Ayar Labs has secured $500 million in a Series E round to scale its co-packaged optics technology. Backed by NVIDIA and AMD, the company is replacing traditional copper interconnects with light-based data transmission to solve the growing power and bandwidth crisis in AI data centres.
Global legal intelligence giant LexisNexis has confirmed a significant cloud data breach after hackers exploited a vulnerable application, exfiltrating 2GB of data. The incident exposed details on enterprise clients, including law firms and government agencies, raising serious supply chain concerns.
Tehran-linked hackers are turning a distant war into a live resilience test for Australia, probing Five Eyes networks as local banks quietly move to high alert while hybrid warfare becomes a “when, not if” cyber disruption scenario.
Parallel Web Systems, the AI startup from former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, has secured $100 million in a Series A round co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures. The company is building a new layer of web infrastructure designed for AI agents to search and interact with live, accurate data.
Parallel Web Systems, has secured $100 million in a Series A funding round to build web infrastructure designed for artificial intelligence agents.
Founded by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, the two-year-old startup is developing application programming interfaces (APIs) and a purpose-built index to provide AI systems with real-time access to reliable online information. The funding round was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital and existing investors including Khosla Ventures, valuing the company at $740 million.
The Update: Parallel has raised $100 million in a Series A round to accelerate the development of its web infrastructure for AI agents. The platform addresses the limitation of large language models that rely on static, outdated datasets, which can lead to inaccurate or "hallucinated" outputs. By creating a new layer of web plumbing, Parallel enables AI agents to access and process fresh, reliable online information for tasks such as software development, sales data analysis, and insurance risk assessment.
The funding will be used to expand agent capabilities, develop faster web primitives, and scale its web index. Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid will join the company's board. In a statement, Hamid compared the investment to his firm's early backing of Google, noting, "26 years later, Parallel is indexing the web for its 'next' user: AI agents." The company's first products, including a web search API for agents, were launched in August 2025.
Why it Matters: Parallel is tackling a fundamental challenge in the operationalisation of AI: the need for continuous access to high-quality, live data. As enterprises deploy AI agents for increasingly complex and mission-critical workflows, their effectiveness is constrained by the quality of the data they can access. Parallel's approach of building a purpose-built infrastructure for AI agents, rather than adapting human-centric search, could provide a significant competitive advantage to businesses that rely on it. The startup also aims to create an economic model that incentivises content owners to keep their data accessible to AIs, addressing the growing tension between AI developers and publishers.
Get the stories that matter to you.
Subscribe to Cyber News Centre and update your preferences to follow our Daily 4min Cyber Update, Innovative AI Startups, The AI Diplomat series, or the main Cyber News Centre newsletter — featuring in-depth analysis on major cyber incidents, tech breakthroughs, global policy, and AI developments.
Ayar Labs has secured $500 million in a Series E round to scale its co-packaged optics technology. Backed by NVIDIA and AMD, the company is replacing traditional copper interconnects with light-based data transmission to solve the growing power and bandwidth crisis in AI data centres.
Vienna-based Flinn.ai has secured $20 million in a Series A round led by HV Capital to automate regulatory and quality compliance for medical device and pharmaceutical companies. The funding will fuel its expansion into the US market and extend its AI platform across the entire product lifecycle.
Render secures $100M Series C extension , hitting $1.5B valuation & $258M total funding. Led by Georgian with Addition, Bessemer, GC. Building unified AI cloud platform with Workflows, AI gateway & object storage for agentic apps—a key developer-friendly alternative to hyperscalers
Artificial Labs has raised $45M in Series B funding to expand its AI-driven underwriting platform across global insurance markets. Backed by CommerzVentures, the London insurtech aims to modernise specialty insurance through automation, data intelligence, and scalable digital trading.
Where cybersecurity meets innovation, the CNC team delivers AI and tech breakthroughs for our digital future. We analyze incidents, data, and insights to keep you informed, secure, and ahead. Sign up for free!
