AI startups Metal and Gimlet Labs secure significant new funding

Metal, an AI-driven operating system designed to automate startup fundraising and venture capital workflows, has raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by a16z Speedrun and Y Combinator, with participation from several other venture capital firms including Indus Valley Capital and Pioneer Fund. Founded by Usman Gul, formerly of the logistics startup Airlift, Metal aims to provide infrastructure for investor discovery, due diligence, and capital formation.

Gimlet Labs has reportedly raised approximately $300 million at a $3 billion valuation. Led by Andreessen Horowitz, the funding round included strategic backers Arm and Microsoft’s venture arm, M12. Gimlet Labs develops multi-silicon inference orchestration software, which is designed to optimize and route AI inference workloads across various hardware accelerators, making the specific choice of chip less critical to performance.