 source[FinSMEs]: Navigara, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an engineering performance measurement layer, raised $2.5M in seed funding.
The round was led by Inovo VC, with participation from Rockaway Ventures and QQ Capital. The company intends to use the funds to scale its AI-driven performance analysis platform, expand its global presence, and strengthen its mission to provide CTOs with objective data on engineering ROI and AI tool impact. Led by Founder and CEO Jirka Bachel, Navigara is advancing a platform that connects to development tools like GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and Linear to translate raw activity into strategic signals. The system uses agentic analysis to evaluate code commits for intent and impact, helping leaders distinguish between genuine productivity gains and “AI noise” or structural waste. The company prioritizes data sovereignty by deploying within customers’ private cloud environments with read-only access and zero code retention, making it suitable for high-compliance enterprise settings. The company also has engineering operations in Prague. source[FinSMEs]  Escargot, a NYC-based developer of an AI-powered greeting card mobile app, raised $2.75m in funding.
The round was co-led by Wischoff Ventures and Hannah Grey Ventures, with participation from South Park Commons and Magic Fund. The company intends to use the funds to advance its AI-driven card creation features and scale its physical card delivery infrastructure. Led by Andrew Gold and Aaron Albert, Escargot provides an app that enables users to design and mail physical greeting cards for any occasion — birthdays, holidays, congratulations. The platform leverages AI to remix artistic styles and analyzes user calendars and contacts to proactively suggest specific occasions for sending personalized correspondence. The startup has already established a presence in the mobile gifting market. sorce[FinSMEs]  [CONSTRUCTION OWNERS]: MeltPlan, an AI-native pre-construction AI platform founded in 2025, today announced its $10 Mn Seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from noa. This brings the total funds raised by the company to $14 Mn.
The new capital will be used to advance MeltPlan’s “planning engine” for the $14 Tn construction industry, an AI system purpose-built to optimize critical decisions before construction begins. The funding will accelerate MeltPlan’s product development across code, cost, schedule, and value decision systems. While design software optimizes use and aesthetics, and construction software optimizes execution and control, MeltPlan is building the missing layer: software that optimizes decisions and trade-offs upstream, before scope is locked, procurement begins, and change orders become inevitable. “Construction doesn’t fail because teams are not skilled or execute poorly,” said Kanav Hasija, Co-founder and CEO of MeltPlan. “It fails because preconstruction teams are fragmented and commit too early with incomplete information. We’re building an AI system that allows teams to evaluate constraints, run scenarios, and align before plans are frozen.”Hasija previously co-founded Innovaccer, a $3 billion healthcare technology company, Innovaccer, to make healthcare in the US more affordable and accessible. At Innovaccer, he architected the proprietary Data Activation Platform, widely regarded as the first full-stack data platform purpose-built for value-based healthcare. By bringing structure, intelligence, and interoperability to one of the world’s most complex and regulated industries, Hasija helped health systems move from fragmented data to coordinated, value-based care. Drawing from that experience, he is now applying the same systems thinking to construction, an industry facing similar challenges of silos, irreversible decisions, regulatory complexity, and massive financial risk. He is joined by Tanmaya Kala, Co-founder and COO, a Stanford-educated civil engineer who was project executive at DPR Construction, handling large commercial, healthcare, and life science projects. MeltPlan’s long-term goal is to help teams make construction “boring” by making planning more intense: surfacing constraints and tradeoffs early, aligning stakeholders before plans are frozen, and reducing the need for late-stage redlines, rework, and change orders. “Construction should be boring,” said Hasija. “Planning should be intense. If your construction phase is stressful, something went wrong earlier.” “Built environment workflows are full of irreversible decisions made under uncertainty,” said Pankaj Mitra, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “MeltPlan is approaching preconstruction as a system, not a phase, building a visionary ‘planning engine’ layer that helps teams quantify tradeoffs early and reduce downstream volatility.” MeltPlan is working with top enterprise contractors like DPR Construction in California and Innovo Group in UAE to help in their planning or preconstruction phase of construction. An AI system designed for construction, not adapted to ItUnlike general-purpose AI tools adapted for construction, MeltPlan is building a construction-native AI system that is designed to understand building codes, materials, sequencing, procurement, and construction methods. The system has already scored 95% or higher on building inspector exams, and the company is working to expand its expertise across all trades and disciplines in construction planning. The Planning Engine will have four integrated systems:
Rather than digitizing existing workflows, MeltPlan aims to help teams simulate outcomes before committing to them. “Preconstruction is treated like a phase,” Kala said. “But it’s actually the operating system of the project. When decisions evolve upstream, execution downstream becomes boring - and that’s a good thing.” “As responsible contractors, we always believe in investing more time in preconstruction,” said Atul Khanzode, DPR Construction Leadership Team Member. “We are excited to partner with MeltPlan to help us reduce planning errors while speeding up the preconstruction process”. source[CONSTRUCTION OWNERS]  GLOBENEWSWIRE
Rent is one of the largest recurring payments in the UK economy, yet it still largely runs on traditional bank transfers. While consumers can pay for travel, groceries and even taxes by card, rent — often their biggest monthly expense — has remained structurally locked to legacy payment rails. London-based fintech Payr has raised $2.1 million in seed funding to change that. The company has built what it describes as the first one-sided payments infrastructure that enables tenants to pay rent with their existing credit cards, while landlords receive the full rent amount via standard bank transfer. Crucially, landlords and agents do not need to onboard, integrate new systems or alter their workflows. “The rent payment experience has barely evolved in decades,” said Arthur Greenwood, CEO and Co-Founder of Payr. “Consumers can pay almost everything by card except the one expense that matters most. We’ve rebuilt the payment architecture so tenants gain flexibility and rewards, while landlords simply receive their rent as normal. No new systems, no operational friction.” The problem Payr is addressing is both behavioural and structural. Tenants increasingly expect flexibility, rewards and international usability across their financial lives. At the same time, property professionals have little incentive to adopt new payment tools, particularly when card fees and compliance constraints complicate the model. Payr’s solution removes that friction by allowing tenants to pay by card while preserving the existing settlement experience for landlords. “Teaming up with these four passionate young entrepreneurs has been an absolute blast; they’re incredibly tenacious and truly embody the spirit of entrepreneurship,” said Michael Boocher, Managing Partner at Ingenii Capital. “It’s going to be one wild adventure ahead as they seize this overlooked $165 billion market.” The $2.1M round was led by Ingenii Capital, with participation from Haatch, Velocity Capital, the British Business Bank and a group of strategic angel investors. The funding will be used to expand integrations, deepen product infrastructure and accelerate distribution partnerships across the residential sector. “Rent is a $165 billion annual market in the UK alone,” Greenwood added. “We’re not building a feature, we’re building infrastructure for a payment category that has been overlooked for too long.” A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/59227a9e-0bf5-4198-81cd-e4f183b1c652 |