Reimagining biodefense at the intersection of AI, biology and urgency.
Updated
January 8, 2026 6:34 PM
Through computational tools, Valthos analyzes biological data to design adaptive solutions against emerging threats. PHOTO: VALTHOS
Valthos has raised US$30 million in seed funding, led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital and Founders Fund, to advance its mission of building next-generation biodefense systems.
The company’s work comes at a time when biotechnology is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Biotechnology is moving at record speed. These new tools can lead to life-changing medical discoveries, but they also bring the risk of dangerous biological agents being developed faster than ever.
“The issue at the core of biodefense is asymmetry”, said Kathleen McMahon, co-founder of Valthos. “It’s easier to make a pathogen than a cure. We’re building tools to help experts at the frontlines of biodefense move as fast as the threats they face”. The gap Valthos aims to close is between the rapid rise of biological threats and the slower pace of developing cures. Therefore, the company is developing AI systems that can rapidly analyze biological sequences and significantly shorten the time needed to design medical countermeasures.
“In this new world, the only way forward is to be faster. So we set out to build a new tech stack for biodefense”, said Tess van Stekelenburg, co-founder of Valthos. “This software infrastructure strengthens biodefense today and lays the groundwork for the adaptive, precision therapeutics of tomorrow”.
The company was founded by van Stekelenburg, a partner at Lux Capital and McMahon, the former head of Palantir’s Life Sciences division. Together, they’ve built a multidisciplinary team of experts from Palantir, DeepMind, Stanford’s Arc Institute and MIT’s Broad Institute, bringing together deep experience in software engineering, machine learning and biotechnology.
“Technology is moving fast. An industrial ecosystem of builders, companies and solutions further democratizes AI to provide broad resilience, and ensures the U.S. continues to lead as AI increasingly powers everything around us. As AI and biotech rapidly advance, biodefense is one of the new industry verticals that helps maximize the benefits and minimize the risks”, said Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer. “Valthos is pushing the frontier of protection and defense in one of the most strategic intersections of multiple world-changing technologies, and with the team to do it”.
Looking ahead, Valthos plans to expand its engineering team and scale its software infrastructure for both government and commercial partners — moving closer to its goal of enabling faster, smarter and more adaptive biodefense capabilities.
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From plush figures to digital pets, a new class of AI toys is emerging — built not around screens or sensors, but around memory, language and emotional awareness
Updated
February 5, 2026 2:00 PM
Spielwarenmesse toy fair. PHOTO: SPIELWARENMESSE
Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg is the global meeting point for the toy industry, where brands and designers preview what will shape how children play and learn next. At this year’s fair, one message stood out clearly: toys are no longer built just to entertain, but to listen, respond and grow with children. Tuya Smart, a global AI cloud platform company, used the event to show how AI-powered toys are turning familiar formats into interactive companions that can talk, react emotionally and adapt over time.
The company’s central argument was simple but far-reaching. The next generation of artificial intelligence toys will not be defined by motors, sensors or screens alone, but by how well they understand human behavior. Instead of being single-function objects, smart toys for children are becoming systems that combine language models, emotion recognition and memory to support ongoing interaction.
One of the most talked-about examples was Tuya Smart’s Nebula Plush AI Toy. At first glance, it looks like a soft, expressive plush figure. Inside, it uses emotional recognition to change its LED facial expressions in real time. If a child sounds sad or excited, the toy’s eyes respond visually. It supports natural conversation, reacts to hugs and touch and combines storytelling, news-style updates and interactive games. Over time, it builds memory, allowing it to behave less like a gadget and more like an interactive AI toy that recalls past interactions.
Another example was Walulu, also developed using Tuya’s AI toy platform. Walulu is an AI pet built around personalization. It can detect up to 19 emotional states and speak more than 60 languages. It connects to major large language models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen and Doubao. Through simple app-based controls, users choose traits like cheerful, quiet, curious or thoughtful. Those choices shape how Walulu talks and reacts. Instead of repeating scripts, it adjusts its tone and behavior over time. The result is not a novelty item, but an emotionally responsive AI toy that feels consistent in daily use.
Tuya also showed how educational AI toys can extend into learning and exploration. Its AI Learning Camera blends computer vision with interactive content. When it recognizes an object, it links it to cultural and learning material. If a child points it at a foreign word, it offers real-time pronunciation and translation. It can also turn drawings into digital artwork, encouraging active creativity rather than passive screen time. In this sense, AI toys for kids are becoming tools for learning as much as play.
These products point to a larger strategy. Tuya is not just making toys — it is building the AI toy development platform behind them. Through its AI Toy Solution, developers can design a toy’s personality, memory logic and behavior without training models from scratch. The system integrates with leading AI models and supports multi-turn conversation and emotional feedback, turning standard hardware into responsive AI companions.
The platform supports multiple development paths. Brands can use ready-to-market OEM solutions, add AI to existing products or build custom toys around their own characters. Plush toys, robots, educational tools and wearables can all become AI-powered toys without changing their physical design.
Because these products are made for children and families, safety is built in. Tuya’s system includes parental controls, conversation history review and content management. It supports standards such as GDPR and CCPA with encryption and data localization.
From a business standpoint, Tuya’s pitch is speed and scale. The company says its AI toy infrastructure can cut development time by more than half and reduce R&D costs by up to 50 percent. Its AIoT network spans over 200 countries and supports more than 60 languages, making global deployment of AI toys easier.
What emerged at Spielwarenmesse 2026 was not just a lineup of smart gadgets, but a clear shift in the category. AI toys are evolving into emotionally aware systems that talk, listen, remember and adapt. Their value lies not in sounding clever, but in fitting naturally into everyday life.
The fair did not present AI toys as a distant future. It showed them as products already entering the mainstream. The real question now is not whether toys will use AI, but how carefully that intelligence is designed for children.