Listen to today’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silk-logic-small-business-daily/id1841930957
Small Business Daily Podcast — 12/05/2025
Today’s podcast episode was created from the following stories:
Gradial raises $35M Series B to scale agentic marketing automation
By Dom Nicastro — 2025-12-04
Source: Original article
Gradial raised $35 million led by VMG Partners to expand its agentic AI platform that automates complex enterprise marketing workflows for brands like AWS and T-Mobile. The company claims 80%+ faster execution, higher throughput, and centralized governance to ensure brand and accessibility compliance. As content demands surge, Gradial targets data-ready enterprises seeking to orchestrate journeys and enforce standards across sprawling digital estates.
Prophecy accelerates data pipeline construction with quick-start AI agents
By Mike Wheatley — 2025-12-04T09:00:00-05:00
Source: Original article
Prophecy launched Enterprise Express, a $40,000 package for 20 seats that gives small teams rapid access to its agentic data pipeline platform (initially for Databricks). New AI agents handle data discovery, transformation, documentation, and translating business requirements into deployable workflows. The goal: shrink data prep from weeks to hours while maintaining privacy, security, and governance through tested, standardized SQL.
Helmet Security lands $9M to protect enterprises from MCP-based AI security risks
By Duncan Riley — 2025-12-04T08:30:00-05:00
Source: Original article
Helmet raised $9 million to secure Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure, automatically discovering MCP servers and monitoring their communications to catch issues like data exfiltration and prompt injection. The platform adds policy enforcement so security teams can govern which tools communicate and with what privileges, integrating with existing EDR and API tooling. Investors say the installation-free visibility and control help CISOs tame fast-spreading AI agent connections without stalling innovation.
How AI is uncovering hidden geothermal energy resources
By Casey Crownhart — 2025-12-04
Source: Original article
Zanskar used AI and computational modeling to identify and confirm a commercial “blind” geothermal system in Nevada—the first such discovery in over 30 years. The Big Blind site shows 250°F temperatures at about 2,700 feet, suggesting potential for clean, steady baseload power as electricity demand grows. With leases secured, the company now moves to permitting, grid interconnection, and investment as it validates long-term performance.
A startup says it has found a hidden source of geothermal energy
By Molly Taft — 2025-12-04T08:00:00-08:00
Source: Original article
Adding context to the Nevada find, Zanskar argues AI can systematically locate and derisk blind geothermal systems—an overlooked complement to enhanced geothermal systems. Researchers suggest the U.S. potential from blind systems could be tens to hundreds of gigawatts as drilling tech improves. If commercialized at scale, these discoveries could meaningfully expand low-carbon power without introducing new fracking steps.
This AI startup generates content to help companies retain their customers
By Lara O’Reilly — 2025-12-04T14:01:06.194Z
Source: Original article
Tel Aviv-based Eikona raised $5 million to apply generative AI and reinforcement learning to lifecycle marketing across email, SMS, and push. The platform creates and iterates on content variations tied to performance, integrating brand guidelines and past results—an approach that helped one travel client lift bookings by 20%. The team aims to define an “adaptive marketing” category where every message is personalized and optimized at scale.
This startup is helping brands show up in chatbots and AI search
By Robert Scammell — 2025-12-04T12:18:50.488Z
Source: Original article
London-based Azoma raised $4 million to boost brand visibility in AI search and chatbot answers using generative engine optimization. Its “digital twin” simulates how diverse user profiles trigger chatbot responses, then generates content optimized for LLMs—already attracting clients like Mars and P&G. As AI search reshapes discovery, Azoma’s SaaS model helps brands measure ranking share and close gaps versus competitors.
AI startup Flex raises $60 million to offer finance tools for mid-sized businesses
By Aditya Soni — 2025-12-04T12:42:46Z
Source: Original article
Flex secured $60 million led by Portage Ventures to build an AI-driven, one-stop finance platform for mid-sized businesses. While details are light, the company positions itself to streamline core finance tasks under one roof, promising faster insights and simpler workflows. The raise underscores strong investor appetite for tools that modernize SMB financial operations.
A father of four raised $4.5 million to help fuel the US manufacturing renaissance with AI
By Not specified — 2025-12-04
Source: Original article
Texas-based RMFG raised $4.5 million in pre-seed funding to bring AI and robotics to U.S. manufacturing. Founded by a self-taught coder, the startup aims to automate shop-floor workflows and address labor gaps with practical, cost-conscious systems. The pitch taps into the broader reshoring trend and the need for smarter, more resilient production capacity.
