Good day. The AI agent takeover is coming. Venture investors can’t wait.

Take Ramp, a New York-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to automate corporate finance tasks. In July, Ramp jumped into the AI agent fray, tapping investors for $500 million to build out an offering of AI agents that could allow customers to, say, shift human attention away from tedious tasks like expense reports.

Less than four months later, Ramp was ready for more capital to continue the buildout. Ramp on Monday said it raised $300 million in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Founders Fund, Thrive Capital, 8VC, Bessemer Venture Partners and others also participated in the deal. The deal valued Ramp at $32 billion, above the $22.5 billion valuation Ramp received in July.  

In announcing the new slug of capital, Ramp Chief Executive and co-founder Eric Glyman said agents made 26.1 million decisions for customers in October alone, which saved them money and allowed workers to devote attention to other tasks. For instance, Glyman said Ramp’s policy agent prevented more than 500,000 out-of-policy transactions, saving customers $291 million.

Ramp’s push into AI agents is part of a tidal wave of AI agent offerings hitting the market. Many established enterprise software giants—including Salesforce and Snowflake—have launched agents. This month, analytics firm CB Insights said it identified over 1,700 startups building AI agents in sectors including workflow automation, HR, and sales and marketing.

That makes for a lot of agents offering often overlapping functions. The challenge now—and what venture investors are betting on—is that Ramp and the army of other agents out there don’t become more costly than they are useful.

And now on to the news...

Neo-cloud company rising. Lambda, a startup that rents out access to advanced artificial intelligence chips, said Tuesday that it raised over $1.5 billion in its latest funding round. The Series E round was led by TWG Global, a holding company led by Thomas Tull and Mark Walter, with participation from Tull’s US Innovative Technology Fund and other investors. The startup, which was founded in 2012, raised $500 million in a deal backed by Nvidia’s chips in 2024. Nvidia has also invested in the company.

Bitcoin fell below $92,000 on Monday as macroeconomic concerns continue to weigh heavily on investor sentiment. The largest cryptocurrency has erased its 2025 gains and now trades about 27% below its all-time high of above $126,000 set on Oct. 6. Analysts say the decline is driven by macroeconomic concerns, primarily citing the uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policy and worries about the health of the U.S. economy.

OpenAI and Intuit agreed to a multiyear partnership in which the financial technology firm will deepen its use of OpenAI models and make applications available on the artificial intelligence company’s ChatGPT. The companies said they expect the deal to generate more than $100 million in revenue for OpenAI over an unspecified number of years.

People

Investment accounting platform FundGuard appointed Simon Behan as chief commercial officer. He previously held commercial leadership roles at Finbourne Technology, Ocorian, Virtus Partners, Deutsche Bank and BNYM.

Exits

Intelligent infrastructure technology company Itron agreed to acquire Locusview and its subsidiaries for $525 million. Locusview is a utility-focused software-and-services provider based in the U.S. and Israel.

Cloudflare agreed to purchase Replicate, a platform helping developers deploy and run AI models.

Chaos Industries, a Los Angeles-headquartered defense technology startup, scored a $510 million investment at a $4.5 billion valuation. Valor Equity Partners led the funding, with Antonio Gracias joining the company’s board. Investors including Accel and 8VC also participated in the funding.

Flatpay, a Copenhagen-headquartered startup streamlining card payments for small and medium-sized businesses with a simple flat rate, landed €145 million in funding at a €1.5 billion valuation from investors including Dawn Capital, AVP and Smash Capital.

Celero Communications, an Irvine, Calif.-based developer of digital signal processor technology for AI infrastructure, has raised a total of $140 million in funding, including a recent $100 million Series B round led by CapitalG.

Federato, a San Francisco-based developer of AI-native insurance software, raised a $100 million Series D round led by the growth equity business within Goldman Sachs Alternatives.

Fabric8Labs, a San Diego-based 3D printing technology developer, secured a $50 million investment led by New Enterprise Associates and Intel Capital.

Agentio, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based AI-native platform for creator-led advertising, fetched $40 million in Series B funding, valuing the company at $340 million. Forerunner Ventures led the round, which included additional support from Benchmark, Craft Ventures, AlleyCorp and others.

ElectronX,  a Chicago-based energy exchange startup, closed a $30 million Series A round. DCVC led the investment, which saw contributions from Innovation Endeavors, Systemiq Capital, Equinor Ventures and Shell Ventures.

PowerLattice, a Vancouver, Wash.-headquartered startup focusing on power delivery for next-generation AI accelerators, emerged from stealth with $25 million in Series A funding led by Playground Global and Celesta Capital. Pat Gelsinger, general partner at Playground Global, and Steve Fu, partner at Celesta Capital, will join the board.

Span, a San Francisco-based developer intelligence platform, raised $25 million in seed and Series A funding from Alt Capital, Craft Ventures, SV Angel, BoxGroup and Bling Capital.

Hummink, a Paris-based developer of high-precision printing technology for advanced electronics, collected $20 million in funding from investors including KBC Focus Fund, Cap Horn and Bpifrance.

Mate, a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup, emerged from stealth with $15.5 million in seed funding from Team8 and Insight Partners.

PicoJool, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based optical connectivity technology startup, exited stealth with $12 million in funding led by Playground Global.

Runlayer, an enterprise AI security provider, obtained an $11 million seed round from investors including Khosla Ventures’ Keith Rabois and Felicis.

Reelables, a London-based startup providing an active smart label for tracking cargo and inventory, grabbed $10.4 million in Series A funding from investors including Amigos Venture Capital, Moneta Ventures and Raptor Group.

Keychain, a New York-headquartered manufacturing platform for the consumer packaged goods industry, snagged a $10 million investment from W23 Global and others.

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• ‘I’m nervous’: Klarna founder challenges trillion-dollar spending on AI (Financial Times)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.