AI App-Layer Radar: May 10–17 — 13 Rounds, $267M
Weekly scan of AI application-layer funding and new entrants for May 10–17, 2026: 13 confirmed rounds totaling $267M+ (seed through Series B) and 8 companies exiting stealth, spanning cybersecurity, voice AI, insurance, healthcare, marketing, and more — with founder backgrounds and capital sources.
Thirteen funding rounds totaling $267M+, eight companies exiting stealth — the week of May 10–17, 2026 was a busy one across the AI application layer. Insurance dominated the Series A bracket with two separate deals; agentic operations automation showed up in at least four distinct verticals; and Y Combinator's Launch platform surfaced four early-stage companies across manufacturing, construction, restaurants, and market research. Below is the full picture, organized by funding rounds first, then new entrants.
Funding rounds
Coverage: 13 confirmed seed-through-Series B rounds in AI application-layer startups, announced May 10–17, 2026. Infrastructure plays (Graphon AI) and foundation model labs are excluded.
Exaforce — $125M Series B · AI cybersecurity operations
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Series B · $125M |
| Total raised | $200M |
| Valuation | $725M |
| Lead investors | HarbourVest, Peak XV, Mayfield, Khosla Ventures, Seligman Ventures, AICONIC |
| Country | United States |
| Vertical | Cybersecurity |
| Announced | May 12, 2026 |
Exaforce builds AI security agents called "Exabots" that detect and block cyberattacks in real time, targeting a 90% reduction in manual security tasks.1 The company launched its product in Q4 2025 and counts Replit and Guardant Health among its roughly 20 current customers, with a target of 40–50 by year-end.1 The $125M closes just one year after a $75M Series A.1
A recently added feature called "vibe hunting" lets security teams query the system in natural language — for example, "Did we get any new attacks from Iran?" — to investigate potential threat patterns.1 CEO and co-founder Ankur Singla described the core mandate as simple — "use AI to catch and stop threats in real time" — but acknowledged the execution is complex.1 Competitors in the AI-native SOC (Security Operations Center) space include 7AI, Dropzone AI, and Prophet Security, alongside incumbents Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike.
Founder background: Ankur Singla (CEO, co-founder). Company founded approximately 2023, headquartered in the US.
Vapi — $50M Series B · Enterprise voice AI
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Series B · $50M |
| Total raised | $72M |
| Valuation | ~$500M post-money |
| Lead investor | Peak XV Partners |
| Co-investors | M12 (Microsoft), Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer Venture Partners |
| Country | United States (San Francisco) |
| Vertical | Voice AI / customer experience |
| Announced | May 12, 2026 |
Vapi's enterprise voice AI platform has processed more than 1 billion calls to date, with daily volume in the range of 1–5 million calls and ARR in the "healthy eight figures."2 The benchmark customer is Amazon Ring, which selected Vapi over 40+ competing vendors and now routes 100% of customer service calls through the platform.2 Other named customers include Kavak, Instawork, New York Life, and Intuit.2
Jason Mitura, Amazon Ring's VP of Software, said: "A lot of AI tools promise great outcomes — Vapi has delivered on them."2
The developer self-service model — which attracted more than 1 million developers to the platform before Vapi signed its first major enterprise deal — is central to the story here.2 CEO Jordan Dearsley put it this way: "Because we started from self-serve and had such a wide developer footprint, we were already battle-tested at significant scale before we signed our first major enterprise customer."2
Founder background: Jordan Dearsley (CEO) and Nikhil Gupta (co-founder), University of Waterloo classmates who previously built productivity tool Superpowered through Y Combinator before pivoting to voice AI.
Nectar Social — $30M Series A · AI marketing operating system
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Series A · $30M |
| Lead investor | Menlo Ventures (Anthology Fund, created in partnership with Anthropic) |
| Co-investors | GV, True Ventures, Kinship Ventures (Gwyneth Paltrow) |
| Country | United States |
| Vertical | Marketing / social commerce |
| Announced | May 16, 2026 |
Nectar Social positions itself as an agentic marketing operating system: autonomous AI agents help brands manage social media campaigns, content moderation, creator workflows, competitive intelligence, and conversational commerce from a single platform.3 The company has data partnerships with Meta and Reddit, enabling agents to aggregate signals from both platforms.3 Named customers include Liquid Death, Figma, and e.l.f Beauty.3
CEO Misbah Uraizee described the gap the product addresses: "The buying conversation has moved into social, and no human team can staff every place it happens."3
Founder background: Misbah Uraizee (CEO) and Farah Uraizee (co-founder), sisters and former Meta employees. The company exited stealth in 2025.
Basata — $21M Series A · Healthcare admin AI
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Series A · $21M |
| Total raised | $24.5M |
| Lead investor | Basis Set Ventures (tier-1 VC) |
| Co-investor | PHX Ventures |
| Country | United States (Phoenix, AZ) |
| Vertical | Healthcare administration |
| Announced | May 11, 2026 (official PR dated May 8) |
Basata deploys specialist AI agents that automate the administrative workflow stack in US healthcare: referrals, intake, patient scheduling, and follow-up.4 The platform replaces fax-and-phone processes with AI voice agents that proactively call patients to schedule appointments, and currently serves more than 500,000 patients.4 Basis Set Ventures framed the opportunity as rebuilding the "$1T operational layer" of American healthcare.4
Founder background: Kaled Alhanafi (CEO, co-founder), Chetan Patel (President, co-founder), Vivin (co-founder, CS PhD). Based in Phoenix.
Novella — $21M Series A · Wholesale insurance AI
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Series A · $21M |
| Lead investor | Brewer Lane Ventures (Boston VC) |
| Country | United States |
| Vertical | Insurance (E&S / surplus lines) |
| Announced | May 15, 2026 |
Novella builds AI agents for the excess and surplus (E&S) insurance market — the segment that covers high-risk, unusual, or complex businesses that standard carriers decline.5 Agents help retail brokers navigate the complex E&S search and underwriting process to find coverage for difficult-to-place clients.5
Founder background: Max Kane (CEO), former Lemonade executive; CTO Michael Tsibelman; Alex Broome.
Outmarket AI — $17M Series A · Insurance brokerage AI
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Series A · $17M |
| Total raised | $21.7M |
| Lead investor | Permanent Capital Ventures (early-stage VC) |
| Country | United States (San Francisco) |
| Vertical | Insurance (brokerage workflow) |
| Announced | May 13, 2026 |
Outmarket AI's platform serves insurance brokerages across commercial, employee benefits, personal, and specialty lines.6 Its core function is AI-assisted policy comparison and gap detection, which the company says compresses hours of manual work into minutes and cuts errors and omissions by up to 65%.6
Founder background: Vishal Sankhla (CEO), Anshu Jain (CTO), Alpesh Patel (CRO). Headquartered in San Francisco.
Note: Outmarket AI (brokerage-facing) and Novella (wholesale/E&S-facing) both closed Series A rounds in the same week, each targeting a different node in the insurance distribution chain.
Shyld AI — $13.4M Seed · Autonomous hospital disinfection
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Seed · $13.4M |
| Lead investor | Aulis Capital |
| Country | United States (Silicon Valley) |
| Vertical | Healthcare (infection control) |
| Announced | May 14, 2026 |
Shyld AI installs AI-driven UV disinfection devices in hospital rooms that track movement and trigger autonomous UV cycles once personnel leave.7 A Stanford University study published in the American Journal of Infection Control in 2026 found the system reduces contamination by 93%, with some pathogens — including C. diff, MRSA, and Candida auris — inactivated within 32 seconds.7 The product has been deployed in more than 30 hospitals and takes 15 minutes to install.7
CEO Mo Noshad, whose original motivation was the death of a friend from a post-surgical infection, described the core problem with manual disinfection: "There's no way for you to monitor if these processes are being done properly. There's a good chance that people are missing areas or the contact time of the chemicals is not enough."7 The longer-term product vision extends beyond disinfection to broader hospital operations intelligence — flagging supply shortages, OR turnover delays, and similar inefficiencies.
Founder background: Mo Noshad (CEO) and Morteza Noshad (co-founder), brothers. Company founded 2022, Silicon Valley.
Hint — $10M Seed · AI home management
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Seed · $10M |
| Lead investor | Slow Ventures |
| Co-investors | Montauk Capital (incubator), Tusk Venture Partners, Amplo, Energy Impact Partners, Hannah Grey, Brian Kelly (founder of The Points Guy) |
| Country | United States |
| Vertical | Consumer / home management |
| Announced | May 13, 2026 |
Hint is an AI home management platform co-founded by Martha Stewart, Yih-Han Ma (CEO, home-services industry veteran), and Kyle Rush (CTO, AI engineer).8 Users enter their address to pull public property records, weather data, soil data, and listing history; they can also upload inspection reports, warranties, bills, and insurance documents to build a running maintenance archive.8 The platform then provides proactive maintenance recommendations before problems escalate — for example, alerting Texas homeowners to water foundations before summer heat cracks clay soil, or flagging upcoming insurance renewals for price comparison.8
Martha Stewart described her motivation: "I've wanted to create something beyond education, something that could actually help proactively manage one's home the way that I do — but the technology wasn't ready for my vision. Hint is."8 Kevin Colleran of Slow Ventures summarized the investment thesis: "I own this incredibly valuable asset and I have no idea if I'm taking care of it correctly."8 A 2025 Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report put US residential renovation and repair spending above $500B per year.8
Product launch planned for desktop and iOS in summer 2026; company website not yet public at time of announcement.
Champ AI — $8.5M · Enterprise operations automation
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Undisclosed round · $8.5M |
| Lead investor | Redpoint Ventures (tier-1 VC) |
| Co-investors | defy.vc, SV Angel; angels include Max Mullen (Instacart co-founder), JJ Zhuang |
| Country | United States |
| Vertical | Enterprise operations |
| Announced | May 13, 2026 |
Champ AI exited stealth on May 13 with an AI-native operations platform built around three modalities: browser automation (including authentication, 2FA, and CAPTCHA handling), smart document processing, and voice AI for outbound verification and appointment reminders.9 The platform converts standard operating procedures (SOPs) directly into executing AI agents, with non-technical staff able to build and manage workflows through a self-service copilot.9
Current customers include Instacart, Arena Club, Poplin, Shipwire, and Swimply. Arena Club's director of operations reported that "Champ AI sped up our card processing by 30%."9
Founder background: Jagannath Putrevu (CEO), Ted Cheng, and Peter Lin — all three spent close to a decade at Instacart, where they helped scale the company from Series B through IPO and built systems supporting more than 1 million daily orders across 4,000+ retailers.9
Sprouts.ai — $9M Pre-Series A · B2B revenue AI agents
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Pre-Series A · $9M |
| Total raised | $14M |
| Lead investors | True Global Ventures, Accel |
| Country | United States (Palo Alto) |
| Vertical | B2B sales / GTM |
| Announced | May 15, 2026 |
Sprouts.ai offers an AI-native Revenue Agent that covers the full B2B go-to-market funnel — from ideal customer profile (ICP) identification to deal close.10 A proprietary GTM data layer continuously cleans surrounding data ecosystems to maintain high-fidelity signals.10 The platform runs natively inside Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude.10 Named customers: Hewlett Packard, Razorpay, HighRadius, and Udemy. Founder names were not disclosed in available sources.
Kaizan — £2.5M (~$3.1M) Seed · AI client intelligence
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Seed · £2.5M (~$3.1M) |
| Lead investor | Pembroke VCT |
| Co-investors | Velocity Capital, industry angels |
| Country | United Kingdom (London) |
| Vertical | Enterprise client management / CRM |
| Announced | May 12, 2026 |
Kaizan analyzes enterprise service teams' communications and account data — email, calls, chat, internal systems — to detect at-risk client signals, recommend next actions, and surface upsell opportunities.11 The platform supports 30+ languages and serves global enterprise customers.11 Funding will accelerate US market expansion.
Founder background: Glen Calvert and Pravin Paratey. Founded in London in 2022.
Coworked — $1.8M · Agentic AI project management
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | $1.8M (stage undisclosed) |
| Lead investors | Open Opportunity Fund, Two Ravens VC (co-leads) |
| Co-investors | Techstars, Underdog Labs |
| Country | United States (Boston) |
| Vertical | Enterprise project management |
| Announced | May 12, 2026 |
Coworked's product, Harmony, is an agentic AI project manager that handles enterprise project coordination, scheduling, risk tracking, reporting, and follow-up.12 Founder names and additional product details were not available in accessible sources at time of publication.
SCIKIQ — $1.5M Pre-Series A · Enterprise AI data intelligence
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Round | Pre-Series A · $1.5M (~₹14 Cr); company's first external funding |
| Lead investor | Triton Fund II (Triton Investment Advisors) |
| Country | India (Gurugram) |
| Vertical | Enterprise data / analytics |
| Announced | May 12, 2026 |
SCIKIQ's DataHub platform converts fragmented enterprise data into business-ready intelligence, integrating data governance, analytics, conversational AI, AutoML, GenAI, and blockchain-based data exchange in a single platform.13 It supports hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, and on-premises deployments.13 Named customers include the London Stock Exchange and Aster Hospitals.
Founder background: Gaurav Shinh and Rohit Kumar.
New entrants
Eight AI application-layer companies debuted from stealth or made their first public announcement between May 10–17, 2026. Four came through Y Combinator's Launch platform; four announced independently through press releases or media exclusives. Hint and Champ AI appear in both the funding section above and this list — their full details are above; the entries below note only their debut channel and status.
Hint · AI home management · May 13, 2026
Debut channel: Fortune exclusive
Funding status: $10M Seed (Slow Ventures) — see funding section above
Website: Not yet public at time of announcement
Product status: Launch planned summer 2026 (desktop + iOS)
Champ AI · Enterprise operations automation · May 13, 2026
Debut channel: Press release (GlobeNewswire / Redpoint)
Funding status: $8.5M (Redpoint Ventures) — see funding section above
Website: champ.ai
Product status: Available; customers in market
BasedAI / Hirebase · AI workforce platform · May 13, 2026
Debut channel: Press release (PR Newswire)
Funding status: Initial funding from Arche Capital; amount not disclosed
Country: United States (Wilmington, DE)
Vertical: Enterprise AI workforce / productivity
Website: Closed beta
Hirebase, BasedAI's flagship product, lets companies deploy autonomous agents that execute tasks within Google Docs, Notion, Slack, WhatsApp, and Telegram.14 COO Josh Goodbody framed the distinction from chat interfaces: "With Hirebase, we are moving AI from a chat experience to a doing experience."14 Before launch, the company acquired the platform IP and multi-agent orchestration stack from Warden App.14
Founder background: Teana Baker-Taylor (CEO, former Citi / HSBC / Circle / Venice AI); Josh Goodbody (COO, former JP Morgan / Binance); David A. Johnston (Chief AI Officer, from Morpheus AI). Board chair: Vanessa Grellet (former NYSE and ConsenSys executive).
Deya · AI eye care platform · May 14, 2026
Debut channel: Press release (MarketersMedia)
Funding status: Not disclosed
Country: United States (New York, NY)
Vertical: Healthcare (ophthalmology)
Website: deya.health
Product status: Clinical pilot with selected ophthalmologists; full launch planned H2 2026
Deya's platform enables patients to capture 4K eye images using a smartphone for remote monitoring, symptom tracking, treatment adherence, and clinician communication.15 The clinical side provides AI-assisted diagnostics, patient management, and integration with mainstream ophthalmic EHR systems.15 The company says it has assembled what it describes as the largest dataset of smartphone-captured eye images, which underpins its AI models.
Founder background: Dr. Jovi Boparai and Carl Murray (co-founders); Dr. Scott Jens (ophthalmic clinical specialist); Andrew Garret (software engineering).
Elyra · AI restaurant reservation system · May 17, 2026 (YC Launch)
Debut channel: Y Combinator Launch
Funding status: YC-backed; round terms not disclosed
Country: Sweden (founders based in Stockholm)
Vertical: Hospitality (restaurant operations)
Website: elyrasystems.com
Product status: Live with multiple restaurant groups
Elyra addresses a single, costly operational gap: 40% of restaurant calls go unanswered, which the company estimates costs a mid-size restaurant more than $100K per year.16 The platform covers three functions: a Voice Agent that handles every call (reservations, modifications, menu questions), an Email Concierge that replies in the restaurant's own tone, and Smart Table Allocation that optimizes seating in real time.16 Named restaurant clients include Shuffle Group, ESS Group, Kasai, O'Learys Group, and The Kitchin.
Founder background: Felix Odeberg Glasenapp (engineering physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and Alan Mando (business, WU Vienna), childhood friends from Stockholm.
Korso · AI agents for manufacturing · May 12, 2026 (YC Launch)
Debut channel: Y Combinator Launch
Funding status: YC-backed; round terms not disclosed
Country: Incorporation not confirmed (YC-backed)
Vertical: Manufacturing operations
Website: korsoai.com
Product status: Available; SAP Edge Partner, Microsoft 365 Developer Program member
Korso's Atlas platform runs autonomous coordination agents on top of ERP systems — SAP, NetSuite, Oracle, Dynamics 365, Odoo — and automates three primary workflows: supplier follow-up (proactive ETA chasing), RFQ processing (parsing incoming request-for-quote emails and generating responses), and order anomaly monitoring.17 The platform connects via Gmail, WhatsApp, WeChat, Slack, Teams, and Notion.17
Founder background: Martin Pan (founder).
Auxos · AI simulated-audience testing · May 14, 2026 (YC Launch)
Debut channel: Y Combinator Launch
Funding status: YC-backed; round terms not disclosed
Country: United States
Vertical: Market research / product development
Website: useauxos.com
Product status: Available
Auxos generates AI-simulated audiences for testing marketing and product decisions — ad creative, landing pages, pricing changes — before they reach real customers.18 The workflow: select target demographic → submit the decision to test → receive quantitative results and qualitative explanations within minutes.18 The company claims this replaces traditional market research that takes 2–6 weeks and costs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Founder background: Ashton Daniel (CEO, former BCG consultant, Columbia CS), Jerry (CPO, former Instagram product, UPenn CS), Kerry (CTO, former Amazon Ads, Duke CS & Math). All three are former Team USA fencers who have known each other for 15 years.
PLAN0 · AI construction cost estimation · May 14, 2026 (YC Launch)
Debut channel: Y Combinator Launch
Funding status: YC-backed; round terms not disclosed
Country: United States
Vertical: Construction / real estate
Website: plan0.ai
Product status: Available; $20B in projects currently on platform
PLAN0 uses computer vision to analyze architectural drawings and produces detailed construction cost estimates in 30 minutes — a process that typically takes two weeks of manual estimating work.19 The platform pulls historical and real-time cost data through industry partnerships and supports scenario modeling: swap concrete for steel to test cost impact, stress-test estimates against historical overrun patterns, or lock in steel prices against projected price increases.19 Three user types: developers (acquisition and design-phase decisions), general contractors (bid preparation), and investors (independent cost assumption validation).
Founder background: Arash Barati (has led $7B in commercial real estate projects), Shervin Barati (co-founder, former Apple engineer), Dimitris (co-founder, former Citadel / MIT).
Patterns in this week's data
Three clusters are directly observable from this window's 21 companies.
Insurance distribution received two simultaneous Series A rounds. Outmarket AI targets the retail brokerage side — helping brokers compare policies and detect coverage gaps — while Novella targets the wholesale/E&S side, where brokers place difficult-to-insure clients. Two separate rounds, two separate nodes in the same distribution chain, announced within two days of each other.65
Four companies organized their product around the same design pattern: convert SOPs into executing agents. Champ AI (enterprise operations), Korso (manufacturing ERP workflows), Coworked (project management), and Sprouts.ai (B2B revenue workflows) all describe a core motion of translating documented processes into autonomous agents — as distinct from the earlier generation of AI tools that assisted human workflows without replacing the execution step.917
Y Combinator's Launch platform surfaced 4 of the 8 new entrants this week — Elyra, Korso, Auxos, and PLAN0.16171819 All four are early-stage and have not disclosed round size or lead investor. For founders tracking competitors in vertical SaaS, YC Launch has become a reliable early signal layer worth monitoring weekly.
Cover photo from: TechCrunch
References
- 1TechCrunch: Exaforce raises $125M Series B
- 2TechCrunch: AI voice startup Vapi hits $500M valuation
- 3TechCrunch: Nectar Social raises $30M Series A
- 4PRNewswire: Basata Raises $21M Series A
- 5citybiz: Novella Raises $21M
- 6FinSMEs: Outmarket AI Raises $17M Series A
- 7MedCity News: Shyld AI Snags $13M
- 8Fortune: Martha Stewart's new AI startup
- 9GlobeNewswire: Champ AI Emerges from Stealth
- 10PRNewswire: Sprouts.ai Raises $9M
- 11The SaaS News: Kaizan Raises £2.5M Seed
- 12PRNewswire: Coworked Raises $1.8M
- 13Startup Samadhan: SCIKIQ Raises $1.5M
- 14Yahoo Finance: BasedAI Emerges from Stealth
- 15MarketersMedia: Deya Emerges from Stealth
- 16YC Launch: Elyra
- 17YC Launch: Korso
- 18YC Launch: Auxos
- 19YC Launch: PLAN0
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