A Month Of Funding Headlines: June 2026
As we start the last Friday of June, it is time to look back at the month that was. Even with summer now in full swing, Southeast’s startups still made headlines on funding.
These are the startups that made moves in June of 2026:
Top Funding Stories
- Optura (Nashville – HealthTech): $17.5M Series A
Optura is an enterprise healthcare platform that delivers ROAI™ (Return on AI Investment). Its $17.5M Series A was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Echo Health Ventures and continued investment from Susa Ventures, Matrix Partners and HC9 Ventures. The company has raised $25 million to date.
- Arpio (Durham): $15M Series A
Arpio is an AI-native recovery and resilience platform for cloud environments. The cyber startup is backed by S3 Ventures and Paladin Capital Group, with participation from Draper Associates, Uncorrelated, Valor Ventures, CreativeCo Capital, and Lookout Ventures in this round.
- Karta (Florida): $15M Series A plus $125M credit facility (Refresh Miami)
Karta provides U.S.-issued credit card designed specifically for internationally mobile consumers.
- Askari Defense (Atlanta): $9M seed
A defense tech company combating robotic warfare options, raised funding from Builders VC, Sovereign’s Capital, Swell VC, Rule 1 Ventures, WaterStone Impact Fund, and others.
Lexful is an AI platform for MSPs that uses AI to manage IT information, automate workflows, and support service operations across teams. Top Down Ventures and York IE joined the startup’s most recent funding round.
PlayerZero is an AI production engineer that builds a living model of how your software actually works.
Other Funding News To Note
- Forecastr (Louisville, KY – FinTech): $7M Series A
- SubBase (Florida): $7M Series A (The Saas News)
- Skillmaker (Wilmington): $4.5M seed round
- StratusGrid (Chattanooga): $3M Seed
- OffPlan (Georgia): $2.5M seed (Crunchbase)
- CompanAIn (Charleston, SC) – $1M pre-seed
Some Top M&A Headlines
- ChartSpan (Greenville, SC) acquires Validic (Durham, NC)
- EquityShift (Raleigh, NC) acquires SteadyTrails Technologies, GrepBeat reports
- Alpharetta-based GRIFFIN Global Technologies acquired
- New Orleans’ Rep Data acquires OWL Solutions
- TN-based SkyNano’s IP and tech assets acquired
- Black Airplane has acquired Tyrannosaurus Tech
- TN-based SkyNano’s IP and tech assets acquired
And On The VC Front…
There’s a new DeepTech firm in Atlanta. Sabertooth Capital is an Atlanta-based investment firm founded by Justin Ernest that gives institutional investors and family offices access to individual investment opportunities in high-growth, later-stage technology companies. The firm has already deployed close to $500 million into companies across AI, defense, robotics, quantum, compute, space, and other DeepTech sectors. More here.
