AI Startups: Heron Aims to Organize Business Data

AI startup Heron said Tuesday (July 15) that it has raised $16.6 million in a Series A funding round.

Heron automates the mounds of documents that businesses must manage, including PDFs, spreadsheets, emails, tax returns, bank statements, application documents and schedules.

Its platform integrates with Salesforce, Zoho, Cloudsquare and Tasksuite, among other applications.

Heron aims to help teams reduce manual work, enabling them to scale without adding staff. According to a press release announcing the new funding, the firm has already processed 350,000 documents a week for more than 150 customers.

Heron said small and medium-sized business (SMB) lenders have teams of underwriting analysts that spend hours scanning emails, downloading files, checking packets for completeness and manually entering data into CRMs and check for basic eligibility.

Focusing on companies that don’t have large engineering departments, Heron’s system completes tasks automatically or flags cases that need further review by human staff.

Insight Partners led the round, with participation from Y Combinator, BoxGroup and Flex Capital.

The startup, part of the 2020 Y Combinator summer cohort, said it will use the funds to scale in the insurance, equipment finance and SMB lending markets while expanding into adjacent industries.

Heron also plans to hire more engineers and staff in New York and London.

Read more: Meta to Make a Bid for Voice AI Startup PlayAI

FinTech Startup Funding Rises 22% in Q2

Global FinTech startups participated in 390 funding rounds worth $11 billion in the second quarter, according to data S&P Global Market Intelligence shared with PYMNTS.

That is a 22% increase in value year over year, but a 13% decline in the number of funding rounds.

In North America, funding rose by 150% to $8 billion in the quarter, while deal count grew 5%, from 171 to 180. EMEA was the worst performer, with funding falling by more than 50% to $1.6 billion. Latin America also didn’t do well: Funding value fell 34% to $400 million. Asia-Pacific, however, was “relatively stable” at $1.4 billion, S&P Global said.

By segments, payments startups saw a 37% increase in funding to $2.6 billion in Q2 from the prior quarter. The number of rounds rose by 10% to 115. Cross-border payments drew major interest, with more than 10 deals.

“Fintech funding is showing early signs of a rebound in 2025 after three straight years of decline. If the current pace holds, this year could mark a turning point in overall funding value,” Sampath Sharma Nariyanuri, senior fintech research analyst at S&P Global, said in the report.

See also: Robinhood CEO’s AI Math Wiz Valued at $900M

OpenRouter Organizes Explosion of AI Models

OpenRouter has raised $40 million in a combined seed and Series A funding round led by VC powerhouses Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures, with participation from Sequoia as well as angel investors.

The 2-year-old startup provides a platform that makes it easy for companies to use many different AI models, such as ChatGPT and Claude, without having to build custom tools for each one.

Instead of connecting to each AI provider separately, companies can use OpenRouter as a single access point. The platform offers access to more than 400 AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek and others.

The company said it also helps businesses track their AI usage, manage costs and keep systems running smoothly — even if one provider has a problem.

Revenue has grown tenfold from $10 million in October 2024 to a $100 million run rate as of May 2025. Over 1 million developers use it.

OpenRouter is integrated with Microsoft VSCode, Zapier, Cloudflare, Make.com, n8n, Posthog and more.

Read more:

AI Startups: What OpenAI, Anthropic Pay Their Technical Staff

Amazon Reportedly Mulling New Multibillion-Dollar Anthropic Investment

AI Startups: Aether Taps AI to Spot Market Sentiment Shifts in Real Time

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