The Quiet Power of Capital with Vision
In the noise of markets and metrics, it’s easy to forget what startup funding really is: a vote for the future. And today, that future is speaking in three distinct languages data, inclusion, and reinvention.
Meta’s pursuit of Scale AI isn’t just about mmachines getting smarter. It’s about owning the core of how intelligence itself is shaped curated, cleaned, and understood. In pouring billions into a data-labeling powerhouse, Meta isn’t buying code. It’s buying clarity. In a world racing toward artificial general intelligence, that clarity could be priceless.
In contrast, Swishin Ventures looks not to megacities, but to India’s often-overlooked towns where founders don’t pitch from polished decks, but from lived experience. With its new $20 million fund, Swishin isn’t just investing in startups. It’s restoring balance to a system that has too often mistaken location for potential.
Then there’s PFx Biotech quietly fermenting the impossible in a Lisbon lab. €2.5 million might not make headlines on Wall Street, but in the hands of a team reengineering dairy without allergens or animals, it’s a revolution waiting to scale. In every droplet of precision-fermented milk is a promise: that food can be both kind and cutting-edge.
These three stories don’t share geography, industry, or scale. But they share something deeper: vision funded with intention. Capital is no longer just flowing where profit is loudest it’s flowing where purpose is clear, where gaps are urgent, and where innovation feels human again.
This is not just the future of investment.
It’s the future of impact.
Meta in Advanced Talks for $10 Billion Investment in Data-Labeling AI Startup Scale AI
In what could become one of the most significant investments in artificial intelligence to date, Meta Platforms Inc. is reportedly in advanced discussions to invest over $10 billion in Scale AI, a leading data-labeling and AI infrastructure startup based in San Francisco.
If finalized, this deal would mark Meta’s largest external investment in the AI space, further highlighting the company’s aggressive strategy to compete at the highest levels of the ongoing AI race alongside rivals such as Google DeepMind, Microsoft/OpenAI, Amazon, and Apple.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has in recent years poured billions into metaverse development. However, with the global boom in generative AI and large language models, the company has been realigning its priorities—channeling more resources into building AI tools and infrastructure capable of reshaping how billions of users interact with its platforms.
This potential $10 billion investment is seen not just as a capital injection, but a strategic partnership with one of the AI sector’s most vital players. Scale AI’s core business human-in-the-loop data labeling for training machine learning models is essential for creating the kind of high-performing, context-aware AI systems Meta aims to deploy at scale.
Founded in 2016 by Alexandr Wang, then a 19-year-old MIT dropout, Scale AI has since grown into a multibillion-dollar enterprise serving major clients across defense, automotive, logistics, finance, and healthcare sectors. The company enables the development of advanced AI systems by curating, tagging, and verifying massive datasets—a process crucial for the accuracy and performance of models in real-world applications.
Wang, now one of the youngest self-made tech billionaires in the world, has long argued that the key to superior AI lies not just in computing power, but in high-quality data. His company’s platform allows organizations to train models with clean, annotated data across modalities like text, images, video, and 3D sensor inputs.
The deal, still under negotiation, could include equity stakes, exclusive rights to proprietary data-labeling pipelines, or even joint ventures on model training and deployment. According to industry insiders, the goal is to give Meta a competitive edge in training foundational models like its Llama series and future AI assistants integrated into its family of apps and platforms.
Meta has been under pressure to match the pace of innovation set by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. While the company has released promising AI research and open-source tools, it lacks the closed-loop training ecosystems its competitors enjoy. By potentially securing access to Scale AI’s labeling infrastructure, Meta would close a major gap in its AI development pipeline.
This move also signals a broader industry trend: the rising value of data curation as a foundational layer of the AI stack. In an era where models are becoming more general-purpose and powerful, the precision, diversity, and ethical grounding of training data are more crucial than ever.
Tech analysts say this investment, if confirmed, could spark a ripple effect across the AI landscape. Other major tech companies may respond with counter-investments or acquisitions in adjacent data-labeling or model-training firms to avoid being left behind.
“There’s a reason we’re seeing so much action around companies like Scale AI. They are the quiet engines behind some of the most transformative AI applications in the world today,” said Priya Malhotra, senior AI strategist at Horizon Analytics. “Meta wants more than just good models it wants the ecosystem to make great ones.”
While both companies have declined to publicly comment on the reports, sources close to the negotiations say a formal announcement could be made as early as this quarter. If finalized, this would not only become a milestone for Meta but would also cement Scale AI’s position as a cornerstone of the global AI infrastructure.
As the AI race intensifies, partnerships like this could determine who leads the next decade of technological evolution and who gets left behind.
Swishin Ventures Launches $20 Million Fund to Boost Startups in India’s Tier-II and Tier-III Cities
In a bold move to decentralize startup funding in India, Swishin Ventures, a newly licensed early-stage investment firm, has announced the launch of a $20 million venture fund aimed specifically at startups in Tier-II and Tier-III cities across the country. Spearheaded by serial entrepreneur and ecosystem champion Mahavir Pratap Sharma, the fund also carries a $5 million greenshoe option, which could raise the total fund size to $25 million.
This launch marks a significant shift in the Indian startup ecosystem, which has long been criticized for being overly concentrated in urban hubs like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, and Hyderabad. Swishin Ventures aims to rebalance this landscape by channeling capital into the emerging innovation corridors of smaller towns and cities where entrepreneurs are solving localized problems with scalable
The fund is sector-agnostic but has identified consumer services, BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance), healthcare, and DeepTech as its priority verticals. Swishin Ventures plans to support early-stage companies with not just capital but also mentorship, network access, and operational guidance.
According to Sharma, the firm is committed to backing first-generation entrepreneurs who often struggle to secure seed capital due to geographic and institutional biases. “There is an extraordinary surge of raw talent and innovation in India’s smaller cities,” he said during the press announcement. “We’re here to ensure that access to funding is not determined by a startup’s pin code.”
The fund has already begun sourcing deals from cities like Jaipur, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Nagpur, and Surat, where a growing number of incubators and university-led innovation cells have taken root in recent years. These cities often produce tech- and solution-driven startups focused on regional languages, fintech access for rural populations, affordable health tech, and climate resilience areas that remain underrepresented in traditional VC portfolios.
Swishin Ventures also aims to support female founders and underrepresented groups, aligning itself with a more inclusive approach to entrepreneurship.
Structure and Strategy
The fund will operate on a multi-stage model, providing:
- Pre-seed and seed funding ranging from $100,000 to $500,000
- Follow-on investments in promising portfolio companies during Series A
- Strategic guidance through its in-house and partner network of business leaders, technologists, and policy experts
The firm also plans to establish local ecosystem partnerships with universities, government-run startup missions, and incubators to identify high-potential founders early and support them as they scale.
With the Indian government’s continued emphasis on Digital India, Startup India, and Make in India, there has been a clear uptick in innovation across semi-urban and rural geographies. However, many startups in these regions still lack the visibility and capital needed to gain traction.
Experts in the venture capital ecosystem are calling this fund a “timely and vital step” toward making India’s startup growth story more inclusive and regionally diverse.
“This isn’t just about funding startups; it’s about enabling a broader economic transformation,” said Rituparna Dey, a senior partner at Bharat Capital. “Tier-II and Tier-III cities are the future growth engines of India. Swishin Ventures is taking the lead in recognizing that.”
Swishin Ventures expects to make its first set of investments by Q3 2025 and plans to onboard a team of advisors with both domestic and global experience in nurturing early-stage businesses. With its founder-first approach, the firm aims to build long-term relationships rather than short-term exits, nurturing startups from seed to scale with patience and strategic involvement.
By democratizing access to capital and mentorship, Swishin Ventures hopes to rewrite the narrative of where Indian innovation comes from and who gets to lead it.
Portuguese Biotech Startup PFx Biotech Raises €2.5 Million Seed Round to Revolutionize Dairy with Allergy-Free Milk Proteins
In a promising development for the future of sustainable and allergen-free dairy, PFx Biotech, a Portuguese biotechnology startup, has announced the successful closure of its €2.5 million seed funding round. The capital will accelerate the company’s mission to develop precision-fermented milk proteins that are not only structurally identical to those found in cow’s milk, but also completely free of allergens making them safe for people with dairy intolerances and milk protein allergies.
This seed round was led by a group of European climate and health-focused venture funds, along with support from angel investors with a background in food tech, biotech, and sustainable agriculture. The investment is expected to drive PFx Biotech through its next stage of research and development, pilot-scale production, and regulatory approvals in key global markets.
Founded in 2022, PFx Biotech uses precision fermentation, a cutting-edge biotechnology that involves programming microorganisms typically yeast or fungi to produce animal-identical proteins. By cultivating casein and whey proteins in a lab rather than extracting them from animals, the startup aims to create a new category of ethical, sustainable, and hypoallergenic dairy products.
What sets PFx Biotech apart is its proprietary protein engineering platform, which focuses on eliminating allergenic sequences within milk proteins without compromising their functional and nutritional properties. This innovation could be a game-changer for the estimated 6–8% of the global population who suffer from milk allergies or lactose intolerance.
“We believe the future of dairy is animal-free, and more importantly, allergy-free,” said Dr. Mariana Lopes, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at PFx Biotech. “This funding brings us one step closer to commercializing dairy that can be consumed safely by everyone, including children and adults who currently face severe allergic reactions to conventional milk.”
The environmental implications of PFx Biotech’s work are equally compelling. Traditional dairy production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and land degradation. By producing dairy proteins via fermentation, the startup offers a more sustainable alternative that could dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of dairy products while eliminating the need for industrial livestock farming.
“We’re not just tackling health and allergy concerns we’re addressing the climate crisis through food innovation,” noted Jorge Esteves, CEO and co-founder. “Our vision is to transform the dairy industry in a way that benefits people, animals, and the planet.”
Roadmap and Market Potential
With this new injection of capital, PFx Biotech plans to:
- Expand its R&D team and laboratory capacity in Lisbon
- Scale up its precision fermentation process through pilot manufacturing
- Initiate regulatory engagement with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and U.S. FDA
- Begin strategic partnerships with dairy alternative brands and functional food producers
The startup is targeting entry into the European and North American markets by late 2026, focusing initially on high-value use cases such as infant formula, sports nutrition, and medical foods segments where protein precision and safety are paramount.
PFx Biotech joins a growing cohort of food tech pioneers around the world—including companies like Perfect Day (U.S.), Formo (Germany), and Remilk (Israel)—who are using biotechnology to reinvent how dairy is made. However, PFx’s emphasis on allergy-free proteins gives it a unique niche in a rapidly expanding market expected to surpass $50 billion globally by 2030.
Investors backing the startup cite a rare combination of deep science, ethical vision, and commercial viability as key reasons for their support.
“We see PFx Biotech as a frontrunner in the next generation of food innovation,” said Laura Mendes, partner at Biovida Ventures, one of the lead investors. “This is about reimagining dairy for a healthier, more inclusive future.”
