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Welcome to today’s edition of AI Business Weekly. Global AI activity remains intense, with major funding rounds in San Francisco and Paris, strategic acquisitions in Israel, and market-wide shifts in venture capital deployment. While standout startups like Exa and Mistral AI capture billions in valuation, August’s funding slump underscores broader investor caution across the startup ecosystem.

Let’s dive in.

Exa raises $85M, valuation hits $700M

San Francisco–based Exa, formerly Metaphor, has raised 85 million dollars in Series B funding at a 700 million dollar valuation. The round was led by Benchmark, with participation from Lightspeed, Y Combinator, and NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm.

Exa positions itself as the “search engine for AI,” providing search infrastructure that allows large language models to retrieve more accurate, real-time information. This round signals growing demand for AI-native search technologies.
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Mistral AI nears $14B valuation

Paris-based Mistral AI is reportedly closing a 2 billion euro investment round, pushing its valuation to 14 billion dollars, up from 10 billion earlier this year.

Founded just two years ago by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, Mistral develops open-source large language models and Europe-focused assistants like Le Chat. The deal positions Mistral as Europe’s leading AI contender in a field dominated by U.S. giants.
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Global startup funding hits 8-year low

According to Crunchbase, global venture funding in August 2025 totaled 17 billion dollars, the lowest monthly amount since 2017. This represents a 12 percent year-over-year decline and a 44 percent drop month-over-month, driven by retreating seed and late-stage investors.

The data suggests a cooling environment for startups overall, even as AI leaders continue to attract mega-rounds.
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Recall.ai secures $38M Series B

Recall.ai has raised 38 million dollars in Series B funding to expand its infrastructure powering AI products that process and understand human conversation data.

The company’s platform moves beyond meeting bots to capture insights from desktop, phone, and in-person interactions, fueling the broader AI stack for conversational intelligence
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Global Indemnity acquires Sayata

Global Indemnity Group, a New York–listed insurer, has acquired Sayata, an Israeli AI-enabled marketplace for commercial insurance distribution, via its subsidiary Penn-America Underwriters.

The move highlights how traditional financial players are increasingly turning to AI-driven platforms to expand distribution and improve efficiency.
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📢 AI Funding and Market Trends

Today’s stories highlight the two-speed AI market: while leading players like Exa, Mistral, and Recall.ai continue to attract big rounds, overall startup funding has slumped to an eight-year low. Strategic acquisitions, like Sayata’s, show incumbents are still betting on AI, even as global investor sentiment cools.

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