This is a monthly column that runs down five interesting startup funding deals that may have flown under the radar. Check out our previous entry here.
AI and software continue to draw the biggest share of startup investment, but most of the interesting companies that caught our eye in the past month were working on problems in the physical world, often far from the glow of a laptop screen.
They include a defense-tech startup that aims to bring manufacturing closer to the frontlines, a company working to recycle valuable raw materials from defunct solar panels at industrial scale, and a startup that wants to produce cell-based milk for the dairy supply chain. Let’s take a look.
$82M to build near the battlefield
A decade ago, defense tech was considered a niche and sometimes controversial corner of venture capital, with few startup investors daring to place bets on companies working with the military.
How times have changed. Already this year, $13.6 billion in venture investment has gone into companies in Crunchbase’s military, national security and law enforcement categories — more than 1.5x last year’s annual total.
Firestorm Labs is one of the latest defense startups to get some of that funding, with an approach that aims to bring manufacturing closer to the battlefield. The San Diego-based startup last month announced an $82 million Series B led by Washington Harbour Partners.
Firestorm builds expeditionary manufacturing systems and modular drones for military use. Its containerized “xCell” manufacturing platforms are designed to produce drones, replacement parts and other systems closer to the battlefield, a concept gaining traction as militaries rethink supply chains and logistics in contested regions such as the Indo-Pacific.
Existing and new investors including, IQT, Lockheed Martin, Litquidity Ventures, Booz Allen Ventures and others also joined its latest funding round, which brings Firestorm’s total funding to nearly $150 million, per Crunchbase.
“The ability to produce, adapt, and sustain systems at speed and scale will define outcomes in future conflict,” Mina Faltas, founder and chief investment officer at Washington Harbour Partners, said in a statement. “We’re excited to lead Firestorm’s Series B and back a company building a new model for manufacturing that replaces centralized supply chains with deployable, containerized units that can operate at the edge.”
The raise lands amid a broader surge in investor appetite for military tech, not just from defense-industry investors but also some of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture names. Sector heavyweight Anduril Industries recently raised another $5 billion at a staggering $61 billion valuation in an Andreessen Horowitz– and Thrive Capital-led round, underscoring just how mainstream venture-backed defense startups have become.
Related Crunchbase query: Global Defense Tech Venture Funding In 2026
$60M for a legal tech operating system
Legal tech has been one of the fastest-growing startup sectors in recent years, at least when measured by funding to the area, with venture investors pouring a record $4 billion-plus into the industry last year. That growth, of course, has been driven by AI’s rapid automation of many aspects of the notoriously paperwork-heavy industry.
Adding to this year’s tally is Manifest OS, a startup that says it’s building the operating system and brand for AI-native law firms. The startup said last month that it has raised $60 million in Series A funding at a $750 million valuation from big-name investors. Menlo Ventures led the round and Kleiner Perkins, First Round Capital and Quiet Capital participated.
Manifest OS says it takes a different tack than most legal tech startups. Rather than sell software to traditional law firms that operate under a billable hour model, the company only caters to AI-native firms that charge clients based on outcomes.
“Companies want fee transparency, predictability, and speed,” David Schellhase, a Manifest investor and former general counsel for Salesforce, Groupon and Slack, said in a statement. “Lawyers want to focus on delivering results, not justifying billable hours. Manifest OS’s model and use of advanced technology align those interests in a way the traditional system simply doesn’t.”
Along with AI software that helps attorneys with tasks like client communications, legal research, document drafting and billing, Manifest OS also offers a centralized back office to handle client intake, business development, paralegal work and other administrative tasks. That, according to the firm, frees attorneys up to focus on more complex legal work.
One important caveat: All firms that use its platform operate under the Manifest Law name. According to the startup, that results in a consistent brand presence, pricing, response time and service quality to clients. Its first practice operating under that name is a business immigration law firm.
The startup says it has already served 150-plus corporate clients, including large tech companies, since launching 18 months earlier. It has hired more than 100 attorneys to date, it said, less than 1% of those that applied.
Related Crunchbase query: Global Legal And Legal Tech Startup Funding In 2026
$23M for industrial solar panel recycling
French cleantech startup ROSI said last month that it has secured €20 million (about $23 million) in Series B and grant funding to tackle a growing problem: industrial-scale solar panel recycling.
By 2050, tens of millions of tons of solar panels are expected to become defunct, according to ROSI. The company’s technology recovers high-purity raw materials including silver, silicon, copper, aluminum and glass from those panels so that they can be recycled into new products.
ROSI said the new funding will be used to build its first large-scale recycling plant in Spain. The site will be able to process 10,000 tonnes per year.
The funding was led by EIT InnoEnergy, CMA CGM, European Innovation Council and Spanish family office G3T. Zurich-based corporate advisory firm Finadvice, which specializes in deep tech, acted as strategic financial advisor and investor. Other investors included unnamed Swiss and Polish family offices.
“Our ambition is to build a European-scale industrial platform for circular management and the production of strategic raw materials, transforming end-of-life solar panels into a reliable source of high-purity materials for the European industries of tomorrow,” ROSI President and co-founder Yun Luo said in a statement.
The investment comes as cleantech funding has seen tepid investor enthusiasm in recent years. Overall funding to startups in Crunchbase’s cleantech-, electric vehicle- and sustainability-related categories fell to a five-year low in 2025. Still, some areas — including solar and recycling — have continued to see larger rounds.
Related Crunchbase query: Global Cleantech Startup Funding In 2026
$2.3M for a cell-based milk supplier
Venture investment in food and beverage startups has fallen precipitously in recent years, from more than $22 billion in the peak year of 2021 to just $4.6 billion in 2025. Companies working on cell-based alternatives to traditional sources of protein such as meat and dairy products, in particular, have largely fallen out of favor with startup investors in recent years, Crunchbase data shows.
That makes Montreal-based Opalia’s recent $3.2 million CAD (roughly $$2.3 million) seed round all the more interesting. The company, previously named BetterMilk, says it produces “complete milk” — with proteins, fats and sugars — from mammary cells in a bioreactor, without employing any cows.
Its recent round was led by Nadarra Ventures, with participation from Spring Impact Capital, UCeed, Anges Quebec and existing investors including Investissement Quebec, Cycle Momentum and BoxOne Ventures.
Rather than make a direct-to-consumer play, as many food and beverage startups have done, Opalia is positioning itself as a supplier in the food industry. The company recently inked a two-year deal with dairy supplier Hoogwegt and a paid pilot with an unnamed “Canadian division of a leading global dairy group.”
“We see Opalia as a foundational player in the next era of dairy,” Mary Dimou, managing partner at Nadarra Venture, said in a statement. “What sets them apart is a combination of highly credible, differentiated science and a clear, executable path to scale within existing dairy infrastructure, addressing the economics required to compete globally. Today, global demand for dairy is outpacing supply, and the traditional system is under increasing pressure from climate and resource constraints, making innovation no longer optional.”
Opalia plans to make its commercial debut in 2028 and said it’s currently working through the regulatory process in North America.
Related Crunchbase query: Global Food Tech Funding In 2026
$16M to automate the factory playbook
Mountain View-based C-Infinity last month announced a $16 million seed funding round to speed up what it calls one of manufacturing’s most stubborn bottlenecks: turning digital product designs into actual production plans.
The startup’s platform, dubbed AutoAssembler, plugs into existing CAD and PLM systems and uses AI to automate process planning, the painstaking engineering work required to determine how parts fit together, in what order they should be assembled and how products can realistically be built at scale. C-Infinity says workflows that once took weeks can now be completed in minutes.
Its seed round was led by Canaan Partners with participation from Radius Capital, Inventus Capital Partners and Bee Partners.
C-Infinity’s pitch taps into a broader trend gaining traction across industrial tech: software that doesn’t just analyze operations, but actively participates in physical production decisions. That kind of investment in physical AI — real-world applications of artificial intelligence, including in factories and on construction sites — has taken off this year. All told, startups working on physical AI have already hauled in more than $37 billion in venture funding globally in 2026, Crunchbase data shows, shattering the full-year record of $21 billion set in both 2025 and 2021.
Related Crunchbase query: Global Physical AI Venture Funding In 2026
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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