The London and Paris-based startup has nothing to do with its DeFi namesake, but the funding round reveals where smart money is placing its bets on AI infrastructure
A seven-month-old startup called Arrakis has raised $38 million in venture funding to build what it describes as an AI “operating system” for industrial companies. The company, headquartered in London and Paris, is targeting aerospace, energy, logistics, and manufacturing with agentic AI solutions.
The funding breakdown #
Arrakis Technologies pulled in its capital across two rounds. Accel led the initial $7.5 million seed round, while Blossom Capital anchored a $30 million Series A.
Other participants in the Series A include GFC, MainObject, and Rerail. The roster of individual backers adds some extra weight: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel and OpenAI’s head of business products, Olivier Godement, both contributed.
CEO and cofounder Rafael Quintanilla confirmed the latest round values Arrakis at $140 million post-money.
SEC filings from mid-July 2026 corroborate the Series A completion at approximately $30.4 million, suggesting the round may have slightly exceeded its initial target.
What Arrakis is actually building #
The company’s pitch centers on “agentic AI” for industrial operations. Think of it as deploying autonomous AI agents that can make decisions and take actions within complex industrial workflows, rather than just surfacing insights for humans to act on.
The business model reportedly emphasizes proven outcomes. Rather than charging for software licenses and hoping customers figure out the implementation, Arrakis appears to be tying its revenue to demonstrable results.
Quintanilla, a former vice president in the industrial sector, cofounded the company alongside Romain Fouilland.
Why crypto investors should pay attention #
Before anyone starts checking their token portfolios: this is not Arrakis Finance, the DeFi liquidity protocol. Same name, completely different universe.
The involvement of OpenAI’s Olivier Godement as an individual backer is particularly noteworthy. OpenAI has been the gravitational center of the AI industry, and its executives putting personal capital into industrial AI applications suggests conviction that the agentic AI thesis extends well beyond chatbots and content generation.
That said, the $140 million valuation for a pre-revenue or early-revenue company underscores just how frothy the AI funding environment remains. Crypto-native AI projects often trade at comparable or higher fully diluted valuations with similarly nascent revenue profiles. The difference is liquidity. Arrakis Technologies equity is locked up in venture funds. Crypto-AI tokens can be sold tomorrow.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our