborator, Microsoft, of limiting competition by allegedly restricting investor opportunities and benefiting from exclusive partnerships. 

Again, Tesla shareholders are having issues with Musk’s diversion of resources to xAI, even filing lawsuits against him.

Nonetheless, xAI is generating significant revenue, reportedly around $100 million annually. However, this pales in comparison to competitors like OpenAI, which is projected to earn $4 billion by the end of 2024.

Data Centre Expansion and Future Plans

xAI is scaling its operations really fast. The company built a data centre in Memphis in just four months, with 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, and has secured approval to double its capacity next year. 

The Memphis facility, partly powered by diesel generators, has been commended as well as criticised. While xAI has committed to improving local infrastructure, residents are unhappy about environmental issues over the stress on resources.

Tesla is expected to utilise xAI’s upgraded infrastructure to refine its autonomous driving systems, while xAI continues to train the next generation of Grok models at the facility.

AI Industry Competition

xAI’s growth comes with competition from rival companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, which have also raised billions to bolster their operations. 

Anthropic recently secured $4 billion from Amazon, while OpenAI added $6.6 billion to its reserves, bringing its total funding to nearly $18 billion.