Morning VC Brief丨2025.05.21

Week21 Highlights丨Cyera, Sweep, Miter, Catena Labs, Affiniti, Doji, Metafoodx

Author

eric gu
May 21, 2025

Morning VC Brief is an expert daily curation of tech and venture news. Feel free to forward; the sign-up is here

Table of Contents

01. Venture News

1/ Data Security Startup Cyera raised $500M at $6B

  • Product: Data security solutions expanding from DSPM to DLP, with new Omni DLP platform

  • Highlight: Positioned as key enabler for enterprise AI adoption

  • Investor: Lightspeed Venture Partners(Lead), Greenoaks

  • Source

2/ Agentic Workspace for Salesforce Sweep raised $22.5M Series B

  • Product: AI-powered workspace enabling human-AI collaboration to keep enterprises technically and strategically ahead

  • Highlight: Expanding Agentic Layer to SAP/NetSuite/Snowflake for friction detection and autonomous system alignment

  • Investor: Insight Partners(Lead), Bessemer Venture Partners

  • Source

3/ Construction Workforce Management Platform Miter raised $38M

  • Product: Software platform connecting HR, finance, and operations teams to streamline workforce management and job cost control for contractors

  • Highlight: Used by 700+ contractors across the U.S., with features like real-time timesheet approvals, automated payroll for union workers, and instant project cost tracking; Clients include Marathon Electrical and Truebeck Construction

  • Investor: Bessemer Venture Partners (Lead), Coatue (Lead)

  • Source

4/ AI-Native Financial Institution Catena Labs raised $18M Seed

  • Product: Building the first regulated AI-native financial institution tailored for AI agents, leveraging stablecoins for instant global transactions and dynamic programmability

  • Highlight: Launched open-source Agent Commerce Kit (ACK) for agent identity verification and payment flows

  • Investor: a16z crypto (Lead), Breyer Capital, Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures

  • Source

5/ SMBs Expense Management Platform Affiniti raised $17M Series A

  • Product: Customizable expense-management credit cards & software targeting SMBs (e.g., pharmacies, HVAC companies), combining Brex/Ramp-like tools with AI-driven financial analytics

  • Highlight: 1,800 customers and ~$20M monthly transaction volume in 14 months; on track for $1B annual transactions; Revenue surged 10x YoY (from $1M to ~$10M)

  • Investor: SignalFire(Lead), Thinking Capital, Indicator Ventures

  • Source

6/ Virtual Try-On App Doji raised $14M Seed

  • Product: Social shopping app creating photo-realistic avatars for virtual apparel try-ons using proprietary diffusion models

  • Highlight: Invite-only app available in 80+ countries; founders bring expertise from Apple, Meta, and DeepMind

  • Investor: Thrive Capital (Lead), Seven Seven Six

  • Source

7/ AI Food Tech Startup Metafoodx raised $9.4M Series A

  • Product: AI-powered 3D scanner to track food production, consumption, and waste in commercial kitchens

  • Highlight: 50% waste reduction, 200% ROI within weeks; patented real-time data analytics

  • Investor: Trustbridge Partners(Lead)

  • Source