This weekly update covers exciting developments in AI agents and agentic artificial intelligence for startups. AI agents are smart computer programs that can work on their own to complete tasks without needing a person to tell them what to do every single step. Two major startup funding announcements happened this week, showing how much money companies believe in this technology.

Serval, a company that helps businesses use AI to manage IT tasks, raised a huge amount of money called a Series A funding round of $47 million. This is impressive because famous investment companies like Redpoint Ventures decided to give them money. Even better, Serval already works with big AI companies like Perplexity and Together AI. Serval's special trick is using two different AI agents working together. One agent creates the tools and rules, while another agent uses those tools to help people. This two-agent approach keeps things safe because the second agent can only do what the first agent allowed it to do.

Another big story is LangChain, a company that helps builders create AI agents, reaching unicorn status—meaning it became worth $1.25 billion. LangChain started as a small open-source project in 2022, which means people could use and change the code for free. Now it has grown into a huge platform where thousands of developers build agents. The company just released new updates to help make building agents easier.

What do these announcements mean for startups? They show that investors believe AI agents will change how businesses work. The key lesson for new startups is to focus on solving real problems for customers instead of just adding "AI" to their products. Startups winning in this space are the ones using AI agents to make work faster and simpler, not those just saying their product is "AI-powered". The future of business looks like humans working together with AI agents as helpful teammates.