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Startups & Venture·October 7, 2026·1 min read

Game studio Gardens Interactive raised a $35M+ Series B led by Lightspeed at a pre-money valuation of $190M, taking its total funding to $71M

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$35M+ into Gardens Interactive at a ~$190M pre-money is a bet that premium, art-forward titles can still break out in a live-service, UGC-heavy market. For studios, it’s a reminder that distinct aesthetic and design DNA remains fundable even as tooling and distribution get more commoditized.

Startups & Venture

Endeavor Catalyst closes $320M fund as Europe becomes its top growth market

Endeavor Catalyst’s $320 million Fund V — with Europe now its fastest-growing region and H1 2026 deals already near last year’s total — reinforces that late-stage capital is actively hunting European growth stories. If you’re a European founder past product–market fit, you can treat global growth funds as realistic lead options and should be tightening metrics and governance to match that bar.

Startups & Venture

Nous Research raises $90M to take its Hermes AI agent to businesses

A $90M round for an open-source agent stack aimed at enterprises — with Nvidia, Microsoft’s M12, Samsung, and tier-one VCs in the cap table per The Next Web — is a bet that “bring your own model, buy the agent layer” becomes a real market. If you’re building internal orchestration, assume you’ll be competing with increasingly well-capitalized open agents and design for swap-ability rather than hardwiring to a single vendor.