Venture capital markets remain active with a focus on specialized AI and infrastructure. Outlier Space, an orbital manufacturing startup from New Zealand, secured NZD 10.5 million in pre-seed funding led by GD1. Munich-based Zeit AI raised €5 million in a seed round for its data-engineering agent, while Belgian food-compliance firm Backbone closed a €4 million pre-seed round.
Fintech and edtech sectors also saw significant activity. Colombian platform Plenti raised $3 million to expand its multicurrency services into Peru and Bolivia. Egyptian edtech 3C Coding School secured $3 million to enter the Saudi Arabian market. Additionally, London-based Souk raised $1.6 million for its AI-driven partnership management tool.
Singaporean travel fintech Laters.com raised $1.5 million to support its booking platform, which integrates over 100 payment methods. Meanwhile, UK-based Rightcharge secured £500 000 to develop software for EV charging networks. These investments highlight a shift toward startups that apply AI to specific industrial workflows and physical infrastructure.
Investors are prioritizing companies with proprietary data access and industry-specific integrations over general-purpose AI models. The geographic spread of these deals, ranging from New Zealand and Singapore to Egypt and Belgium, demonstrates that technical specialization and company formation are increasingly distributed globally, despite the continued influence of US capital.