Render has raised $100 million in a Series C extension at a $1.5 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $258 million as the cloud startup positions itself as the infrastructure backbone for AI applications and autonomous agents.

The funding, led by Georgian Partners with participation from Addition, Bessemer, General Catalyst, and 01A, comes as traditional cloud infrastructure proves fundamentally misaligned with AI agent execution patterns. While web applications rely on stateless request-response cycles, AI agents demand long-running, stateful, and distributed execution that existing platforms struggle to support.

Didero has secured $30 million in Series A funding to deploy AI agents that autonomously execute procurement workflows for manufacturers and distributors, addressing a manual operations bottleneck that has resisted traditional automation approaches.

The round was co-led by Chemistry and Headline, with participation from M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, signaling enterprise validation for agentic AI infrastructure in supply chain operations. With 30+ customer deployments since founding in December 2023, Didero represents a shift from reactive procurement tools to proactive autonomous execution systems.

Altruist’s February 10th launch of Hazel AI’s tax planning capabilities sent shockwaves through global financial markets, with wealth management stocks plummeting 6-11% across US and UK exchanges. LPL Financial dropped 8.3%, Charles Schwab fell 7%, and Morgan Stanley declined 2.4% as the AI agent’s ability to generate personalized tax strategies “within minutes” triggered what analysts are calling the sector’s first major AI displacement event.

The market reaction underscored a critical infrastructure reality: AI agents are moving beyond demos into production workflows that directly threaten traditional business models. Unlike previous AI hype cycles focused on capabilities, Hazel represents operational deployment where autonomous analysis replaces billable human hours, fundamentally altering the economics of professional services.