Welcome to this week’s edition of Seed Watch, a special segment of Market Insyte Digest that highlights the latest and most exciting pre-seed and seed funding news making waves in the startup world. Discover the top 3 deals from this week that caught our attention.
Startup Name: Still Bright
Industry: Energy
Region: USA
Amount (USD): $18.7 million
The problem it is solving: Global demand for copper is set to double as the world transitions away from fossil fuels, but new copper mines are expensive, slow to develop, and increasingly difficult to find. Current refining methods waste up to 20% of the metal and produce significant pollution. Still Bright’s technology enables near-total copper recovery from mined ore — including waste tailings — without harmful emissions, offering a cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient alternative to conventional processes.
What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Scaling production from pilot (2 tons/year) to hundreds of tons/year. Building a demonstration unit capable of producing 500 tons annually by 2027–2028. Advancing commercial-scale systems targeting 10,000 tons/year output. Expanding deployment of modular, vanadium-based extraction units to mining sites.
Startup Name: Echo
Industry: Cybersecurity
Region: United States
Amount (USD): $15 million
The problem it is solving: Echo addresses the growing cybersecurity threat caused by vulnerabilities in container-base images—the core foundation of many modern applications. With AI accelerating code production, security gaps are multiplying, and exploitation rates have surged. Traditional tools only chase vulnerabilities rather than eliminating them at the source.
What the Funds Will Be Spent On: The funding will support Echo’s growth following successful early deployments, further develop its AI-powered platform, and expand its adoption in enterprises, particularly with FedRAMP-compliant, vulnerability-free container images.
Startup Name: Deep Cogito
Industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Region: USA
Amount (USD): $13 million
The problem it is solving: Deep Cogito is tackling the challenge of building scalable, self-improving AI models. Traditional AI models often plateau in performance, but Deep Cogito’s iterative policy improvement approach allows models to enhance their own capabilities over time, leading to more efficient and intelligent systems.
What the Funds Will Be Spent On: Expanding operations and advancing product development, including the further enhancement of its AI-powered SaaS models.