Standout of the week
Blue Sky Robotics
Chapel Hill robotics company
Chose Chapel Hill over Austin for a headquarters expansion, 152 jobs.
Blue Sky Robotics is expanding its headquarters in Chapel Hill rather than Austin, a $1.55M investment adding 152 jobs, with support from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. A growing robotics company choosing the Triangle over a larger competing tech market is the clearest regional signal of the week.
Deep dives
Capital
4 rounds
Four rounds from April and early May, $54.5 million in total, weighted toward AI infrastructure and healthtech. InsightFinder and Keebler Health closed in mid-April, Truentity at the end of the month, and Sennos on May 11.
Venture
Sennos
$20M
Lead: TomEnterprise
With: Jan Stahlberg
Durham. AI-powered fermentation and fluidics platform. Total funding now over $50M; investors are EQT alumni.
Series A
Keebler Health
$16M
Lead: Flare Capital Partners
With: Sands Capital, Freestyle Capital, Triangle Tweener Fund
Durham. LLM-native HCC coding and risk adjustment. Total raised $23.8M. Duke-founded.
Series B
InsightFinder
$15M
Lead: Yu Galaxy
Durham. AI observability platform. Total funding now $35M. CEO Helen Gu is also an NC State CS professor. Correction, October 6, 2026: We incorrectly listed Eight Roads Ventures, IDEA Fund Partners and Triangle Tweener Fund as participants in this Series B. We have removed those names. The announcement names Yu Galaxy as lead and does not identify other participants.
Series A
Truentity Health
$3.5M
Lead: Evidenced VC
With: Cofounders Capital, K-Street Capital
Chapel Hill. Oversubscribed. Pharmacy-led chronic care management.
Infrastructure
A product update from a Durham healthtech company, and the pitch field forming for the June Grep-a-Palooza competition.