Coast raises $35 million to expand AI-powered financial platform

Xona has successfully raised $250 million in a Series D funding round to scale its commercial satellite navigation network. The leadership of this round was led by Future Ventures, which brought together both new and existing investors. This funding valued the Burlington-based company at $2.45 billion.

Founded in 2019, Xona develops navigation infrastructure in low Earth orbit. Its Pulsar platform aims to improve traditional GPS through stronger signals and increased positioning accuracy. With the latest investment, the company's total funding has exceeded $570 million.

CEO Brian Manning stated that the company is transitioning from technology development to commercial implementation. Xona currently has satellites in orbit, and customers are integrating the Pulsar firmware into their devices. The capital raised will be used to ensure service provision, operational expansion, and satellite manufacturing.

GPS is a critical element for transport, communication, finance, and other vital networks. However, GPS signals can be subjected to jamming or spoofing. Xona plans to offer an alternative navigation method for autonomous systems and devices that provides higher reliability and accuracy.

Xona's Pulsar network transmits navigation signals from specially designed satellites in low Earth orbit. The company claims that its technology can provide centimeter-level accuracy. Furthermore, it states that its signals are 100 times stronger than standard GPS signals.

The platform is designed to resist jamming and spoofing. Xona also aims to enable signal reception indoors, which could potentially expand navigation capabilities in environments where traditional signals struggle. These characteristics could be useful for autonomous vehicles, robotics, aviation, and critical infrastructure.

As more machines operate with limited human involvement, navigation systems are becoming increasingly important. Accurate location determination helps these systems establish coordinates and make timely decisions. More resilient signals can also support applications where navigation failures carry significant risks.

Recently, Xona conducted its largest launch to date, deploying six Pulsar satellites. Four spacecraft are intended to support the initial beta service in several countries starting in early 2027. Two additional satellites will be used to test designs developed and manufactured entirely in-house.

This launch marks a transition toward building a larger commercial constellation. Xona intends to increase production capacity at its headquarters in Burlington. The long-term constellation concept includes approximately 258 satellites.

The company is also working on establishing the operational capabilities necessary for repeatable satellite production. CEO Brian Manning has set a goal of producing 50 satellites annually by the end of 2027. Achieving this level will support the planned expansion of the navigation network.

With the new funds, Xona will accelerate satellite production and begin providing commercial navigation services. The company targets both commercial and government clients. Potential applications include autonomous systems, aviation, and critical infrastructure.

Future Ventures co-founder Steve Yurvetson, a long-time board member of SpaceX and an early investor in Xona, noted that the company has made rapid progress in creating a new global navigation network.

Nevertheless, Xona faces significant implementation challenges. It needs to scale up production, deploy its constellation, and demonstrate reliable performance in various conditions. Commercial adoption will also depend on integration with customer devices and systems.

The $250 million raise provides substantial funding for the next phase. If Xona meets its deployment goals, Pulsar could provide an additional layer of navigation resilience for the global economy.

North.cloud has successfully raised $60 million in a Series B funding round. These funds will be used to develop the company's financial operating system, which covers cloud services, artificial intelligence, and data handling.

Investors participating in this round include Peak Span Capital, Liquidity Ventures, Companyon Ventures, Alpaca, Uncommon Denominator, Gaingels, and Mana Ventures. The secured capital will allow for increased investment in product development, as well as ensuring a higher degree of automation and adding new integrations.

North enables enterprises to reduce infrastructure costs across all leading cloud service providers and modern data platforms, including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. The company aims to replace fragmented processes related to various pricing models, usage requirements, and reporting tools inherent in each system (whether it is cloud infrastructure, a data model, or a service).

Thanks to the North platform, clients have saved over $400 million against total managed cloud spending, which approaches two billion dollars. Among the company's clients are AssemblyAI, Atlan, Tines, SnapLogic, Emplifi, and Imply. The platform addresses a growing problem for finance and engineering departments.

Traditionally, teams often use spreadsheets and separate dashboards to understand infrastructure costs, which consumes significant time without automatically eliminating costly inefficiencies. North combines cost analytics with automated optimization, helping businesses identify waste, manage cloud commitments, and increase computing value. This approach provides finance and engineering teams with a unified view of infrastructure economics.

The latest funding followed the release of North v3, which expanded support to Microsoft Azure, thus completing support for three major hyperscalers. Furthermore, native integrations with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Snowflake were implemented, and the Autobot automatic commitment scaling mechanism was enhanced.

Artificial intelligence is creating new challenges in business financial management. The increasing use of models adds an extra layer of complexity to existing cloud service and data expenditures. North is expanding its platform to help companies manage these interconnected costs.

TokenFlow's offering integrates model usage, attribution, budgeting, and financial control into a single system. Businesses can use these features alongside existing cloud infrastructure management, reflecting the growing overlap between AI and traditional infrastructure costs.

North believes that effective cost management requires more than just dashboards for companies. Automated systems can help teams detect changes, improve resource allocation, and leverage optimization capabilities, which can reduce manual workload as AI adoption accelerates.

AssemblyAI reported an effective savings rate of about 50% through its work with North. The company noted that its coverage expanded in parallel with infrastructure growth, allowing the team to focus on customer-centric development.

North plans to reinvest the Series B funds into increasing the number of integrations and strengthening autonomous optimization. Funds will also be invested in additional AI cost management tools and new personnel hiring. These investments will help North realize its vision of fully automating the infrastructure cost lifecycle.

The company demonstrates a customer retention rate of 98.8% and reports over $400 million saved by its clients. North's current clientele includes several large technology companies, and the company believes its results can be leveraged to target other cost categories. As AI plays an increasingly vital role in software development, infrastructure costs are becoming less separate from the product and the business it supports. North is building a platform designed to help such enterprises manage these expenses without stifling innovation.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjusted its forecast for global economic growth in 2026 on Tuesday, increasing it by 0.1 percentage point to 3.1%, which is higher than the initial estimate made in July.

In its latest report, 'World Economic Outlook,' titled 'Resilience Under Pressure, Urgent Elections,' the IMF projects a slowdown in global growth from 3.5% in 2025 to 3.1% in 2026, after which growth is expected to reach 3.4% in 2027. The forecast for 2027 remained unchanged compared to July, but it is 0.2 percentage points higher than the April forecast.

In advanced economies, growth is expected to reach 2.1% in 2026 and then decline to 1.8% in 2027. Regarding emerging markets and economies, growth is projected to slow to 3.7% in 2026, followed by a recovery to 4.4% in 2027.

The IMF noted that the world economy is not simply slowing down or accelerating, but rather experiencing a redistribution of growth depending on how exposed each country is to the energy shock caused by the war and demand related to artificial intelligence. Economies benefiting from the boom in AI investments are helping to offset the economic pressure caused by the conflict in the Middle East.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva stated on Monday at the annual IMF and World Bank Group meetings in Bangkok, Thailand, that the acceleration of AI infrastructure investment is a key factor keeping global economic growth around the 3% mark.

Furthermore, the report forecasts an increase in the overall global inflation rate from 4.1% in 2025 to 4.7% in 2026, followed by a decrease to 4.1% in 2027.