February may be the shortest month of the year, but this year startups and founders have made sure the days are action-packed.
Here’s a round-up of some highlights, including funding news, for startups in February.
Seed rounds often give us a window into where the interest of startups lie, with tech innovations and funding data announced February uncovering some interesting trends.
Startups at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity have secured $400 million in investment for seed stage companies suggesting there’s high demand for cybersecurity solutions that leverage AI to tackle the increasingly sophisticated and frequent cyberattacks with automated security testing solutions.
AI-enabled robotics was another area that has piqued the interest of investors to the tune of $850 million, for startups that are building humanoid robots built to help with household chores, to others designed for service industrial use cases.
Beyond seed stage, Ownwell, an AI-powered startup that appeals property taxes on behalf of homeowners, this month secured $50 million in financing, including $30 million in equity and $20 million in debt during its Series B round.
We also saw significant activity in the MENA region, an area that is growing an increasingly competitive startup ecosystmem. This month startups in the region raised $190 million in multi-sector funding wave for tech-led startups spanning fintech, AI and cybersecurity.
Finally in Europe, Lithuania has posted figures suggesting this Baltic country is punching above its weight and contributing an increasingly large share of growth for the European ecosystem. In figures released this month, startups in the country raised €238 million, alongside a record number of exits. This is the highest annual total ever recorded in the country.
Beyond funding news, here is a round-up of stories from tech companies in the headlines this month that you may have missed.
Outcomes from the AI Impact Summit 2026
India hosted one of the world’s biggest AI events last week in New Delhi. There was a clear push to look at AI not just in terms of innovation but how these pan out in the real world.
Built on the five principles of moral and ethical systems, accountable governance, national sovereignty, accessibility and inclusion, and validity and legitimacy, the vision sought to anchor technology in humanity, pairing innovation with ethics and sovereignty with openness.
Other topics included removing barriers to adoption on an international scale by creating over 200 indigenous models, and bridging the digital divide for the Global South.
Big Tech was also there in force with a number of key developments announced at the summit. One of these came from Google, after it pledged $15 Billion USD to build foundational AI infrastructure in India. The investment will also mark the initiation of the “America-India Connect” project, which will see new subsea fiber-optic cables installed in a major boost for trans-Pacific connectivity.
Meanwhile, the US government signed the Pax Silica, a technology agreement that binds India closer to US tech and away from Beijing.
These two announcements suggest that we can expect much closer alignment between US and Indian AI startups and innovation.
Industry veteran Tony Colon joins Senior Executive Board at Prezent AI
Prezent AI announced that Tony Colon, the Chief Customer Officer at Veeam Software, has joined as a Senior Executive Board Member for the company, where he’ll help alongside other industry leaders to support the industry leading’s AI-powered business communication platform.
Tony is a seasoned technology executive with more than two decades of leadership in customer success, engineering, and product innovation. He was earlier the SVP at ServiceNow.
The decision to invite Tony to join the Senior Executive Board is expected to help the company expand its enterprise AI offerings and ensure that product solutions are closely tied to the most important business KPIs such as productivity, operational excellence, and strategic impact.
Ness Digital Engineering names Sudip Singh as new CEO
This month Ness Digital Engineering, a leading global provider of intelligent data and software engineering services, announced the appointment of Sudip Singh as CEO.
Sudip brings deep experience in technology, product and client service in a strategic move for Ness as it enters a new phase of growth.
Sudip is an accomplished executive who brings deep experience in technology, product and client service as Ness enters its next phase of growth in the AI economy. He was most recently CEO at ITC Infotech.
Sudip will succeed Dr. Ranjit Tinaikar, who steps down after six years of success in the role. Recent achievements here include the launch of a full-lifecycle AI workbench, ATONIS, that amplifies human productivity across the Software Development Lifecycle.
Ness also closed 2025 establishing new offices in Guadalara, Mexico, to strengthen its global network of AI centers of excellence and its foothold in Latin America – a key nearshoring location for North American partners.
Could startups at the intersection of AI and health be at risk?
Grace Chang is the founder and CEO of Kintsugi, a mental health AI startup that developed clinically validated voice biomarkers. Despite raising $30 million and conducting a pivotal study with 1,600 participants over four years, the highly promising company had to close its doors for good.
In an interview with Forbes, Chang explains why she believes AI in healthcare is fundamentally unsustainable for the classic startup model, where investors expect returns on revenue in ever-shorter cycles.
The development has important lessons for startups in other highly regulated industries.
Planno named solar startup of the year
As AI increases in popularity, its demand on energy resources is also set to grow significantly in the years ahead, stimulating the need for alternative ways to power the AI economy.
Planno, founded by Daniel Domingues, was named as solar startup of the year at the MESIA Solar Awards 2026, recognizing the company’s contribution to accelerating commercial and industrial solar development through geospatial intelligence and AI.
Its technology helps to make the most efficient use of preexisting infrastructure to capture more solar energy, helping to offset the surging demand placed on energy grids worldwide.
Ads could soon be coming to ChatGPT
This month also saw an interesting development in the business models surrounding AI.
Although OpenAI offers a variety of subscription tiers, many people around the world rely on the free option as their gateway into AI as a tool. However, each query comes with associated costs and overheads.
To maintain the free option for users, OpenAI is currently testing the use of ads to maintain broad access to its model. According to the company, these ads will be clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the organic answer but the news signifies the first step towards monetizing conversational AI.
Anthropic’s latest AI plugin is triggering sharp responses in traditional legal software stocks
Anthropic’s new legal plug-in for Claude has already sent shockwaves through the legal software market. In the first week of February, shares of Thomson Reuters and RELX, the major providers of legal software, fell by 15% each, reflecting investor concerns about this new AI tool.
However, the reality is that most law firms today are not constrained by a lack of technology. They are constrained by workflows built for a pre-AI environment. Traditional legal practice follows a linear model: documents are gathered, lawyers interpret them, and decisions follow.
“Legal software is moving beyond document storage toward decision support,” says Mariano Jurich, Senior Product Leader at Making Sense, a Silicon Valley–based software development company with more than 15 years of hands-on experience driving digital transformation across U.S. midmarket companies. “Artificial intelligence will also force changes in how legal value is measured. As the time required to complete tasks decreases, software will increasingly track risk reduction, outcome probability, and negotiation leverage, not just hours worked.”
Legal platforms will evolve into shared intelligence environments between lawyer and client, rather than remaining internal firm tools.
Startup Get Covered launches new pet screening and insurance solution for rental housing
Get Covered, a leader in software solutions for the property insurance sector, announced this month the launch of Get Pawtected, a new solution aimed at fixing one of rental housing’s most persistent pain points: how properties evaluate and manage pets fairly and consistently.
The new solution combines pet screening with $100,000 in dog bite liability coverage per policy, giving property teams a single system to verify pets, track vaccinations and documentation, manage emotional support compliance, and maintain consistent records over time.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all mandate, the platform allows property managers to customize their specific pet programs, ensuring the technology adapts to their existing onsite culture rather than the other way around. “For too long, rental housing has relied on vague pet rules and outdated restrictions that leave renters and property managers in the dark,” said Brandon Tobman, CEO of Get Covered, in a statement from the company.
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