TL;DR: FSH Technologies raised $25M to modernize government technology, while Oshen raised $5M to scale its autonomous ocean robots. Serval is testing whether women in technical sales could be a source of GTM “alpha,” while startup lawyer Kristina Subbotina argues four-year founder vesting no longer fits today’s startup timelines. Plus, Notion’s first Revenue Operations intern shares how 120 cold emails helped her land her dream role.
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Lilly Chen, Founder & CEO of FSH Technologies, a government technology startup building modern software systems for cities, school districts and state agencies, raised $25M in funding, including a $20M Series A led by Lachy Groom and co-led by Acrew Capital, with Operator Partners, Contrary, Cooley and angel investors also joining.
Dorka Horváth, Co-Founder & CEO of BOOKR Kids, an EdTech platform using interactive digital books and AI-powered learning tools to improve children’s literacy and language skills, raised €6.1M in Series A funding led by TCEE Fund IV, advised by 3TS Capital Partners, with Leib Lurie, Robert Iskander, Infinit Capital Oy, the Koponen family and Albert Sárospataki through the FusionWise angel syndicate also joining.
Anahita Laverack, Co-Founder & CEO of Oshen, a marine robotics startup building fleets of small autonomous, sail-powered vessels that collect real-time ocean data for defense, climate and maritime monitoring, raised $5M in funding from Lunar Ventures, AlbionVC, Twin Track and Concept Ventures.
Íris Baldursdóttir and Auður Vésteinsdóttir, Co-Founders of SnerpaPower, an energy management platform helping power-intensive industries optimize electricity consumption and participate in energy markets, raised €3.4M in financing, including €3M in equity led by Encevo with participation from Crowberry Capital and BackingMinds, plus a €400K grant from the Icelandic Technology Development Fund.
Shahida Imani, Co-Founder & CEO of Singular Photonics, a University of Edinburgh spinout developing advanced single-photon image sensors for biomedical imaging, robotics and quantum sensing, raised $2.15M in funding from ACF Investors, Cambridge Angels, Old College Capital, Quantum Exponential, Scottish Enterprise and Wren Capital.
Augusta Klingsten Peytz, Co-Founder & CEO of Aisel Health, an AI-powered operating system for psychiatry that turns clinical interviews, documents and patient information into structured insights for clinicians, raised €1.7M in pre-seed funding led by Caesar Ventures, with Nordic Web Ventures, LifeX, Angel Invest, Rockstart and EIFO also joining.
Vida Stanić, Co-Founder of Astute, an AI-native B2B media platform using agents to help companies discover and partner with creators across newsletters, podcasts, LinkedIn and X, raised $1.2M in pre-seed funding from Flyer One Ventures, Silicon Gardens, Marathon Fund and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, alongside strategic angel investors.
Helen Sydorenko and Julia “Jules” Smith, Co-Founders of Blend, an AI-powered, TikTok-style workplace training platform designed for hospitality and other deskless workers, raised £350K in pre-seed funding led by Antler, with Ada Ventures, NoBa Capital and hospitality angel investors also joining.
Phoebe CEO Emily Klingbeil shared her experience with hyperemesis gravidarum and the research that helped establish a biological cause for the condition. After enduring severe illness during pregnancy while working on Wall Street, she later built Phoebe to support working parents through pregnancy, leave, early parenthood and returning to work. Her story and Phoebe were also featured in a recent New Yorker piece on geneticist Marlena Fejzo’s work linking HG to the hormone GDF15.
Notion’s first Revenue Operations intern Akshara Krishna shared how she turned a years-long obsession with Notion into an internship through targeted cold outreach. She spent nine months studying the company’s business decisions, developed an enterprise custom-agent adoption strategy and sent 120 cold emails before ultimately landing the role in San Francisco.
Serval COO Tatiana Birgisson is testing whether women in technical sales could be a source of GTM “alpha”. After women finished as the #1 rep in two of Serval’s three sales segments in Q2, the company launched Pilates & Lattes in New York to build a community of women selling technical products to CIOs, CISOs and CTOs. Serval is now expanding the experiment to San Francisco with Pilates & Pinot.
Startup lawyer Kristina Subbotina argues that the traditional four-year founder vesting schedule no longer matches startup timelines. With exits now often taking closer to a decade, she says companies risk ending up with departed co-founders holding significant equity years before an exit. Her preferred fix is negotiating departing founders below 5% ownership, ideally closer to 1%, or creating structures that better align incentives after a split.
FSH Technologies (Lilly Chen) – Client Engineering, GTM Engineering, New Grad Engineering, Platform Engineering, Security Engineering, Business Operations, Client Strategy and New Grad Generalist/Builder roles (New York City & Philadelphia; On-site)
Oshen (Anahita Laverack) – Firmware Engineering, Project Delivery Engineering, General Engineering, Software Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Manufacturing, Deployments Engineering and upcoming Weather AI Research Engineering (Plymouth, UK; Deployments roles involve frequent travel)
SnerpaPower (Íris Baldursdóttir & Auður Vésteinsdóttir) – Senior Account Executive, Backend Software Engineering, Cloud Platform Engineering, Quality Engineering, Technical Product Management and Part-time CFO roles (Iceland, Finland, Sweden & Norway)
Aisel Health (Augusta Klingsten Peytz) – Senior Account Executive and Senior Full-Stack Engineering (Remote; UK-based sales with London access preferred)
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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!
Love,
Daniela