--- url: 'https://qubit.capital/blog/us-series-b-plus-weekly-funding-roundup-week-3-may-2026' title: 'US Series B+ Weekly Funding Roundup (May 11-18, 2026): $569.0M Raised Across 5 Deals' author: name: Mayur Toshniwal url: 'https://qubit.capital/blog/author/mayur' date: '2026-05-18T03:27:56+05:30' modified: '2026-05-18T17:43:35+05:30' type: post summary: 'US late-stage startups raised $569M this week across 5 Series B+ deals spanning orbital compute, voice AI, sales platforms, BNPL, and enterprise SaaS.' categories: - Weekly Funding Roundup image: 'https://qubit.capital/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/featured-us-series-bplus-67070.webp' published: true --- # US Series B+ Weekly Funding Roundup (May 11-18, 2026): $569.0M Raised Across 5 Deals Late-stage US startups closed $569.0M across five Series B+ rounds this week, with the capital concentrated in two themes: AI infrastructure and AI-native software. The biggest cheque went to an orbital data centre play, while two voice and sales AI platforms picked up $100M combined. A bank-embedded BNPL infrastructure company and an enterprise SaaS firm rounded out the week. The late-stage activity sits on top of a busier earlier-stage week in the US. Seed-stage companies raised $28.0M across 3 deals and Series A startups pulled in $252.0M across 7 deals, putting total US funding around $849M for the week. Capital is still flowing toward AI-adjacent infrastructure at every stage, with rocket-and-compute, voice agents, and AI-native sales tooling drawing the biggest single bets. Weekly Funding Roundup MAY 11-18, 2026 $569M TOTAL RAISED 5DEALS CLOSED 100%SERIES B $114MAVG DEAL SIZE USTOP REGION BY STAGE Series B$569M100% BY SECTOR Cowboy SpaceDeeptech / space infrastructure$275M ForusSaaS$160M VapiAI infrastructure$50M MonacoAI / sales tech$50M equipifiFintech / BNPL infrastructure$34M Table of Contents - [1. Cowboy Space Raises $275M For Orbital Data Centres](#1-cowboy-space-raises-$275m-for-orbital-data-centres) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision) - [Market Context](#market-context) - [2. Forus Raises $160M For Enterprise Software Expansion](#2-forus-raises-$160m-for-enterprise-software-expansion) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-1) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-1) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-1) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-1) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-1) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-1) - [Market Context](#market-context-1) - [3. Vapi Raises $50M For Voice AI Infrastructure](#3-vapi-raises-$50m-for-voice-ai-infrastructure) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-2) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-2) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-2) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-2) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-2) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-2) - [Market Context](#market-context-2) - [4. Monaco Secures $50M For AI-Native Sales Platform](#4-monaco-secures-$50m-for-ai-native-sales-platform) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-3) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-3) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-3) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-3) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-3) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-3) - [Market Context](#market-context-3) - [5. equipifi Raises $34M For Bank-Embedded BNPL](#5-equipifi-raises-$34m-for-bank-embedded-bnpl) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-4) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-4) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-4) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-4) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-4) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-4) - [Market Context](#market-context-4) - [Lessons For Founders](#lessons-for-founders) ## 1. Cowboy Space Raises $275M For Orbital Data Centres ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: Deeptech / space infrastructure - Geography: San Carlos, California - Round size: $275M - Post-money valuation: $2B ### Investor Profile Index Ventures led, with IVP, Blossom Capital, SAIC, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Interlagos, and Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt participating. Index also led the prior $80M Series A. The syndicate combines climate capital (Breakthrough Energy), defence (SAIC), and frontier-tech generalists. That mix matters because [Cowboy Space](https://cowboy.space) is building infrastructure with a long capex cycle and dual commercial/defence demand. ### Company and Leadership Founded in 2024 as Aetherflux by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, the company rebranded to Cowboy Space Corporation in May 2026 alongside the Series B. Total funding now sits at roughly $355M. The engineering bench is unusual for a four-person-old company: alumni from SpaceX, Blue Origin, NASA, Astranis, Kuiper, and NVIDIA. Tyler Grinnell, formerly SpaceX’s launch director, runs operations. Propulsion is led by Warren Lamont, ex-Blue Origin. ### Problem and Opportunity AI training and inference are running into terrestrial limits: grid capacity, water for cooling, and permitting timelines. Hyperscalers are projecting hundreds of gigawatts of new capacity needed by 2030, and that capacity isn’t getting built fast enough. Orbital data centres flip the constraints. Continuous solar power, radiative cooling in vacuum, and no land-use politics. The catch is launch capacity and hardware built for the space environment, both of which are bottlenecks today. ### Product and Technology Cowboy Space is building two things in parallel. The first is a constellation of large LEO satellites, each 20,000-25,000 kg, generating around 1 MW of solar power and carrying roughly 800 GPUs per spacecraft. The second is an in-house liquid-fuel rocket where the upper stage doubles as the data centre payload. First launch is targeted before the end of 2028. The vertical integration is the bet: rockets, satellites, compute, power, and thermal under one roof. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $275M funds the proprietary rocket programme (engines, vehicle, launch ops), satellite manufacturing, engineering hiring, and the first orbital demonstration launches. Bhatt’s framing is that orbital compute is inevitable once you accept that AI’s power demand will outrun what Earth’s grids can deliver. ### Market Context Direct rivals include Google’s Project Suncatcher, Starcloud (formerly Lumen Orbit), and Axiom Space. On the launch side, Cowboy Space will compete with SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, Firefly, and Relativity. Falling $/kg launch costs and US defence interest in resilient orbital infrastructure are the tailwinds. ## 2. Forus Raises $160M For Enterprise Software Expansion ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: SaaS - Geography: United States - Round size: $160M - Lead investor: General Catalyst ### Investor Profile General Catalyst led the round solo. The firm has been concentrating its enterprise software bets on companies with strong early revenue traction and category-leadership potential, and a sole-led $160M cheque signals high conviction. ### Company and Leadership [Forus](https://forus.com) is an enterprise software company expanding its product and go-to-market footprint with this round. Detailed founder and team disclosures haven’t been made public alongside the announcement. ### Problem and Opportunity Enterprise buyers are consolidating tooling and looking for platforms that can absorb point solutions. Series B cheques at this size typically back companies that have proven the wedge and need capital to widen it. ### Product and Technology Forus operates in the broader enterprise SaaS category. The company hasn’t disclosed full product specifics in the funding announcement. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $160M is earmarked for product expansion and go-to-market scaling, the usual Series B playbook of moving from initial traction to durable category position. ### Market Context Enterprise SaaS remains one of the most competed-for venture segments, with consolidation pressure across CRM, ITSM, finance, and HR stacks. General Catalyst’s solo lead suggests Forus has differentiated positioning in a crowded field. ## 3. Vapi Raises $50M For Voice AI Infrastructure ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: AI infrastructure - Geography: San Francisco, California - Round size: $50M - Post-money valuation: ~$500M ### Investor Profile Peak XV Partners led, with M12 (Microsoft’s venture arm), Kleiner Perkins, and Bessemer Venture Partners participating. Bessemer was a prior backer. The M12 cheque is the interesting one. Microsoft has its own voice AI bets through Azure and Nuance, so a strategic participation in [Vapi](https://vapi.ai) suggests Redmond views the orchestration layer as a separate problem from the underlying model stack. ### Company and Leadership Founded in 2020 by Jordan Dearsley (CEO) and Nikhil Gupta (CTO), University of Waterloo classmates who previously founded the YC W21 productivity startup Superpowered before pivoting to voice infrastructure and publicly launching Vapi in 2024. The team is around 100 people. Total funding is $72M. ### Problem and Opportunity Voice is replacing typed interfaces for customer support, sales calls, and scheduling. Enterprises want production-grade voice agents but don’t want to assemble STT, LLM, TTS, and telephony themselves, or trust a black-box vertical agent for regulated workflows. ### Product and Technology Vapi is the developer platform for voice agents. It abstracts the underlying model stack so teams can ship a production agent in minutes. Sub-500ms latency, 99.9% uptime, scale to millions of concurrent calls, 25+ pre-built integrations, real-time monitoring, hallucination guardrails, native telephony, and enterprise controls (SSO, OAuth, RBAC, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI). The data flywheel is real: Vapi has processed more than 1 billion calls and runs 1-5M calls per day. That telemetry, on latency, turn-taking, interruption handling, and failure modes, feeds back into the orchestration layer. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision Capital goes to engineering, infrastructure, GTM expansion, and deeper enterprise reliability and compliance features. The positioning the founders use is “Twilio + Stripe for voice agents.” ### Market Context Conversational AI sits inside a contact-centre and CX automation market headed past $100B by the late 2020s. Competitors include Sierra, Decagon, PolyAI, Bland, Retell, ElevenLabs on the conversational side, and Twilio as the incumbent infra layer. Vapi’s bet is that enterprises will choose developer-controlled orchestration over pre-packaged agents in regulated industries. ## 4. Monaco Secures $50M For AI-Native Sales Platform ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: AI / sales tech - Geography: San Francisco - Round size: $50M - Total funding to date: $85M+ ### Investor Profile Benchmark led the Series B, with Founders Fund, Human Capital, Alt Cap, Mantis, and Saga VC. The angel list reads like a who’s who: Garry Tan, Neil Mehta, and Patrick and John Collison. That syndicate is unusual for a company in public beta. It reflects both the founder’s pedigree and the investor view that the bloated sales-tech stack is ripe for collapse into a single AI-native platform. ### Company and Leadership [Monaco](https://monaco.ai) is led by Sam Blond, former CRO at Brex and Zenefits and ex-partner at Founders Fund. The company came out of stealth in February 2026 with a $25M Series A and has now raised the $50M Series B less than four months later, bringing total funding past $85M in under a year. Hundreds of customers are in the public beta. ### Problem and Opportunity Sales teams currently run four overlapping tools: CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), engagement (Outreach, Salesloft), data (ZoomInfo, Apollo), and conversation intelligence (Gong, Chorus). Each owns a slice of the workflow and none has end-to-end signal on what closes deals. Enterprise CFOs are also looking for consolidation. The combined sales-tech stack exceeds $150B annually, and that line item is getting reviewed. ### Product and Technology Monaco collapses the four-tool stack into one agent-driven platform. AI agents handle TAM identification, ICP building, prospecting, enrichment, outbound execution across email, calls, and social, interaction capture, deal advancement, forecasting, and pipeline management. White-glove onboarding helps customers configure the agents. The data advantage comes from owning system-of-record, activity, and intelligence layers together. Closed-loop signal on which messages and sequences actually converted is something the incumbents can’t see across their silos. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The capital scales the platform from public beta to GA, expands AI agent capabilities, and grows engineering, applied AI, and GTM teams. The internal framing is being the “Salesforce of the AI era,” starting with high-velocity startups and moving upmarket. ### Market Context Global CRM is roughly a $100B market. AI-native challengers Monaco competes with include Clay, 11x, Artisan, Regie.ai, Rox, and Day.ai, most of which target one slice of the stack. Monaco’s horizontal play is the differentiator. ## 5. equipifi Raises $34M For Bank-Embedded BNPL ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: Fintech / BNPL infrastructure - Geography: Scottsdale, Arizona - Round size: $34M - Total funding: $49M ### Investor Profile Left Lane Capital led, with continued participation from Curql Collective and PHX Ventures. Curql is the strategic investment vehicle of 50+ credit unions, which gives [equipifi](https://www.equipifi.com) distribution access most fintech infrastructure plays can’t replicate. ### Company and Leadership Founded in 2021 by Bryce Deeney, former VP of Payments at the $10B+ Alaska USA Federal Credit Union. Deeney started the company after watching banks and credit unions lose share to Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay at the merchant checkout. ### Problem and Opportunity Over 82 million Americans use flexible payment products, but most of that volume is intermediated by third-party BNPL providers. Banks and credit unions hold the primary-account relationship and the cardholder trust, yet they’ve watched the BNPL pillar grow up outside their walls. CFPB rules now treat BNPL like credit cards, which pulls more volume toward bank-issued products. ### Product and Technology equipifi sells two products to banks and credit unions. Pre-Purchase delivers real-time pre-approved installment funds to the cardholder before checkout, usable anywhere the card is accepted. Post-Purchase splits larger card purchases into installment plans after the spend. Modules cover loan origination, real-time risk decisioning, reporting, member engagement, and pre-built integrations into major core banking systems and card processors. Go-live takes about eight weeks with roughly 10 hours of effort from the FI’s team. Bank-embedded BNPL adoption on the platform tripled in the past year. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $34M expands the network of banks and credit unions, builds out deeper installment-lending features, and roughly doubles headcount over the next 12 months, weighted toward product and engineering. Deeney’s framing is that BNPL is the third payment pillar alongside debit and credit, and banks should own it. ### Market Context Global BNPL transaction volume is on track to exceed $1T by the late 2020s, with the US market projected at roughly 20% CAGR through 2030. Direct competitors include Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, Sezzle, Zip, Splitit, Amount, Jifiti, and Skeps. equipifi’s wedge is the bank-side of the network rather than the merchant side, which the merchant-side incumbents structurally can’t serve. ## Lessons For Founders - Vertical integration is back in vogue at the infrastructure layer. Cowboy Space is building rockets, satellites, and compute together because no incumbent can do all three. When the bottleneck spans multiple layers, owning the stack becomes the moat. - Sales-tech consolidation is now a real thesis, not a pitch. Monaco raised $85M in under a year because investors believe the four-tool sales stack collapses into one AI-native platform. If your category has 3+ overlapping incumbents, that’s a wedge. - Founder pedigree compresses fundraising timelines dramatically. Sam Blond went from stealth in February to $50M Series B in May. Baiju Bhatt closed $275M with his own capital anchoring. Reputation buys speed, but it also raises the bar on execution. - Distribution channels can be an underrated moat. equipifi’s tie to Curql Collective gives it privileged access to 50+ credit unions. When you sell into a regulated, relationship-driven market, structural distribution beats product features. - Telemetry-rich infrastructure plays compound fast. Vapi processed 1B+ calls before its Series B. Real-world operational data on latency, failure modes, and edge cases is the moat horizontal AI rivals can’t replicate.