This weekly update shows that AI agents are becoming the hottest trend in startup funding. These smart computer programs can work by themselves and help businesses do tasks faster.

Tavily was the biggest winner this week, raising $25 million from Insight Partners. The company helps AI agents search the internet safely without breaking company rules. Founded by Rotem Weiss, Tavily started as an open source project that became very popular. Big companies like Groq, Cohere, and MongoDB already use their service. The startup has offices in New York, Tel Aviv, and Abu Dhabi.

Legal technology got attention too. August, a startup from New York, raised $7 million to help medium-sized law firms use AI. The company was started by students from Columbia University and helps lawyers handle paperwork faster. Investors NEA and Pear VC led the funding round.

Microsoft Excel is getting smarter with AI. Endex raised $14 million in funding led by OpenAI to put AI agents inside Excel spreadsheets. The tool helps people analyze data and write reports without being Excel experts. CEO Tarun Amasa says finance workers need more than search results - they need deep thinking and analysis.

European startups are also doing well. N8n from Germany got offers worth close to $3 billion from big investors like Accel and Insight Partners. The company makes AI agents that connect different business apps and data sources. They have over 230,000 users and customers like Vodafone and Microsoft.

Fundamental Research Labs from San Francisco raised $33 million for building better AI agent systems. They made an AI agent called Fairies that can do daily tasks and another called Shortcut for Excel work. CEO Dr. Robert Yang says few startups are working on the basic research needed to make AI agents really smart.

Big companies are moving fast too. Kyndryl worked with Google Cloud to build 100 AI agents in just 100 days. These agents help with supply chains, medical image analysis, and IT operations. Unlike test projects, these agents are actually working in real businesses across different countries.

However, AI agents still have problems. Current AI agents fail most of the time, with OpenAI's GPT-4o failing 91.4% of office tasks and Meta's Llama failing 92.6% of tasks. This shows why startups need to be careful about how they build and use AI agents.

The AI agent market is worth billions of dollars. European AI startups have raised €4 billion this year, already beating last year's total of €3.4 billion. Investors are excited about AI agents because they can work 24/7 and handle boring tasks that humans don't want to do.

These startups are focusing on making AI agents safer and easier to control. They understand that businesses need AI helpers that follow rules and don't make mistakes. The companies that succeed will be those that combine smart AI with good human oversight.