Morning VC Brief丨2025.10.24

Week43 Highlights丨Sesame, OpenEvidence, LangChain, Anrok, Serval, ChipAgent, Knownwell, Starbridge

Author

eric gu
October 24, 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/ Conversational AI Startup Sesame Raised $250M Series B

  • Product: Personal AI agent with natural-sounding voice embedded in lightweight smart eyewear for all-day wear and voice interaction

  • Highlight: Over 1M users accessed demo voices "Maya" and "Miles" within weeks, generating 5M+ minutes of conversation

  • Investors: Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital

  • Source

2/ Medical AI Platform OpenEvidence Raised $200M at $6B

  • Product: ChatGPT for medicine - AI platform trained on medical journals (JAMA, NEJM) helping doctors and nurses quickly access medical knowledge to treat patients

  • Highlight: 15M clinical consultations per month (nearly doubled since July); free access for verified medical professionals; valuation jumped from $3.5B to $6B in just 3 months

  • Investor: Google Ventures (Lead), Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins

  • Source

3/ AI Agent Platform LangChain Raised $125M Series B at $1.25B

  • Product: Platform for building and deploying reliable AI agents with LangChain/LangGraph frameworks, LangSmith testing/deployment tools, and no-code agent builder

  • Highlight: 90M monthly downloads for langchain and langgraph; 35% of Fortune 500 companies use their services; 12x YoY growth in monthly trace volume

  • Investor: IVP (Lead), Sequoia, Benchmark, Amplify, CapitalG

  • Source

4/ Global Tax Compliance Platform Anrok Raised $55M Series C

  • Product: AI-powered global sales tax compliance automation platform combining human tax expertise with AI efficiency for modern businesses with recurring revenue and usage-based billing

  • Highlights: 3,000+ finance leaders trust Anrok across 100+ countries; over 40% of Forbes AI 50 use the platform

  • Investor: Spark Capital (Lead), Sapphire Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital

  • Source

5/ AI Platform for IT Teams Serval Raised $47M Series A

  • Product: AI-powered platform combining ITSM, access management, and workflow automation with natural language "vibe coding" system that lets IT teams build automations instantly via chat

  • Highlight: 50%+ of all IT tickets automated for customers; clients include Perplexity, Clay, Verkada, Mercor, Cribl, Together AI

  • Investor: Redpoint Ventures (Lead), First Round Capital, General Catalyst, Box Group

  • Source

6/ Agentic AI Chip Design Platform ChipAgents Raised $21M Series A

  • Product: AI platform automating chip design and verification through RTL code generation, testbench creation, debugging, and verification using natural language commands

  • Highlight: 6,377% surge in monthly usage in H1 2025; 50x YoY ARR growth; 80% higher productivity in verification

  • Investor: Bessemer Venture Partners (Lead), Micron Ventures, MediaTek

  • Source

7/ Obesity Medicine and Primary Care Company Knownwell Raised $25M

  • Product: Comprehensive metabolic health platform offering primary care, nutrition counseling, behavioral health, and GLP-1 prescriptions through virtual care nationwide

  • Highlight: Primary care-focused approach differentiates from competitors; expanding virtual and physical clinic presence

  • Investor: CVS Health Ventures (Lead), MassMutual Catalyst Fund, a16z

  • Source

8/ Public Sector Sales Intelligence Platform Starbridge Raised $42M Series A

  • Product: AI-powered GTM intelligence platform monitoring hundreds of thousands of government agencies and schools in real-time for bids, contracts, budgets, grants, and procurement opportunities

  • Highlight: 160+ enterprise public sector sales teams use the platform including Instructure, SimpliGov, Clever; 4x increase in response rates for account executives

  • Investor: Craft Ventures (Lead)

  • Source