Good day. While other investors obsess over artificial intelligence, Anterra Capital is seeding ideas in a multitrillion-dollar industry that gets a lot less fanfare.

Anterra has raised $100 million toward a food-and-agriculture venture-capital fund that it expects will double in size by year-end. The Amsterdam- and Boston-based firm finances and launches companies in areas such as animal health and crop protection.

Anterra’s third fund will be smaller than its $260 million predecessor, a 2021 vintage fund raised as investor demand for the category was cresting. Today, the froth is gone; but if Anterra reaches its $200 million goal it will have plenty of capital to execute its strategy, said Maarten Goossens, a founding partner.

“It’s definitely a different market, a cooler market than five years ago,” he said. But the new fund is getting strong support from Anterra’s prior investors, he added.

Anterra launched in 2013 with the thesis that digital and biological technologies that had swept other sectors would make their way to food and agriculture, said Goossens. The team also believed top food and agriculture companies would—like their pharmaceutical counterparts—grow increasingly interested in acquiring startups.

And they think things may be turning their way. During the pandemic, investors favored “downstream” startups—like food-delivery companies that serve consumers. These days, venture investors are shifting “upstream” to companies applying technology, like robotics and AI, to farms, food production and biological systems.

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And now on to the news...

It isn’t just SpaceX. Encouraged by the Elon Musk-led company’s successes—and steadily climbing valuation—venture capitalists and private-market investors are stepping up bets on space startups, hoping to find the next breakout stars. Venture funding for U.S. space-technology firms excluding SpaceX shot up to $7.1 billion in 2025 from $2.5 billion a year earlier, according to data provider PitchBook. Last year’s haul was the strongest since companies raised almost $4 billion in 2021.

A coalition of state attorneys general has opened an investigation into OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest in a series of legal actions by states directed at artificial intelligence companies. OpenAI was served Friday with a subpoena seeking documents related to a range of its activities and impact on users, including advertising, user engagement and retention, handling of consumer data and health data, activities related to minors and seniors, deep learning models, model sycophancy and company policies, some of the people said. 

• An OpenAI spokesperson said, “AI is a new and powerful technology, and we work every day to safely bring its benefits to people in a responsible way. We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously and intend to engage constructively with their offices.”

The crypto-data provider Blockworks said that it acquired its rival Messari in a deal underlining the pressures faced by once-highflying startups in a deepening bear market. Founded in 2018, Blockworks started as a media and events company connecting crypto with traditional finance. The startup then expanded into crypto news, research and data before closing its news division in October to focus on data, investor relations and compliance. Blockworks recently raised a Series A extension at a $192 million valuation. Messari was founded in 2018 as a crypto research, data and analytics firm. The company raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by the hedge fund Brevan Howard’s crypto arm in 2022. 

Funds

Medical technology investor Star51 Capital held the first close of its inaugural fund.

Genspark.ai, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup building agentic AI for global knowledge workers, added $100 million in Series B extension funding from investors including Sozo Ventures and UpHonest Capital at a $2.6 billion post-money valuation. The company also appointed Jamison Powell as chief revenue officer.

Orbio, a Madrid-headquartered startup building an AI workforce platform for frontline industries, secured $21 million in Series A funding led by Dawn Capital.

Cellares, a South San Francisco, Calif.-based startup focused on the automated, large-scale manufacture of cell therapies, added $20 million in new Series D funding from ARK Invest, bringing the round total to $277 million.

01Health, a London-based platform enabling specialist healthcare services to be delivered through local clinics, landed $15 million in Series A funding led by Gresham House Ventures.

Upriver, a San Francisco-based data engineering platform, was seeded with a $14 million investment led by Valley Capital Partners and Hetz Ventures.

Swarm Engineering, a San Francisco-based AI decision intelligence platform for agrifood and manufacturing operators, nabbed $10 million in Series A funding led by S2G Investments and AgRogue Growth Partners.

Niteshift, a New York-based cloud platform for AI coding agents, was seeded with a $7 million investment led by Greylock.

Relai, a Bethesda, Md.-based continual learning platform for AI agents, emerged from stealth with $6.9 million in total funding, including a $5.4 million pre-seed round led by .406 Ventures.

ChatSee.ai, which provides a failure intelligence platform for autonomous AI systems, picked up a $6.5 million investment led by True Ventures.

Fearn, a San Francisco-headquartered AI-native patent platform, snagged a $5.5 million seed round. Kindred Ventures led the investment, which included participation from a16z speedrun and others.

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This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Sarah Klearman.

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