Every week we highlight new funding successes from companies bringing about change in their industries.  We amplify the voice of companies delivering on tech innovation whilst also utilizing remote work, or being clear on the importance of D&I to their brand. All ingredients that talent.ai focus on when selecting the best of the last 7 days, this week fintech and ai lead the charge.

We see these journeys as an inspiration, offering insights to other founders, startups and innovators looking to evolve their stories into something extraordinary.  We know the hard work behind these accomplishments and always seek to recognise and applaud those involved from leadership and founders and their entire teams. 

Congratulations to all the founders and teams! 

Series A

Stellar Fi 

CEO & Co-Founder – Lamine Zarrad

StellarFi is a fintech startup that helps users build better credit in order to access financial well-being and improvements. The platform uses regular bill payments like steaming services and rent to build people’s credit without adding debt or interest to their finances. 

Austin, Texas-based StellarFi just secured a $15 Million Series A funding led by Acrew Capital. Founder and CEO Lamine Zarrad was inspired to build StellarFi by his own problems building credit and accessing financial tools as an immigrant. 

The company will use its newest funding to double its headcount, adding the talent needed to continue expanding and building the platform, expecting to launch new features soon. StellarFi is a disruptive tool that’s founded on real needs and creates a positive change for its user base, a win-win formula! 

Spiral 

CEO & Co-Founder – Shawn Melamed 

Spiral is a fintech app that embedded social actions, sustainability, ESG and CSR into financial institutions to improve customer engagement and positive impact. Making it easier for both institutions and users to help and contribute to causes they want to support.

New York-based Spiral describes itself as an Impact-as-a-Service platform helping financial institutions. The company just raised a $28 million series A round led by Team8 with participation from 5 other investors as well. 

This latest funding will be used in the launch of the platform, plus expansion to more financial institutions in the US, including more banks, other fintech companies and credit entities. A meeting of financial and social interest that works with one click! 

Glopal 

CEO – Patrick Smarzynski 

Co-Founder – Benjamin Cohen

Glopal is a full-stack e-commerce solution for brands looking to increase international presence and sales. The platform offers a complete global sales response with localization, marketing, international shipping, and even taxes and duties. 

Paris-based Glopal allows e-merchants to activate online stores in multiple languages, currencies and markets with a few clicks. The international sales solution just received a €20 Million Series A round led by Dentressangle and Crédit Mutuel Innovation, in addition to other previous investors. 

News funds will fund two key interest at Glopal. The first is to boost the company’s growth and expansion across Europe, the UK, and the US, and hire new talent to meet this goal. The second will be to further develop its technology, especially its modular e-commerce solution with has been instrumental in the company’s progress. A global plan for success. 

PerplexityAI 

CEO & Co-Founder – Aravind Srinivas 

CTO & Co-Founder – Denis Yarats

Perplexity AI is an AI chat tool and powerful search engine that uses artificial intelligence and large language models to provide the best answers. It also gives users references and related searches. 

San Francisco-based was founded less than a year ago by some AI heavy hitters including former OpenAI, Meta and others. The company just received a $25.6 Million Series A funding led by Peter Sonsini of New Enterprise Associates, plus previous seed round investors and other new ones as well. 

Perplexity is open to users, with no registration needed, and is looking to dethrone the uber-popular ChatGTP. Competition within AI is heating up and will hopefully just continue to benefit user’s experiences and tools. 

Series B

Graphiant 

CEO & Co-Founder – Khalid Raza 

CTO & Co-Founder – Stefan Olofsson 

Graphiant is a next-generation edge services and network technology provider for enterprise connectivity and networking. Their tech is a cost-effective response for enterprise sizes connectivity needs. 

Silicon Valley-based Graphiant just raised a $62 Million Series B round led by Two Bear Capital with Participation From Sequoia Capital, Atlantic Bridge, and others. This brings total funding to $96 Million, a solid number considering it was founded just in 2020. 

Graphiant’s approach to networking is successful because it provides solutions on multiple fronts, allowing companies to connect their own systems and resources, to multiple cloud environments, and to other businesses like partners and clients.