Opportunity Cost

Global venture funding reached $159 billion in the third quarter of 2026. But behind the headline number lies a changing investment landscape, where artificial intelligence commands the majority of capital and a small group of companies captures an extraordinary share of funding.

egaranti, the Türkiye-based warranty technology company, has raised $1.1 million in pre-Series A funding to accelerate its expansion in Uzbekistan, enter Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and develop a new consumer-facing warranty application in Türkiye.

After takeover talks with Nubank collapsed, Britain’s Monzo is turning to private equity investors. The shift highlights the growing tension between the ambitions of digital banks and the valuations investors are willing to pay.

AMD’s acquisition of San Francisco AI startup World Labs is taking the chip race into a new territory, combining compute, spatial intelligence and physical AI as the industry moves beyond models that only understand language.

EspressoLab, one of Turkey’s fastest-growing coffee chains, is entering a new ownership era. Abu Dhabi-based MAIR Group has signed an agreement to acquire 70% of the company behind the brand, bringing a Turkish-origin coffee business with more than 400 stores across 21 countries into a new international growth phase.

The White House meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping has placed artificial intelligence at the center of the U.S.-China relationship, while the presence of Silicon Valley’s most powerful technology executives has underscored how deeply AI has become tied to global economics, national security and geopolitical power.