Ramp Raises $500m For Automated Finance

The stuff CFOs do that can be called "busywork" is automated in the vision offered by Ramp. The product has gained traction with a number of Finance teams already. This latest financing round is a Series-E2, valuing the company at $22.5bn. ICONIQ led the round with other investors including Thiel's Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, 8VC, Definition Capital, General Catalyst and others.

Defense Tech Gets A Boost from Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek, who lives mainly in Stockholm, has led a 600m EUR (Series D) round of investment in defense tech firm Helsing, a four year old Munich based company, through his investment firm Prima Materia.  Other investors in this round include already-invested firms like Lightspeed Ventures, Accel, Plural, General Catalyst and SAAB.  New investors were BDT and MSD Partners.

Daniel has previously spoken on the importance of defense spending to ensure Europe's "strategic autonomy" in response to geopolitical changes.

 

Helsing is currently valued at 12 billion EUR according to a Financial Times article.  Total YTD investment in Helsing stands at 1.37 billion EUR.

In the defense technology space, this funding follows a funding of US giant Anduril which raised 2.5 billion USD led by Founders Fund whose Partners include Peter Thiel of Paypal and Palantir fame, and Trae Stephens of Anduril, an early employee of Palantir with a background in computational linguistics.

Helsing started as an AI software company taking data from military sensors and radars to build real-intelligence for the battlefield. However, it is taking its taking technology expertise to branch out into new area like unmanned mini-submarines.

Circle's Blockbuster IPO on the NYSE, Bravo Ex Macromedia CTO

Circle Internet Group, specializing in digital currencies and blockchains, went public on June 5, 2025. It debuted under ticker symbol CRCL. The IPO was priced at $31 a share, with shares surging over 100% on the first day, hitting a market cap of nearly $60bn albeit brief.  Circle was launched in 2013.

This success is significant for the crypto and fintech space.

CEO Jeremy Allaire has previously argued governments and policy makers need to "create more degrees of freedom for innovation to happen".

Allaire was co-founder of Allaire Corporation in 1995 which had an IPO in January 1999, and is hence no stranger to the public markets. 

Allaire Corporation was acquired by Macromedia in 2001 after which JA became CTO of Macromedia. He left in 2003 to join General Catalyst as a technologist and executive-in-residence.