Watchlist: July 2026 Edition.
Flex joins the billion dollar baby club. OpenRouter is in line for a payday, courtesy of Stripe. Four startups join the watchlist.
New Unicorn: Flex
After gracing February’s Watchlist edition as the profile story, Flex, the AI-native private banking platform, has doubled its valuation to $1.2B in a $70M Series B1 raise led by Halo Fund. The Halo Fund is a new growth equity fund led by Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith and Accel partner Ryan Sweeney. The fund has invested over $400M in the past 12 months and invested in more than 10 companies including an F1 racing team, Filevine, an AI startup focused on the legal sector, Endeavor, the entertainment and talent giant, and now Flex.
Alongside the raise announcement, Flex launched Flex Global, a service that uses stablecoins to move money across more than 100 countries in a matter of minutes, allowing business owners to hold more than 32 currencies. Flex claims to have a few thousand customers and nine figures in annualized revenue.
OpenRouter and Stripe.
Stripe has been busy lately. After previously teaming up with Advent International for a PayPal bid, the financial technology giant is rumored to be in the late stages of acquiring OpenRouter for $10B. OpenRouter was previously covered in the January edition of Watchlist, and became a unicorn after a $113M Series B in May, led by CapitalG, Google’s growth equity arm. A Stripe acquisition at a $10B price tag would be quite the haul for a company with approximately $150M-200M in annualized revenue. Nonetheless, the acquisition is highly strategic and could look like a smart move down the road given Stripe’s current cash pile. Buying up AI infrastructure that fits within the company’s long term goals seems to be the current focus as the company matures and top-line growth for their primary product slows.
July 2026 Watchlist.
Senra Systems
Company Overview: Senra Systems is a manufacturing company that develops wire harness manufacturing platforms to modernize the production process for the aerospace and defense industries. The company recently hired SpaceX CIO Ken Venner as Chief Technology and Product Officer. Their $65M Series B was led by Interlagos and Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Dylan Field (Figma founder), General Catalyst, Founders Fund, and more.
Founders: Jordan Black - co-founder and CEO of Senra Systems, former SpaceX Avionics R&D Manager, UW-Madison graduate; Benjamin Shanahan - co-founder of Senra Systems, former SpaceX Software Engineer, Brown University graduate.
Investors: Interlagos, Lowercarbon Capital
Amount Raised: 112M+ (Series B stage)
Headquarters: Redondo Beach, CA
P-1 AI
Company Overview: P-1 AI is developing an AI engineer for the physical world. Archie, the AI engineer, is built to automate tasks involving complex physical system design. Over the past year, P-1 inked design partnerships with several industrial OEMs in data center cooling and power systems. NEA Investor and former General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt is joining the board after leading the Series A.
Founders: Paul Eremenko - co-founder and CEO of P-1 AI, former founder of Universal Hydrogen Co., former CTO of Airbus, former Google Director of Engineering.
Investors: NEA, Radical Ventures
Amount Raised: $50M+ (Series A stage)
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Ornn
Company Overview: Ornn is building the first regulated exchange for the compute market. The vision is to turn GPU power into a tradable commodity the same way that commodity exchanges trade oil. Founded by a group of MIT students, backed by a16z, partnerships with the Intercontinental Exchange and Kalshi.
Founders: Kush Bavaria - co-founder and CEO of Ornn, former Partner at Link Ventures, MIT graduate; Wayne Nelms - co-founder and CTO of Ornn, former Quantitative Trader at SIG, MIT graduate.
Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Crucible Capital
Amount Raised: $38M+ (Series A stage)
Headquarters: New York, NY
Henry
Company Overview: Henry is building an AI copilot to automate deal deck creation, financial analysis, and marketing material generation for commercial real estate. Its core deck product generates marketing materials around a property, compressing 15 hours of work by a designer to less than 4 hours. The tool is used by more than 150 firms, including four of the five largest brokerages. Henry recently announced their $16.5M Series A from the fall of 2025, led by FirstMark with participation from Y-Combinator, Pioneer Fund, and others.
Founders: Sammy Greenwall - co-founder and CEO of Henry, former co-founder of Lev, Y-Combinator S24, Swarthmore College graduate; Adam Pratt - co-founder and CTO of Henry, former Engineering Manager at ZocDoc, Y-Combinator S24, Colgate University graduate..
Investors: FirstMark, Susa Ventures
Amount Raised: $21M+ (Series A stage)
Headquarters: New York, NY
