Morning VC Brief丨2026.05.19

Week21 Highlights丨Decart, Sigma, Dust, GridCARE, Laurence, Turnkey, Searchable

Author

eric gu
May 19, 2026

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/ Decart — Real-Time World Model Infrastructure — $300M Series B

  • Product: AI research and infrastructure company building real-time video, world models, and optimization systems for high-throughput inference across GPUs, TPUs, and Trainium.

  • Highlight: Tech stack includes DOS for inference/training, Lucy for immersive real-time experiences, and Oasis for physical AI and robotics simulation.

  • Investors: Radical Ventures (Lead), Adobe, Alpha Partners, Benchmark, eBay Ventures, NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital, Toyota Ventures

  • Source

2/ Sigma — Cloud Analytics & AI Data Apps — $200M Series D

  • Product: Cloud-native analytics and business intelligence platform that gives business users a spreadsheet-style interface on top of cloud data warehouses, with writeback, collaboration, embedded analytics, and AI features.

  • Highlight: Sigma reported record revenue growth, new-logo acquisition, and partner expansion, with its platform increasingly used as a workflow and data app layer across enterprise teams.

  • Investor: Spark Capital (Co-Lead), Avenir Growth Capital (Co-Lead), NewView Capital, Snowflake Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures

  • Source

3/ Dust — Multiplayer AI Agent Platform — $40M Series B

  • Product: Enterprise AI platform where employees build, deploy, and collaborate with agents in shared workspaces connected to company data, tools, and workflows.

  • Highlight: Dust now serves 3,000+ organizations, has deployed more than 300,000 agents, and reports strong usage across customers including Vanta and Qonto, where teams use the platform for revenue, support, compliance, and knowledge workflows.

  • Investor: Abstract (Co-Lead), Sequoia Capital (Co-Lead), Snowflake Ventures, and Datadog

  • Source

4/ GridCARE — AI Power Acceleration Platform — $64M Series A

  • Product: Physics-based AI platform that helps utilities, data center developers, and energy providers identify underutilized grid capacity and accelerate power delivery for AI infrastructure.

  • Highlights: GridCARE's work with Portland General Electric identified a path to unlock more than 400MW of capacity in Hillsboro, Oregon, with the first 80MW expected online in 2026

  • Investors: Sutter Hill Ventures (Lead), John Doerr, National Grid Partners, Future Energy Ventures

  • Source

5/ GovWell — AI Government OS — $25M Series A

  • Product: AI operating system for local government workflows, starting with permitting, licensing, planning and zoning, code enforcement, inspections, payments, and public-facing service delivery.

  • Highlights: GovWell now serves 150+ agencies across 35+ states and says customers have reduced permit and license processing times by up to 95%

  • Investors: Insight Partners (Lead), Work-Bench, Bienville Capital

  • Source

6/ Laurence — AI Performance Marketing Platform — $5.8M Seed

  • Product: AI-native Amazon advertising platform described as a "hedge fund for ads," automating performance marketing by executing ad spend with quant-style models.

  • Highlights: Laurence is autonomously managing Amazon ad spend for 14 brands and says its models drive a 15-40% improvement in total net profit after margin and ad spend.

  • Investors: Susa Ventures (Co-Lead), BoxGroup (Co-Lead), Y Combinator, Scribble Ventures, SV Angel

  • Source

7/ Turnkey — Crypto Wallet Infrastructure — $12.5M Seed

  • Product: Wallet and key-management infrastructure for crypto applications, enabling non-custodial wallets, automated on-chain transactions, policy-controlled signing, and secure digital asset workflows.

  • Highlights: Turnkey's infrastructure is used by customers including Flutterwave, World App, Polymarket, and Anchorage Digital

  • Investors: Archetype, Circle Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Lightspeed Faction, Galaxy Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Variant

  • Source

8/ Searchable — AI Search Performance Platform — $14M Seed

  • Product: AI performance marketing platform that helps brands track, analyze, and improve visibility across AI-led search engines, assistants, and generative answer surfaces.

  • Highlights: Searchable says it reached about $2M in revenue within 4.5 months of launch and onboarded nearly 1,000 customers, with enterprise brands such as American Express, KPMG, and Siemens using the platform.

  • Investors: Headline (Lead)

  • Source