5 Interesting Startup Deals You May Have Missed: Plant-Based Clothing Dyes, A Shoebox-Picking Robot, And Power Generated On The Moon

This is a monthly column that runs down five interesting startup funding deals every month that may have flown under the radar. Check out our December entry here.

A host of interesting, under-the-radar recently funded startups caught our attention in the past month, including one that鈥檚 developing nuclear-waste generated electricity on the moon, another that aims to use AI to extract business intelligence from enterprise contracts, and a shoebox-picking warehouse robot. Let鈥檚 take a closer look.

$55M to turn contracts into business intelligence

AI-driven contract intelligence platform said last month that it raised $55 million in a Series B round led by existing investor , with participation from , , and .

The funding for the San Francisco-based company comes amid record-breaking funding for legal tech startups, particularly those that apply AI-driven automation to the notoriously paperwork-heavy profession. All told, venture funding to legal tech startups in 2025 nearly doubled year over year to more than $4 billion, per SA国际传媒 data.

Ivo itself has now raised $77.2 million from investors, . Its latest funding comes as in-house legal teams face mounting pressure from rising contract volumes and growing compliance demands.

Even as contracts increasingly serve as the backbone of revenue, vendor relationships and risk management, much of the data inside those agreements remains locked in PDFs and legacy systems, which are difficult to search or analyze without manual review.

Ivo鈥檚 platform automates contract review and transforms agreements into structured, searchable data. Its review product uses lawyer-built playbooks to standardize positions and flag deviations, with customers reporting time savings of up to 75% compared to manual review, per the company. Its intelligence layer also reportedly allows teams to surface obligations, renewal terms and risk exposure across entire contract libraries in seconds.

Since its previous funding round, Ivo says it has grown annual recurring revenue by 500%, increased its total customer count by 134%, and expanded adoption within the Fortune 500 by 250%. Its customers include , , , and .

鈥淥ur goal has always been to make interacting with contracts fast, accurate, and enjoyable,鈥� CEO and co-founder said in a statement. 鈥淓very key relationship in a business is defined by an agreement, yet most organizations struggle to extract the insights inside them. Our focus is to give in-house teams a trustworthy solution that helps them work faster and gives them visibility into their contracts that was previously impossible.鈥�

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$10M for warehouse robots, including one that picks shoeboxes

Amid record robotics investment, we perhaps shouldn鈥檛 be too surprised to see some very specialized bots get funding.

One is from , a Polish warehouse robotics company that last month raised a $10 million Series B extension led by . Along with its new funding, the Warsaw-based company unveiled its Shoebox Picker robot, designed to 鈥渞eliably pick two-piece, unsealed shoeboxes.鈥� That might sound like a niche task, but the company said shoeboxes account for up to 20% of SKUs in U.S. fashion e-commerce, yet have long resisted automation.

The Shoebox Picker can pick up to 450 units per hour when it鈥檚 only handling shoeboxes, and up to 600 units per hour for mixed bins, per the company. It can handle more than 98% of the shoeboxes on the market, according to Nomagic.

Nomagic鈥檚 vision is 鈥渢o bring physical AI into the heart of warehouse and logistics operations, where intelligent, autonomous systems can finally bridge the gap between digital optimization and real鈥憌orld execution,鈥� CEO and co-founder said in the funding announcement.

The company was founded in 2017 and has raised $84.6 million to date, .

Venture funding to robotics-related startups overall totaled nearly $14 billion last year, per SA国际传媒 data. That鈥檚 a 70% increase over 2024 and eclipses even the peak funding year of 2021.

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$5M to replace synthetic dyes with plant-based alternatives

, a startup developing plant-based color technology, raised $5 million in a pre-Series A round led by 鈥� Blue Ocean 2 fund, with participation from and .

The Cambridge, U.K.-based startup is tackling one of the fashion and chemical industries鈥� dirtiest secrets: synthetic dyes. An stems from textile dyeing and fabric finishing treatments.

Sparxell鈥檚 funding seems timely, as regulators globally are tightening scrutiny of chemical substances. The has with restrictions on intentionally added microplastics, and policymakers are weighing broader bans on PFAS 鈥渇orever chemicals.鈥� In the U.S., the has also been in food and consumer products.

Spun out of the , Sparxell aims to replace petroleum-based pigments and heavy metals with wood pulp-derived coloring. The company says that arranging cellulose crystals to reflect specific wavelengths of light produces 100% plant-based pigments, glitters and inks designed as direct replacements for conventional dyes.

The startup says its process can cut water use by up to 90% compared to traditional dyeing methods and eliminate microplastics and toxic runoff. Unlike synthetic dyes, Sparxell鈥檚 cellulose-based pigments are also biodegradable, per the company.

鈥淥ur technology isn’t just an alternative 鈥� it is here to stay because it delivers superior performance due to its nature-inspired features. This funding takes us from proof of concept to production and commercial launches,鈥� CEO and founder said in a statement. 鈥淲e’re at an inflexion point. Brands are under pressure to eliminate synthetic toxins from their supply chains.鈥�

Founded in 2022, Sparxell has now raised $10.2 million, . The new funding will help it scale from pilot projects to tonne-scale manufacturing by 2026, per the company.

Apparel-related venture funding totaled about $1.5 billion globally last year and in 2024, per SA国际传媒 data, down significantly from the peak year of 2021 when it totaled $9.2 billion.

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$2.6M for AI-driven M&A deal-sourcing

Singapore-based , an M&A sourcing platform for corporations and high-growth startups, recently raised $2.6 million in a funding round led by , with participation from angel investors.

The startup is targeting one of the most relationship-driven corners of corporate strategy: deal origination. While acquisitions have become a key growth lever for companies of all sizes, sourcing targets, especially in the mid-market and sub-$70 million range, remains slow, opaque and heavily dependent on banker networks and in-market listings.

GrowthPal says its AI-driven platform acts as an 鈥淢&A copilot鈥� that translates a buyer鈥檚 strategic objective 鈥� say, entering a new geography or acquiring a specific capability 鈥� into a structured acquisition thesis. AI agents then scan a database of more than 4 million technology companies, analyzing signals including hiring trends, funding history, web activity and public filings to surface high-fit, often off-market targets.

鈥淢&A sourcing is where most time and effort is wasted, especially for smaller and mid-market deals,鈥� , co-founder and CEO of GrowthPal, said in a statement. 鈥淭eams spend weeks researching, filtering, and chasing opportunities that never go anywhere. We built GrowthPal to help buyers focus only on high-intent, high-fit targets and move from mandate to meaningful conversations far faster.鈥�

GrowthPal, which has raised $4 million total, , says it has already supported 42 completed transactions and facilitated more than 210 letter-of-intent-stage conversations across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Its clients reportedly span large enterprises, PE-backed firms and growth-stage startups across SaaS, fintech, IT services and other sectors.

In one case, the company says, a single client closed seven acquisitions in 18 months using the platform.

Its funding seems prescient: There were more than 2,300 M&A deals globally involving venture-backed startups last year, per SA国际传媒 data, up only slightly from the year prior, but insiders who spoke with SA国际传媒 News said they expect strategic acquisitions for talent and technology to surge this year.

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$411K to generate energy on the moon

Talk about a moonshot.

, a Latvia-based startup, this month said it has raised 鈧�350,000, or about $411,000, in pre-seed funding to generate electricity on the moon.

The company said the funding was led by and angel investor . Along with the equity round, Deep Space says it secured another 鈧�580,000 (about $682,000) in public contracts and grants by the , and the Latvian government.

The company aims to develop a novel generator based on radioisotopes 鈥斅爉aterials derived from nuclear waste that generate energy through natural decay 鈥斅爐o power moon surface exploration and for military satellite reconnaissance.

鈥淥ur technology, which has already been validated in the laboratory, has several applications across the defence and space sectors,鈥� Deep Space CEO and founder said in a statement. 鈥淔irst, we鈥檙e developing an auxiliary energy source to enhance the resilience of strategic satellites. It provides the redundancy of satellite power systems by supplying backup power that does not depend on solar energy, making it crucial for high-value military reconnaissance assets.鈥�

艩膷epanskis noted in the statement that while Deep Space鈥檚 technology wouldn鈥檛 be used for weaponry, the Russia-Ukraine war was a motivating factor for its development. That became even clearer last year, when Ukraine lost its beachhead in Russia鈥檚 Kursk Oblast as the U.S. .

鈥淎s Europe is trying to become more independent, it is imperative to produce satellites with advanced capabilities on our own,鈥� 艩膷epanskis said. 鈥淥ur technology provides an auxiliary energy source for satellites, which makes them more resilient to non-kinetic attacks and malfunctions.鈥�

Venture funding to space- and defense-related technologies, which often overlap, soared last year. Global funding to space tech totaled $14.2 billion in 2025 鈥� more than double the annual totals in 2023 and 2024 鈥� per SA国际传媒 data. Funding recipients included a mix of defense tech, satellite and rocket developers, and startups finding innovative use cases for geospatial data.

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