Reflection AI just made a huge move. On July 14, 2026, it signed a $1 billion compute deal with Nebius. This deal gives Reflection access to Nvidia’s latest chips. It’s a big step for the U.S. startup, founded in 2024 by two former Google DeepMind researchers.
Reflection is already valued at $8 billion. It has raised nearly $2.6 billion from big names like Nvidia, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. This new deal with Nebius will help it scale its AI models faster.
Nebius is a European AI infrastructure company. It used to be the international arm of Yandex. It has been busy signing massive contracts. Last year, it locked in a multi-year deal with Microsoft worth up to $19.4 billion. And more recently, Nebius signed a five-year infrastructure deal with Meta valued at up to $27 billion.
PixVerse Raises Hundreds of Millions and Grows User Base
PixVerse, a Singapore-based startup, just closed a $439 million Series C extension. This brings its total raised in the round to that amount. The company’s valuation has now crossed $2 billion. PixVerse was founded in 2023 by Wang Changhu and Jaden Xie. Changhu previously worked at ByteDance on computer vision, while Xie was an executive director at Lighthouse Capital.
PixVerse focuses on video generation. It offers several video models, including V-Series, C-Series, and R-Series. Its consumer product has over 150 million registered users and more than 15 million monthly active users. PixVerse charges $4.80 per minute for image-to-video generation. It plans to launch a new V-Series model and update its world model this year. The company employs 150 people across Singapore, Beijing, and Shanghai offices.
Mercor, Emerald AI, and Nous Research Make Waves
Mercor, an AI training startup, is in talks for a funding round valuing it at $20 billion. Just four months ago, it raised $350 million at a $10 billion valuation. The company’s annualized revenue run rate has surged to over $2 billion, doubling in that short period. Mercor also announced the acquisition of Deeptune, a firm that helps train AI agents.
Emerald AI, which develops data center management software, is raising about $100 million. Its valuation is expected to top $1 billion. Meanwhile, Nous Research is closing a funding round led by Robot Ventures, with USV and others joining. This round values the startup at $1.5 billion. Founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra, Nous Research has raised a total of $70 million so far.
Nous Research is known for its open-source Hermes agent. Hermes comes with built-in skills like web search, coding, and image understanding. It has around 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks on GitHub. The company offers a hosted version of Hermes on paid tiers ranging from $20 to $200 a month.
These deals and funding rounds show how AI startups and infrastructure providers are racing ahead. From compute deals with chip giants to huge valuations and acquisitions, the AI space is heating up fast.
Based on
- Reflection inks $1B compute deal with Nebius — techcrunch.com
- Video-generation startup PixVerse raises $439M, valuation soars past $2B | TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
- Mercor is in talks for a $20B valuation | TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
- Emerald AI is raising a new round at a $1 billion-plus valuation — axios.com
- Hermes agent maker Nous Research in talks for new funding at $1.5B valuation | TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
