Good day. Could artificial intelligence offer an answer to American cities’ construction permitting woes? GreenLite Technologies, a New York-based startup, is using the technology to review commercial building plans, speeding up a notoriously slow and cumbersome process.

Insight Partners has led a $49.5 million Series B funding round for GreenLite. Investors including Energize Capital, Craft Ventures, LiveOak Ventures and Chicago Ventures also participated in the deal.

The financing illustrates investor enthusiasm for funding startups seeking to use AI to overhaul sectors they believe are running on analog processes. Investors, for instance, have also been bullish on AI’s ability to supercharge the supply-chain logistics sector, which they say largely still uses antiquated tech.

“There’s a lot of interest in this problem. It’s a big opportunity if you can fix the pain in construction permitting because it’s highly commercial but also an important problem to solve,” GreenLite co-founder and chief executive James Gallagher said, noting that offering tech in commercial industries can be lucrative.

Global property-tech companies, a broad sector that includes building and construction tech, raised $4.48 billion in the first half of this year, a 2.5% increase from the same period last year, according to research firm Center for Real Estate Technology and Innovation.

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And now on to the news...

The new VIPs of IPOs. Everyday investors typically have access to a tiny fraction of the shares sold in an initial public offering. The cryptocurrency platform Gemini Space Station, which made its debut Friday, earmarked nearly a third of its shares for such buyers. So-called retail investors are getting bigger allotments than ever before in IPOs. Companies are glad that it generates buzz, while bankers say it can stabilize a company’s share price. The latter issue is top of mind after several of this year’s biggest IPOs were plagued by big price jumps on their first trading days, which sounds good but often means money was left on the table.

• More: Winklevoss-Backed Gemini Soars in Latest IPO Market Win

A modern-day gold rush is stretching from Costco store aisles to underground vaults in London to the flickering screens of Wall Street. Old jewelry now glimmers with potential dollar signs. Gold’s value has ballooned by 39% this year, putting it on track for a greater annual price jump than during the depths of the Covid pandemic or 2007-09 recession, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Futures for the precious metal haven’t surged so much in a year since 1979, when a global energy crisis fueled an inflationary shock that thrashed the world’s economy. 

People

London-based Hoxton Ventures appointed Rishabh Kaul as venture partner and Isabel Fox as head of investor relations. The firm also said Partner Payton Dobbs has relocated from London to San Francisco.

Grid Aero, a startup building an autonomous air cargo network, named James "Gherdo" Gherdovich as chief strategy officer. He previously spent 26 years with the U.S. Air Force.

Apiiro, an agentic application security platform, appointed Jarrod Bogue as chief revenue officer. He was previously CRO at Eclypsium.

Apex, a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of satellite bus platforms, landed $200 million in Series D funding led by Interlagos.

HALA, a Saudi Arabia-based provider of embedded financial services to small and medium-sized enterprises, scored $157 million in Series B funding. TPG’s The Rise Fund and Sanabil Investments co-led the round, which saw additional participation from Middle East Venture Partners, Endeavor Catalyst, Nour Nouf Ventures and others.

Blocks.diy, a Tel Aviv-based startup enabling teams to build custom AI tools and agents, secured a $10 million seed round from investors including monday.com, Qumra Capital and Entrée Capital.

Sphinx, a New York-based applied AI research startup building agents that interface with data, launched with $9.5 million in seed funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the investment, which included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and others.

Quack, a San Francisco-headquartered proactive agentic AI platform for customer support, raised $7 million in seed funding led by Hanaco Ventures and Storytime Capital.

Meela, a New York-based provider of a personalized AI companion for seniors, was seeded with a $3.5 million investment led by Bain Capital Ventures.

Pascal AI Labs, an India-headquartered startup building a platform for agentic investment research workflows, was seeded with a $3.1 million investment. Kalaari Capital led the round, which included participation from Norwest and others.

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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.

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