AI Megarounds Stretch From Code Agents to Memory Chips — June 01, 2026

Cognition AI’s $1 billion Series D at a $26 billion valuation anchors a funding slate where AI agents, memory chips, scientific discovery and defense integration all drew serious capital, while byFounders added a €130 million-plus early-stage fund for Nordic and Baltic startups. In this episode: Top stories: 1. XCENA Raises $135M Betting Memory Is AI's Real Bottleneck | Awesome Agents — Awesome Agents https://awesomeagents.ai/news/xcena-135m-memory-ai-bottleneck/ 2. Exclusive: Picogrid Raises $45M Series A — Tectonic Defense https://www.tectonicdefense.com/exclusive-picogrid-raises-45m-series-a/ 3. Ex-DeepMind researchers raised $50M to build AI that figures out which scientific questions are worth asking — The Next Web https://thenextweb.com/news/inherent-ai-50-million-seed-deepmind-faraday-science 4. Cognition AI Raises $1B at $26B Valuation in 2026 — The AI World https://theaiworld.org/news/cognition-ai-raises-1b-at-26b-valuation-in-2026 5. Sara Rywe’s byFounders Launches €130M+ Fund III to Back Europe’s Next Global Success Stories — FemWealth https://femwealth.substack.com/p/sara-rywes-byfounders-launches-130m Follow and rate Startup Fundraising on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Feedback? Email [email protected]