The Cohort: 142 Deals, $1.36B: Robotics and AI Dominate Oct–Nov 2026 Cohort

◆ Startups this week

142

◆ Fresh capital

$1.4B

◆ Undisclosed terms

7 startups

◆ Previous week

155 startups · $2.1B

◆ Published

4 November 2026

◆ The Week

In the 14 days to 4 November 2026, 142 startups closed rounds totalling $1,364M across 7 undisclosed deals and the remainder publicly disclosed. That is down from 155 the previous edition — a contraction of 13 deals — yet capital density per deal held firm, suggesting the market is thinning volume while protecting ticket size. Series A alone absorbed $774M of the total.

◆ Stages

Seed dominated by count with 60 rounds raising $427M, while pre-seed accounted for 47 deals and $146M — together representing the majority of deals in the cohort. Series A, though only 33 rounds, captured $774M, underscoring a pronounced bifurcation: early-stage breadth is wide, but conviction capital is concentrating sharply at the first institutional round.

◆ Sectors

Fintech led by deal count at 18 rounds and $121M, consistent with structural demand for embedded finance and AI-driven back-office tooling. AI & ML, however, dominated by capital: 7 deals commanded $264M, an average that reflects the outsized rounds at the top of the cohort. Robotics is the standout story — 7 deals, $202M — driven by manufacturing-as-a-service and foundation-model plays that are attracting crossover capital from defence and industrial investors. AI Infrastructure (9 deals, $82M) and Enterprise Software (8 deals, $78M) round out the top five, confirming that picks-and-shovels infrastructure continues to attract institutional attention alongside application-layer bets.

◆ Geography

The United States led on both deal count (39 startups, $772M) and capital deployed, accounting for the majority of the cohort's total raise. The United Kingdom placed third by count (15 deals, $109M), though Israel punched well above its weight: 3 deals drew $117M, the highest capital-per-deal ratio of any geography in the payload. India's 27 deals raised $84M, confirming it as the cohort's highest-volume market outside the US but at materially smaller ticket sizes.

◆ The Database

The full deal database, including all 142 startups from this window and prior cohort comparisons, is available in the Fusion42 Scout platform.

◆ Startups in this edition

• Foundry Robotics
• General Compute
• 42AI
• Nirva
• Different
• Trajectory
• Alta
• Machenta
• Mave Security
• Enact Intelligence
• Hyperbolic
• Coherence Neuro