Articles about seattle startups

As the influencer economy drives retail sales, Seattle startup raises $22M to play matchmaker

Seattle startup Levanta raised $22 million as brands increasingly turn to influencers to drive product sales, expanding its platform for connecting brands with influencers and managing affiliate partnerships across Amazon, Walmart and Shopify. Read More

Seattle’s AI weed wars: One startup maps them, another zaps them

Two Seattle-area startups are taking different approaches to an age-old farming problem: using AI to find weeds — and then eliminate them. TerraClear is mapping individual weeds across entire fields, while Carbon Robotics is using AI-powered lasers to zap them. Now, increasingly sophisticated AI models are giving both approaches a bigger opportunity: teaching machines to understand the farm itself. Read More

University of Washington and Seattle biotech win $245M patent judgment against Guardant

A Seattle biotech built on University of Washington research has won a $245 million patent judgment against Guardant Health over DNA sequencing technology, with the court also ordering ongoing royalties through 2033. Read More

Podcast

What’s going on with Seattle startup funding, a Kalshi setback, Impinj’s long game, and a smartphone detox

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Seattle startup funding fell about 40% in the first half of 2026 as AI reshaped the venture market — plus a Kalshi court setback, Impinj’s 10 years on the Nasdaq, and could you go without your smartphone for five weeks? Read More

Grammy-winning artist and entrepreneur Diplo invests in Seattle startup Copper

Seattle startup Copper is getting a high-profile boost from Grammy-winning artist and entrepreneur Diplo, who has invested in the company as it expands its consumer rewards platform. Copper, which says it has more than 4 million members, helps users earn money through shopping, mobile games and everyday digital activities. Read More

Seattle’s Clarify acquires S.F. startup Seam AI, joining forces to challenge CRM stalwarts

Clarify, the Seattle-based AI startup that has raised more than $22 million to take on Salesforce and other CRM incumbents,… Read More

Startup Spotlight: Hedgehog bets that open-source networking will power the next generation of AI clouds

Founded in 2022 by CEO Marc Austin, a Cisco networking veteran, Hedgehog develops open-source software designed to make private AI data centers operate more like hyperscale clouds. Read More

Vieu launches AI-ready map of business relationships, challenging tech incumbents

Vieu, a Seattle startup founded by former Microsoft leaders, launched its “Business Graph” — a live map of business relationships built from observed signals like shared work history and board affiliations, rather than the self-reported connections on LinkedIn. Read More

Overland AI lands Marine Corps deal worth nearly $20M to build self-driving military vehicles

Seattle-based Overland AI won a Marine Corps contract to produce more than a dozen autonomous ground vehicles, which the startup says makes it the first ground autonomy company to serve as the prime contractor on a military production deal. Read More

KredosAI raises $7M, led by BMW’s venture arm, to use AI to help companies collect late payments

KredosAI, an Issaquah startup founded by former T-Mobile executives, raised $7 million led by BMW i Ventures for its AI platform that helps companies collect overdue payments while keeping customers. The round brings its total funding to a little over $10 million. Read More

Private AI: Venice.ai, led by crypto vet Erik Voorhees and Seattle’s Jesse Proudman, raises $65M

Venice.ai, a privacy-focused AI startup led by CEO Erik Voorhees and Seattle-based president and CTO Jesse Proudman, has raised $65 million in its first outside funding at a $1 billion valuation. The company offers a private alternative to mainstream AI services, saying it doesn’t store users’ prompts or responses. Read More

This startup wants to move kidney care out of the fax-machine era

Seattle-based Apacendo Health is building AI agents that read incoming faxes and enter patient data into electronic health records for nephrology practices, aiming to cut the administrative work that consumes hours of clinic staff time each day Read More

Convoy co-founder Dan Lewis exits Microsoft to launch stealth startup aiming to reinvent AI supply chain

Dan Lewis, who led the Seattle freight marketplace Convoy before it shut down in 2023, has left Microsoft to start a stealth company focused on running AI models more efficiently, extending a career spent at the intersection of AI and logistics. Read More

Devplan raises $2.5M to take on the product coordination work that AI coding is leaving behind

Devplan, a Seattle startup building software to coordinate product and engineering work, is emerging from stealth with $2.5 million in seed funding led by AI2 Incubator. Read More

Amperity founders take on co-CEO roles, say they’ll carry the ‘soul’ of the startup forward

The Seattle-based customer data startup announced this week that co-founders Derek Slager and Kabir Shahani will serve as co-CEOs, taking over leadership of the company less than two years after Amperity hired former Salesforce executive Tony Alika Owens to lead the business. Read More

Meet ArchAstro: Ex-Stripe, Microsoft and Meta vets assemble powerhouse team for cross-company AI agents

ArchAstro just emerged from stealth with an artificial intelligence network designed to automate complex, cross-company software deployments and integrations. Read More

Etzioni on AI: Ten Commandments for AI Startups

AI researcher, entrepreneur, and investor Oren Etzioni lays out 10 commandments for AI startups — covering business models, distribution, inference costs, and avoiding dependence on any single frontier model — preceded by 10 classics that apply to startups in general. Read More

Rec Room’s final day: Fans say goodbye as social gaming platform comes to an end

The Seattle social gaming platform, once valued at $3.5 billion, shuts down at noon Pacific today after a decade and 150 million players. Fans are marking the end with tribute videos, yearbook-style goodbyes, and final virtual gatherings. Read More

Possible Finance rebounds, rebuilds, and reaches profitability as founders reunite for a new chapter

Seattle fintech Possible Finance hit a $125 million revenue run rate and its first annual profit after a pandemic-era stretch of flat growth and layoffs. The company is expanding its Seattle office and reuniting its founding team. Read More

Late-night name drop: Seattle startup Tin Can achieves cultural milestone

Jimmy Kimmel casually referenced Tin Can’s screenless phone for kids during his monologue last week, shortly after the startup landed a glowing NYT Wirecutter review. The company has grown to 30 employees and sold hundreds of thousands of phones. Read More

Seattle data storage company putting R&D hub in Ireland

Qumulo is opening a new R&D and customer success hub in Cork, Ireland, expected to create 50 jobs over the next three years as the Seattle-based data management firm bets on AI-driven demand for global-scale data infrastructure. Read More

Seattle startup Certiv launches with $4.2M to build endpoint security layer for AI agents

Seattle startup Certiv emerged from stealth with $4.2 million in funding to build security software that monitors and controls AI agents on employee computers. The company is led by serial entrepreneur Jason Needham, whose previous startups were acquired by Apple and VMware. Read More

Taylor Soper named director of Seattle’s AI House after remarkable run at GeekWire

Taylor Soper is leaving GeekWire after more than 13 years as a reporter and editor to become director of AI House at AI2 Incubator. We’ll miss him deeply, but we’re excited to see what he does next. Read More

Anthropic acquires Vercept in early exit for one of Seattle’s standout AI startups

Anthropic is acquiring Seattle AI startup Vercept, folding its desktop “computer use” technology and team into Claude as the race to build AI agents that can operate software intensifies. Vercept will shut down its Vy application as part of the deal. Read More

Podcast

GeekWire Podcast: Alexa’s next act, Microsoft’s retail play, Google’s AI Inbox, and a smart bird feeder fail

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are racing to redefine consumer AI — from Alexa’s next act as a generative home assistant to Microsoft’s bid to bring shopping into AI chat, and Google’s plan for an “AI Inbox” in Gmail. Plus: a smart bird feeder fail, early impressions of PC-based AI automation, and reflections on investigative journalism in the age of AI. Read More

Coinme to resume WA state operations after reaching interim deal with regulators

Seattle cryptocurrency company Coinme has reached an interim deal with Washington state regulators allowing it to resume operations after a temporary cease-and-desist order was stayed. The agreement follows allegations that the company improperly claimed more than $8 million owed to consumers from unredeemed crypto vouchers. Read More

Startup Radar: Meet four companies tackling insurance, hospitals, construction, and AI models

Our latest Startup Radar spotlights four early stage tech startups in the Seattle region: Amera, Clara, Oiyko, and Specbook. Read More

Read AI steps into the real world with new system for capturing everyday work chatter

Read AI is expanding beyond virtual meetings with a new system called Operator, letting users capture and analyze in-person conversations and spontaneous workplace interactions through its desktop and mobile apps. Read More

Seattle’s long history of hardware heartbreak: Big raises, high hopes, hard landings

Seattle’s consumer-hardware ambitions are once again colliding with economic reality. The struggles of Glowforge and Rad Power Bikes echo a long regional history of big raises, high hopes, and hard landings — shaped by the pandemic, venture capital, and the unforgiving nature of building real products. Read More

Is Seattle’s tech scene in trouble? WSJ report highlights concerning trends — with a potential opening for startups

Seattle’s tech scene got the national treatment this past weekend as the Wall Street Journal detailed the fallout from layoffs… Read More