Seed Watch: Over $390 million raised by early stage startups this week

Author

Ofodile Iloanya
March 14, 2025

Welcome to our weekly edition of Seed Watch, a segment of Market Insyte Digest focused on sharing some of the latest and most intriguing Pre-seed & Seed funding news grabbing the headlines in the startup world.

This week a staggering $391.1 million was raised by early-stage startups. Our top three startups we monitored raised $250 million, with Lila Sciences attracting the lion’s share of this week’s funding. Find out more about the top three startups that grabbed the headlines since our last issue.

  • Startup Name: Lila Sciences

  • Industry: AI/Healthtech

  • Region: USA

  • Amount (USD): $200 million

  • The problem it is solving: Scientific Experimentation is Slow & Resource-Intensive: Traditional scientific research relies on manual experimentation, which limits scale, speed, and efficiency. AI in Science is Limited to Data Processing: While AI can analyze existing datasets, it has not been able to autonomously design and conduct new experiments—a key bottleneck in innovation. Lack of Scalable Scientific Experimentation: Scientific breakthroughs are often constrained by human-driven trial-and-error, which slows down discovery across medicine, materials science, and energy.

  • What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Development of AI-powered Scientific Superintelligence to run autonomous experiments. Scaling of Fully Autonomous Labs that integrate AI, robotics, and automation. Infrastructure for Rapid Experimentation to accelerate discoveries in medicine, materials science, and green energy.

  • Startup Name: Sola Security

  • Industry: Cybersecurity

  • Region: Israel

  • Amount (USD): $30 million

  • The problem it is solving: Overcomplicated Security Stacks: Organizations juggle up to 50 different security tools, creating integration challenges, high costs, and inefficiencies. Security Teams Lack Technical Expertise: Many businesses lack the engineering resources needed to customize or manage security solutions. Small Security Teams are Overwhelmed: Smaller companies and solo security professionals struggle to manage bloated security stacks.

  • What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Platform Development – Enhancing the AI-powered no-code security studio. Expanding the App Gallery – Offering more ready-made security solutions. Customer Acquisition – Growing its enterprise customer base and scaling operations

  • Startup Name: Montara Therapeutics

  • Industry: Healthtech

  • Region: USA

  • Amount (USD): $20 million

  • The problem it is solving: CNS Drugs Often Have Harmful Side Effects: Many drugs for neurological conditions cause peripheral side effects due to their activity outside the brain. Toxicology Issues in CNS Drug Development: Many promising CNS drug candidates fail due to on-target, off-tissue toxicity in peripheral organs. Limited Effective Treatments for Certain Neurological Disorders: Rare epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases often lack safe and targeted therapies.

  • What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Advancing its lead epilepsy drug candidate toward an investigational new drug (IND) application within 12 months. Developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and an undisclosed third program. Exploring strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. Extending cash runway until Q3 2026, ahead of a planned Series A round.