OpenAI on Monday said it raised 40 billion in a new funding round that valued the ChatGPT maker at 300 billion, the biggest capital-raising session ever for a startup. The infusion of cash comes in a partnership with Japanese investment giant SoftBank Group and "enables us to push the frontiers of AI research even further," the San Francisco-based company said in a post on its website. "Their support will help us continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI (artificial general intelligence) that benefits all of humanity," the company said.

Now that OpenAI is becoming a for-profit company, it's making a tidy profit in the process. The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI has raised 6.6 billion in new funding from investors, nearly doubling its value to 157 billion. The new funding also makes it the largest venture capital deal in history. The new investors jumped on board after the artificial intelligence startup planned to switch from a charitable non-profit to a for-profit, product-focused company. If OpenAI fails to make the move to for-profit, investors have the right to pull their funding, according to Axios.

If the idea of building a train on the moon sounds like something from the pages of a sci-fi novel, you wouldn't be alone. But the moon train is actually just one of six'science fiction-like concepts' to receive new funding from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program. Flexible Levitation on a Track, or FLOAT, plans to use levitating magnetic robots to transport up to 100 tonnes of materials on the lunar surface every day. According to the team behind the Scalextric-like project, this would provide a reliable and autonomous way of moving resources mined on the moon. Project leader Dr Ethan Schaler, a robotics engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says: 'A durable, long-life robotic transport system will be critical to the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030's'.

Israeli startup Biomica today announced a $20 million financing round led by Shanghai Healthcare Capital (SHC). Biomica plans to use the new funding to further develop its pipeline of microbiome-based therapeutics. The human Microbiome, genetic material of all the microbes that live on and inside the human body. Biomica is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for antibiotic resistant bacteria, immuno-oncology, and microbiome-related gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. It is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE: EVGN), from which it licenses a dedicated Computational Predictive Biology platform (CPB).

The Series C round was led by Freeman Group. Honda Motor Co., ACVC Partners and Amplo participated as well, along with publicly traded auto parts makers Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Sungwoo Hitech Co. Ltd. Helm.ai has raised a total of $78 million from investors to date.

Avidbots Corp., which makes commercial floor-scrubbing robots, said it has raised US$70-million in new equity, marking one of the biggest financing rounds for a Canadian startup in recent months as the tech sector grapples with a prolonged downturn. Jeneration Capital, which has offices in Hong Kong and Beijing, led the round, which Avidbots said Tuesday brought its total venture financing to US$107-million to date. Numerous existing investors including BDC Capital, Golden Ventures and Kensington Capital Partners returned for the financing round, as did new investors such as BMO Capital Partners. Founded in 2014, Avidbots has focused its robotics efforts on a suite of floor-cleaning robots called Neo. The Kitchener, Ont.-based company says more than 1,000 have been sold worldwide in more than a dozen countries for clients in sectors such as warehousing, health care and manufacturing.

Israeli startup OncoHost announced today an upsized and oversubscribed $35 million Series C funding round, led by ALIVE Israel HealthTech VC, with the participation of Leumi Partners, Menora Mivtachim, OurCrowd and other existing investors. Clinical trial results have shown OncoHost's AI-powered precision oncology platform to have remarkably high accuracy in assessing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient response at three months, six months and one year. Through one blood test pre-treatment, the company's multi-patented platform also provides clinicians with potential combination strategies to overcome treatment resistance. Last year, OncoHost CEO Dr. Ofer Sharon told me that "For immunotherapy, the most important treatment modality we have today, the response rate on average across all cancer types is about 20%. With all the promise of immunotherapy, if you have ten patients waiting in your waiting room with advanced cancer, only two will be alive in two years."

Scale AI, Canada's artificial intelligence (AI) cluster, has announced it is investing $24 million to support five AI projects in supply chain operations. The federally and Québec government-supported AI cluster is also partnering with MaRS to support the commercialization of 12 Canadian supply chain solutions AI startups. A number of startups and partners are sharing in the $24 million investment. AlayaCare, CIUSSS du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Bien Chez Soi, Polytechnique Montréal, for example, are receiving $800,000 to use AI to optimize care worker resources, using data to streamline the organization of shifts by geographic area, schedules and skills. The largest investment of $3 million went to London Drugs Limited, Deloitte, TAP, Sanctuary AI, and Atlantia to develop an AI-powered supply chain model focused on forecasting supplier demand.

IntelyCare, a Quincy, MA-based tech-enabled nurse staffing platform for healthcare organizations announced it has secured $115M in a Series C financing round led by Janus Henderson Investors with participation from new and existing investors Longitude Capital, Leeds Illuminate, Endeavour Vision, Revelation Partners, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures. That latest round of funding brings IntelyCare's valuation to $1.1 billion. With nurse shortages expected to surpass 1 million this year, technologies like IntelyCare's are essential to protect the health of the nation. The post-acute space is poised to grow tremendously as providers strive to increase hospital throughput to reduce costs and drive better patient outcomes. Post-acute care will be increasingly distributed in the future, most notably in the home setting, which will require technology to efficiently bring together care providers and patients.

Taking notes during a meeting is an art form, requiring multitasking skills for listening, typing and coming up with intelligent things to say while you do the other two. Not to mention the three or four different applications we use to prepare, run and follow-through with meetings. Avoma thinks we are doing too much and using too many apps during meetings and something is bound to get lost. It developed software that automates meeting workflows and makes nearly any kind of conversation more actionable. Today, the Palo Alto-based company announced $12 million in Series A funding in a round led by Headline, with participation from Storm Ventures, Global Founder Capital, Zoom Apps Fund, Operator Partners, Industry Ventures and existing investors K9 Ventures, Dragon Capital and Twin Ventures.