Welcome to this week’s edition of Seed Watch — a spotlight feature in the Market Insyte Digest dedicated to highlighting the most compelling pre-seed and seed funding stories from across the startup ecosystem.
Each week, innovative early-stage startups tackling real-world challenges secure notable investments from forward-thinking investors. Discover which rising ventures made headlines this week and the problems they’re aiming to solve.
Startup Name: Radical AI
Industry: Manufacturing
Region: United States
Amount (USD): $55 million
The problem it is solving: Traditional materials discovery and development is slow, fragmented, and heavily reliant on trial-and-error. Radical AI aims to transform this by creating a unified, AI-powered system that accelerates the entire process—from digital design to real-world performance—enabling rapid breakthroughs in materials for industries like space, clean energy, biotech, and semiconductors.
What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Advancing its AI-based R&D system. Building out robotic/self-driving labs. Integrating experimental data, simulation, and machine learning into one continuous intelligence loop. Scaling its autonomous discovery platform to solve global challenges.
Startup Name: Poseidon
Industry: Blockchain
Region: United States
Amount (USD): $15 million
The problem it is solving: As AI training increasingly relies on massive datasets, there's a growing shortage of high-quality, ethically sourced, and IP-cleared data. Poseidon addresses this by establishing a decentralised data layer that enables contributors to provide traceable, licensed data and receive compensation, thereby reducing legal risks for AI developers and ensuring better data provenance.
What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Developing Poseidon’s core infrastructure stack. Rolling out contributor modules and SDKs. Building integrated, enforceable licensing tools. Launching early access for AI developers and data contributors.
Startup Name: Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC)
Industry: Fintech
Region: United States
Amount (USD): $15 million
The problem it is solving: As enterprises begin integrating autonomous AI agents, trust remains a major barrier due to risks like hallucinations, unsafe behaviours, and legal ambiguity. Current regulatory frameworks and auditing tools are not designed to address the unique risks associated with LLM-driven AI systems. AIUC aims to provide enterprises with confidence to deploy AI agents safely by creating dedicated standards, audits, and insurance mechanisms.
What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Building and scaling the AIUC-1 auditing standard for AI systems. Expanding audit capabilities to assess agent behaviour pre-deployment. Launching insurance products that cover liability and risk for AI usage. Growing the engineering, research, and enterprise go-to-market teams.