Stealth

• U.S.-relevant cross-border paytech startup Latitude exited stealth mode this week with $8 million seed funding led by NEA to tackle slow, costly business money transfers. • The funding supports Latitude's mission to streamline international payments, positioning it as a challenger in the fintech space amid rising demand for efficient B2B transfers. • Launch coincides with April 2026 fintech surge, highlighting investor confidence in paytech innovations despite economic uncertainties from energy prices and Fed policy.

• Tel Aviv-based Capsule Security exited stealth on April 14, 2026, securing a $7 million Seed round led by Lama Partners with participation from Forgepoint Capital International to develop runtime security for enterprise AI agents. • The company positions itself as a "trust layer for agentic AI" designed to block manipulation, misbehavior, and silent data exfiltration during agent execution. • Capsule was selected as 1 of 6 finalists from nearly 1,000 startups in the CrowdStrike, AWS, and NVIDIA Startup Accelerator at RSA Conference, indicating strong industry recognition.

• Artemis, a San Francisco-based AI-native cybersecurity platform, emerged from stealth on April 17, 2026, with $70 million in combined seed and Series A funding just six months after founding. • The Series A round was led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from First Round Capital, Brightmind Ventures, Theory VC, Two Sigma, Lockstep, and leaders from Demisto, Abnormal AI, Splunk, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and Okta. • The platform provides real-time detection and automated response to AI-powered threats, addressing gaps in traditional security tools amid rising agentic attacks.

• Artificial intelligence-driven observability startup Sazabi Inc. emerged from stealth mode this week, launching a platform that uses logs and AI agents to replace traditional observability stacks. • The platform challenges conventional monitoring tools by leveraging AI to analyze logs more effectively for faster issue detection in complex systems. • This development signals growing investor confidence in AI-native alternatives to legacy enterprise software amid rising demand for efficient cloud infrastructure management.

• An Air Force F-35 stealth fighter jet believed to have been struck by enemy fire during a combat mission over Iran has been reported, with sources telling ABC News of the incident. • The pilot is in stable condition following the engagement, demonstrating the continued operational challenges faced by US forces in the Iran conflict zone. • The incident underscores the active air defense capabilities remaining available to Iranian forces despite claims of significant degradation through the sustained US-Israeli bombing campaign.

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week