Avatar Robotics raised a $6.5M Seed round led by AlleyCorp, with a pre-seed led by defy.vc. Since launching in Dec. 2025, its humanoid robots have packed, sorted, and helped ship 900,000+ products across live warehouse environments, with 24/7 capacity. SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 5, 2026 -- Avatar Ro

Deel has acquired AI cybersecurity company Clarity in its 15th acquisition after surpassing $1.5B in ARR. Clarity’s deepfake detection and identity verification will connect candidate screening, onboarding, device provisioning, and workforce access. Deal terms were not disclosed. Global payro

Mercor will acquire Deeptune, the New York-based creator of high-fidelity reinforcement learning environments for AI agents. Deeptune’s team, led by founder & CEO Tim Lupo, will join Mercor in NYC. The deal follows Deeptune’s $43M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz. Mercor, a San Fra

Toptal has announced the acquisition of Adeva, a global IT talent network connecting enterprises and fast-growing companies with vetted developers, architects, and technology consultants. The deal expands Toptal’s global talent network and strengthens delivery capacity for mission-critical technol

Gusto has surpassed $1B in trailing 12-month revenue, serving 500,000+ U.S. small businesses. The company added roughly 50,000 customers last quarter, achieved five consecutive quarters of ARR acceleration, and says more than half of ARR now comes from products beyond payroll. SAN FRANCISCO,�

HR AI Forward has launched the HR AI Maturity & Growth Assessment for HR professionals. The 26-question assessment takes 10–15 minutes, measures AI maturity across 4 levels and 12 stages, and delivers an instant personalized report with capability analysis, peer comparison, gap diagnosis, and

Remote has acquired Bravas, a French identity and device management software company, to expand its platform beyond payroll, HR, and compliance. The move positions Remote closer to a single system for the full employee lifecycle as global teams and AI-driven workflows grow more complex. Acquisiti

Paraform announced its Series B, bringing total funding to $65M. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Felicis, A* Capital, and Liquid 2 Ventures. Axios reported the Series B itself was $40M. Paraform says it has helped 1,000+ companies hire critical talent. SAN FRA

eTip has acquired Shiny Solutions to expand beyond digital tipping into a broader workforce engagement platform for hospitality and service operators. The combined offering adds recruitment, scheduling, recognition, and AI insights as labor costs often exceed 40–50% of operating spend. The

Every has launched new AI-native back-office agents for startups and SMBs, including AI CFO, AI Bookkeeper, and AI CHRO. The platform combines banking, payroll, benefits, HR compliance, bookkeeping, and taxes into one system, aiming to give founders full-context operational support. SAN FRANC