This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here.

After a slow week last week, there was a slight pickup in top-dollar rounds, with three hitting nine figures. Health care — or health care-adjacent — companies saw big money, taking three of the four top spots this week, with the second place round minting a new mining unicorn. That’s out of the ordinary, but the venture market has a way of being unpredictable.

1. Aledade, $260M, health care: Health care companies hit it big this week and none bigger than Aledade. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company raised a $260 million Series F led by new investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round comes just about a year after it locked up a $123 million Series E. The startup provides doctors’ offices with data analytics software so they can better manage their patients and identify those most at risk. The company plans to use the new cash to beef up its services and technology, possibly with acquisitions. The new funding deal values the company at $3.5 billion, Bloomberg reported. Founded in 2014, the company has raised nearly $678 million, per Crunchbase.

2. KoBold Metals, $195M, mining: What happens when you combine AI with the material needed for lithium-ion batteries and AI? You get big money. Berkeley, California-based KoBold Metals raised a $195 million round this week led by T. Rowe Price, and included a number of big-name investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, and Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The new cash values the climate-tech startup at $1.15 billion. KoBold Metals uses artificial intelligence to mine for valuable metals such as cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium used in the production of batteries for a variety of sectors, including electric vehicles. The startup has built a database about the Earth’s layers and uses algorithms to make predictions about where mineral deposits are around the world. KoBold Metals isn’t new to big rounds. In February 2022, the startup closed a $192.5 million Series B, which included investment from Apollo Projects, Bond Capital, BHP Group and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Founded in 2018, the company has now raised more than $400 million, per Crunchbase.

3. HighFive Healthcare, $100M, dental: Dental health startups don’t usually make this list, but then again they don’t usually raise $100 million. However, HighFive did just that, closing a $100 million growth investment led by Norwest. The Birmingham, Alabama-based company enables a network of dental offices to centralize their operations — saving money and letting doctors focus on patients and not office operations. The company saw tremendous growth last year, doubling its practice size through acquisitions and organic growth. Founded in 2018, the company has now raised more than $102 million, per Crunchbase.

4. DexCare, $75M, health care: Yes, another health care startup high on the list. Seattle-based DexCare closed a $75 million Series C led by Iconiq Growth. The company’s software helps health systems manage their capacity and appointment booking while getting patients to the care they need. Its platform allows health providers to serve patients faster, and to manage the supply and demand of digital-care access. Founded in 2021, DexCare has raised $146 million, per the company.

5. Attovia Therapeutics, $60M, biotech: Only one biotech in the top five this week — which has become rare, as the space has witnessed some large raises of late. Fremont, California-based Attovia Therapeutics, which is developing biotherapeutics for immune-mediated disease and cancer, raised a $60 million Series A led by Frazier Life Sciences. The company plans to use the new cash to further advance its drug and platform development focusing on immunology and oncology. This is the company’s first outside raise, per Crunchbase.

6. Limble CMMS, $58M, information technology: Lehi, Utah-based Limble, which develops computerized maintenance management software, raised a $58 million Series B led by the growth equity business within Goldman Sachs. Founded in 2015, the company has now raised nearly $77 million, per Crunchbase data.

7. AltPep, $53M, biotech: Seattle-based AltPep, which is developing early disease-modifying treatments and detection tools for amyloid diseases, closed a $52.9 million Series B led by Senator Investment Group. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $76 million, per Crunchbase data.

8. (tied) Empress Therapeutics, $50M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based oral medicine developer Empress Therapeutics closed a $50 million round from Flagship Pioneering. This is the company’s first outside funding, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) PM Pediatric Care, $50M, health care: Long Island, New York-based PM Pediatric Care, a pediatric urgent care network, locked up a $50 million Series E led by Scopia Capital. Founded in 2005, the company has raised $64 million, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) Render, $50M, cloud infrastructure: San Francisco-based Render, a cloud provider for application developers, closed a $50 million Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Founded in 2018, the company has now raised nearly $77 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Despite the big rounds in the U.S. this week, Asia and Europe both had bigger.

• China-based Langlai Technology, a clinical-stage innovative drug research and development company, raised a $500 million round.
• Sweden-based Northvolt, a battery manufacturer for electric vehicles, industrial systems and energy storage systems, raised a $400 million private equity round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of June 17 to June 23. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Global funding reached $21 billion, down 56% from $47.8 billion in a year-over-year comparison. This is the second-lowest amount recorded in a single month since July 2022 when venture capital started to scale below $30 billion. 

The slowdown has impacted all funding stages. Seed was down more than 50% year over year, while early-stage funding dropped 48%. Late-stage funding was down the most at 62%. 

Month-over-month funding amounts were also down, in large part due to an increase in late-stage funding in March 2023 with Stripe‘s $6.5 billion funding.

Health care leads

Health care was the sector that raised the largest amounts with close to $5.7 billion invested. Companies that raised large rounds at the early stages include RNA-based medicine provider Orbital Therapeutics, medical robotics company Noah Medical and drugs from plants developer Enveda Biosciences. 

Companies active in AI raised around $2.8 billion, close to 13% of funding this past month. They include OpenAI, which raised a further $300 million. CoreWeave raised $221 million, Pinecone and AlphaSense each raised $100 million, and Replit raised $97 million. 

Financial services companies raised just over $2.7 billion, down from $7.7 billion raised in the same month a year ago. Companies that raised large rounds at Series A and B include capital markets infrastructure provider Clear Street, mobile payments TerraPay and LatAm B2B expense tracking Clara. 

Funding to unicorns tails off

Meanwhile,  new unicorns total in the single digits, compared to 40 new unicorns in April 2022. 

Of the $21 billion raised this past month, $4.4 billion was invested in unicorn companies. This is a smaller percentage than previous months in 2023, when unicorns averaged a third of all funding. 

Unicorn fundings include BYJU’S, a leading edtech company in India that raised $700 million at a flat valuation of $22 billion led by sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms. The company laid off 2,500 employees.

And medical supply drone delivery company Zipline raised $330 million at an increased valuation of  $4.8 billion, according to Forbes, up from its 2021 funding which valued the company at $2.8 billion.  

Since the latter half of 2022, deal sizes have come down from seed through Series C fundings. The interest in AI is driving larger funding rounds, but not enough to lift the funding slowdown. 

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of May 2, 2023.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

We have made a change to how we include corporate funding rounds in our reporting as of January 2023. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. 

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here.

For the third week in a row, rounds were down noticeably in the U.S. Only two rounds hit nine figures — one in the health care AI sector and one to a company that has been in the news recently for layoffs and a possible sale. We wondered last week if this may have been an effect of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, but perhaps there are more forces at play.

1. HeartFlow, $215M, health care: The use of AI for health diagnostics is front and center in the largest funding this past week to a heart precision care technology startup. The Mountain View, California-based company raised a $215 million Series F led by Bain Capital Life Sciences. Its noninvasive technology provides a 3D model to analyze the risk of a heart attack. The technology has been used so far by 180,000 patients across 725 hospital systems globally. Founded in 2010, HeartFlow has raised about $793 million, according to Crunchbase data. 

2. Cybereason, $100M, cybersecurity: Times seem to have changed for Cybereason. The Boston-based startup raised a $100 million investment led by SoftBank, but also along with it announced a CEO change. Executive Vice President of SoftBank Eric Gan will now serve as the company’s CEO, with Lior Div, current CEO and co-founder, transitioning to the role of adviser. The news comes after reports in October that the company hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to find a buyer for the company. It has been reported the company has had two rounds of layoffs, cutting 100 jobs in June and then another 200 in October. Just more than a year ago the company confidentially filed for an initial public offering that would have valued it at more than $5 billion, Reuters reported at the time. In July 2021, the startup announced it had raised $275 million in a financing led by Liberty Strategic Capital, the fund started by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. No valuation was given by the company, but reports at the time in both the Globes newspaper in Israel and The Boston Globe said the round valued the company at about $3.1 billion. Cybereason is one of the best-funded startups in cybersecurity, with more than $800 million raised, per Crunchbase data. Now the question is: What will investors get for all that money?

3. Covariant, $75M, robotics: It’s one thing to have robots, it’s another thing to know how to train them or tell them exactly what to do. Emeryville, California-based Covariant added an additional $75 million to its Series C — previously $80 million — to do just that. The round was co-led by returning investors Radical Ventures and Index Ventures. The startup’s “Covariant Brain” is a robotics platform that enables robots to interact with and learn from their environments. The platform can be used by retailers and logistics providers for warehouse work. Founded in 2017, Covariant has now raised $222 million, per the company.

4. (tied) Everstream Analytics, $50M, logistics: Thanks to the pandemic and the snarled supply chain it caused, logistic startups saw a flood of funding in 2021, with over $21 billion invested into the space, according to Crunchbase data. That funding cooled last year, with around $11 billion invested, a 48% drop year over year. That, however, did not stop San Marcos, California-based supply chain startup Everstream Analytics from raising a $50 million Series B funding co-led by StepStone Group and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. The company, which was founded in 2012, provides risk performance insights in the world of logistics. It works with the various touchpoints of the supply chain system to improve efficiency. The startup has now raised $79 million, per Crunchbase.

4. (tied) Honeycomb, $50M, developer tools: Engineers depend more and more on observability tools to understand what goes wrong as the cloud environment gets more complex. That likely helped San Francisco-based Honeycomb lock up a $50 million Series D led by Headline this week. The startup has doubled its revenue — and headcount — in the past year, as engineering teams continuously seek data on how users are using applications in real time. Founded in 2016, Honeycomb says it has raised $150 million to date.

6. Mercy BioAnalytics, $41M, biotech: The promise of early diagnosis of cancer will always bring out investors, and this week Natick, Massachusetts-based Mercy BioAnalytics closed a $41 million Series A led by Novalis LifeSciences. The new cash will be used to further develop its Mercy Halo test for high-risk lung cancer screening. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death globally — and more than 350 Americans die from lung cancer daily, per the company’s release. The company also hopes to advance clinical programs to detect ovarian cancer. Founded in 2018, the company has raised more than $68 million, according to Crunchbase data.

7. Phlow, $35M, health care: Richmond, Virginia-based Phlow is a public benefit corporation that manufactures affordable medicines using advanced technology. It raised a Series B funding from strategic partners. The company partners with hospitals, industry and the government to provide needed medicines in the U.S. Founded in 2020, the company has raised a little over $80 million, per Crunchbase.

8. Richmond National Group, $30M, insurance: Richmond, Virginia-based Richmond National Group, a property, casualty and professional liability insurance company, raised more than $30 million from existing shareholders including HF Capital and Bonhill Capital. Founded in 2021, Richmond National has now raised  more than $100 million, per the company.

9. Oxos Medical, $23M, medical devices: Atlanta-based Oxos Medical, a developer of digital imaging devices, closed a $23 million Series A from Parkway Venture Capital and Intel Capital. Founded in 2016, Oxos has raised a total of $45 million, per the company.

10. (tied) Strivacity, $20M, cybersecurity: Herndon, Virginia-based cybersecurity startup Strivacity raised $20 million in a Series A2 led by SignalFire. Founded in 2019, the company has raised more than $30 million, according to Crunchbase.

10. (tied) Vytelle, $20M, agtech: Lenexa, Kansas-based Vytelle, a startup that helps cattle producers optimize their herds, raised a $20 million Series B led by Forage Capital Partners. Founded in 2015, the company has raised more than $33 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

With rounds being down in the U.S., there were several larger raises abroad, including two large deals.

• India-based DMI Finance, a nonbanking financial company that offers consumer loans, home loans and asset management, raised a $400 million venture round.
• China-based SJ Semi, a foundry that implements front-end wafer manufacturing, closed a $340 million Series C.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of April 1 to 7. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Companies in the life sciences and health care space relied heavily on SVB, with about 12% of the bank’s $173 billion in deposits belonging to companies in that sector. 

That’s because Silicon Valley Bank didn’t operate like traditional banks — it matched the fast-paced startup network by being fast and nimble itself. It swiftly supplied startups with loans during periods of high growth. It took on companies that were so novel and innovative they didn’t have traditional product market fit. Traditional banks were more risk-averse and didn’t understand emerging tech the way SVB did. 

With the loss of SVB, investors worry the startup innovation system may have to slow down to meet its new, slower lenders. 

“I think lenders will be more conservative in their banking approach with clients, especially ones that are in emerging tech, biotech and life sciences,” said David Crean, a biotech investor and managing general partner at Cardiff Advisory.

When COVID hit, SVB moved fast

In 2020, when California issued a stay-at-home order to everyone except essential workers as a result of the pandemic, the private sector took action.

Medtech companies quickly pivoted to meet the surge in demand for testing. Some popped up testing sites on city curbs while others developed easy-to-use scheduling apps. Other companies helped physicians bring their practice into the telehealth age.

Companies in the life sciences moved in to fill gaps in creating therapeutics, vaccine support products and real-time diagnostics. 

“Those companies expanded,” said Matt Ocko, co-managing partner at DCVC. “In the middle of the pandemic, SVB moved to support these companies at lightning speed in a way that larger institutions simply could not.”

By contrast, traditional banks moved more slowly, taking longer to approve loans for startups. They turned away young founders who didn’t have a robust credit history. U.S. immigrants, who weren’t citizens, would have a much harder time banking their company at the larger firms.  

“I think it’s difficult for people to remember how unbelievably conservative mainstream banking was,” Ocko said. 

Biggest losers: emerging technologies

SVB was also a safe haven for startups that were so novel, they didn’t meet traditional risk assessments that bigger banks used. 

Big banks have a fiduciary responsibility to be conservative about their investments. Many nascent companies, especially in their infancy, don’t have product market fit as a result of being so new. This was especially crucial for companies in niche and risky industries like biotech, which often take 10 years or more before ever turning a profit. 

“They were good at lending in one form or another to two startups pursuing what, to the rest of the world including big banks, would be very arcane, difficult to understand technology,” Ocko said of SVB. 

This is how SVB became the bank of choice for the startup world. With decades of expertise in the tech industry, SVB was better able to understand the risks of these companies. When Naveen Jain founded the gut microbiome and at-home diagnostics startup Viome in 2016, he chose SVB as his sole bank at the behest of his investors.

“In the early days of SVB, they were willing to grant the startup companies that were not profitable,” Jain said. “Most traditional banks would only give you a loan when you had assets, or you had profit, whereas SVB was willing to give loans to companies that they thought [were viable].”

Without it, it may become harder for startups in emerging markets to grow.

“I think there may be an impact on innovation as many companies will have a harder time getting financing, and as a result [may] have to declare insolvency due to a lack of capital,” said Crean. “Overall, investors will be even more cautious about the sector.”

A drag on innovation

Without SVB, many companies are migrating towards traditional banks.

It’s hard to tell, materially, how this will impact innovation in the tech sector. SVB quickly provided loans to startups that won defense contracts, or startups that signed partnerships with other companies. SVB quickly allowed companies to open research and development labs, start a manufacturing facility for a new product, or start new projects.

Since other banks move more slowly, companies may have to forgo contract offers if they can’t get a loan. That will quickly impact when a company will be able to raise its next round of funding, and how much it will get. 

Overall, SVB’s demise could force Silicon Valley to adjust to a new normal — one that is slower-paced, matched with that of most banks.

“One of the knock-on effects of SVB not being around as an institution is all of that accumulated expertise lived in the people of SVB,” Ocko said. “There aren’t binders that a giant bank inherits that tell you step-by-step how to support a radical lifesaving biotech company.”

Related reading:

• Silicon Valley Bank Stock Plunge Sends Jitters Through The Startup World
• Silicon Valley Bank Fails, Is Taken Over By Banking Regulators
• Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Leaves Tech Industry Scrambling For Answers
• Silicon Valley Bank Bet Big On Biotech. And Now It’s Gone.
• Regulators Announce Plan To Ensure SVB Depositors
• Guaranteeing SVB’s Deposits Was The Right Thing To Do
• SVB Puts Subsidiaries Up For Sale As HSBC Buys UK Unit
• Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse Will Leave A Big Hole In the Startup World
• SVB’s Demise Cools An Already Chilly Climate For Startup Funding
• SVB, Signature Shutdowns Not Chilling Crypto
• In Their Own Words: What Silicon Valley Bank Meant To The Valley 

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here.

March did come in like a lion — at least compared to last week. Startups in cyber, defense and biotech all saw some large rounds in a week that for once was not dominated by artificial intelligence. Five VC-backed companies all saw nine-figure rounds this week, a strong start to the last month of the quarter.

1. Wiz, $300M, cybersecurity: Cybersecurity startup Wiz graduated to decacorn just this week, as the company based in the U.S. and Israel raised $300 million in fresh capital at a valuation of $10 billion. The Series D funding was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Founded in 2020, Wiz has now raised a total of $900 million, according to Crunchbase data. The funding for the cloud security startup came with other news; Wiz announced it won’t move any of that money to Israel due to ongoing unrest about proposed reforms to the country’s judicial system. Some fear the proposed judicial system reforms would undermine Israel’s democratic foundations and grant unchecked power to the government.

2. Skydio, $230M, drone: Drone startup Skydio locked up a $230 million Series E at a $2.2 billion valuation led by Linse Capital — more than double its valuation from just a couple of years ago. The new round comes almost exactly two years after the company raised a $170 million Series D at a valuation of more than $1 billion. Skydio produces drones for the consumer, enterprise and government sectors. Its drones are used by every branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, by over half of all U.S. State Departments of Transportation, and it now has more than 1,200 enterprise customers. Founded in 2014, Skydio has raised $562 million in total, according to the company.

3. Cargo Therapeutics, $200M, biotech: A couple of biotech startups rank pretty high on the list this week. The first is Cargo Therapeutics, which closed a $200 million Series A co-led by Third Rock Ventures, RTW Investments and Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund. The San Mateo, California-based company is developing CAR T-cell therapies for cancer. The startup is in phase 2 clinical trials for its treatment of large B-cell lymphoma. Founded in 2021, this is the biotech firm’s first outside funding, per Crunchbase.

4. Chroma Medicine, $135M, biotech: The second biotech firm with a nine-figure raise this week is on the opposite coast. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Chroma Medicine locked up a $135 million Series B led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). The startup’s gene editing platform does not rely on cutting or nicking DNA — which introduces risks — to regulate gene expression like most other therapeutic programs. Founded in 2021, the company has now raised $260 million, according to Crunchbase.

5. (tied) Kindbody, $100M, health care: Companies offering fertility health care benefits are becoming more commonplace in the U.S. Kindbody is one of those startups that partner with companies to offer employees family-building benefits, and this week the New York-based firm raised $100 million in capital from Perceptive Advisors. The new cash values Kindbody — founded in 2018 — at $1.8 billion. Kindbody, which owns and operates fertility clinics, has now raised more than $290 million in debt and equity, per the company.

5. (tied) Paratus Sciences, $100M, biotech: Bats have kind of been put through the ringer the past few years, what with the pandemic and all (although the new DOE report may dispute that). However, maybe they can also help human health. New York-based Paratus Sciences launched with a $100 million Series A co-led by Polaris Partners, ARCH Venture Partners, ClavystBio, EcoR1 Capital and Leaps by Bayer. The startup is looking at what bats and other animals can tell researchers about human health. Paratus is focusing on developing human therapeutics in areas like inflammation.

7. Bitwise Industries, $80M, education: Fresno, California-based Bitwise Industries, which attempts to bring coding skills to historically underrepresented minorities, closed an $80 million round led by existing investors Kapor Center and Motley Fool. Founded in 2013, the company has now raised approximately $158 million, per Crunchbase.

8. Wunderkind, $76M, marketing: New York-based marketing tech startup Wunderkind raised a $76 million Series C led by Neuberger Berman, TechCrunch reported. Founded in 2012, the company has raised nearly $152 million, per Crunchbase data.

9. Temporal, $75M, software: Seattle-based Temporal, whose platform helps in application development, raised $75 million in a Series “B-Prime.” Greenoaks joined existing investors in the round. Founded in 2019, Temporal has raised more than $200 million, per the company.

10. Shef, $67M, retail: San Francisco-based Shef, a chef-to-consumer marketplace, closed a Series B led by CRV that included $66.5 million in equity and $7 million in debt. Founded in 2019, Shef has raised more than $100 million, according to the company.

Big global deals

Very surprisingly, the top nine rounds all occurred in the U.S. this week. The only large raise this week to crack the top 10 was:

• Tokyo-based space tech startup Astroscale raised a $76 million Series G.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Feb. 25 to March 3. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Editor’s note: This article is the last of our three-part series on the state of venture investment to Black-founded startups in 2022. Driving these reports are data from Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight feature, which helps indicate diversity in startups’ and investment firms’ leadership teams. Part One introduced the funding landscape for Black-founded startups in 2022, and Part Two checked out the largest rounds raised by Black-founded startups. — Special Projects Editor Christine Kilpatrick

Dr. Iman Abuzeid and Rome Portlock are part of a rare club.

The pair founded Incredible Health, a career marketplace that connects nurses with medical organizations to combat an ongoing massive worker shortage in health care. The company raised $80 million in 2022, making it one of the 52 Black-founded health care companies to receive funding that year (according to Crunchbase data). 

Between 2016 and 2022, Black-founded companies made up around 1.7% of all venture-backed deals in the health care space, Crunchbase data shows. In 2022, as health care startups overall raised more than $555 billion, Black-founded startups saw only 1.3% of that money.

“You can acknowledge that the bias exists because the data proves it, but you actually have to compartmentalize it mentally and not dwell on it,” said Abuzeid. “It doesn’t actually help you as an individual CEO.”

It’s a tough reality to ignore when Black people have historically been abused by the health care system, leading to poor health outcomes. The infant mortality rate for Black babies born to rich families is 22% higher than that of white babies born to poor families. Clinical trials meant to test the safety and efficacy of drugs and vaccines overrepresent white people — one study found that in 10 years of cancer drug clinical trials, only 3.1% of participants were Black.

You may wonder why founder diversity in health care is important when vaccines and drugs work inside the body.

“If, every time someone got into a particular car and they were fine, and then a Black person drove that car and had a 1 in 4 chance of crashing every single time, would you be comfortable with people driving that car at all?” said Jumpstart Nova partner Kathryne Cooper, who focuses on Black-founded health care companies. “If it’s not safe for one group, it’s not actually safe for any of us.”

Filling the gaps in health care equity

Most Americans are really unsatisfied with the health care system, which is littered with friction points that range from inconvenient to medically dangerous.

For example, Incredible Health, a 6-year-old startup, is focusing on a problem that has long plagued the health care industry: low nursing staffing rates. Lack of adequate staffing makes it harder for all patients to find timely care. A shortage of staff also means health professionals spend less time with each patient. 

But it’s a problem most salient in medical deserts — large swathes of the U.S. where there aren’t enough hospitals, doctors and mental health professionals to take care of the population. It can often lead to medical neglect, especially for chronic issues — Black patients with diabetes, for example, are three times more likely to lose their limbs than others, despite it being one of the most preventable surgeries. 

According to Crunchbase data, 21% of the 28 largest funding rounds to Black-founded companies in 2022 went toward health care companies fixing small gaps in the health care system. Somatus, which provides holistic care for patients dealing with kidney disease, raised $325 million in Series E funding last year. Eleanor Health, a mental health startup aimed at substance abuse patients, raised $50 million in Series C funding.

Incredible Health’s 2022 Series B raise was one of the largest in the health care staffing space that year. But it also came with a strategy: Abuzeid targeted technology-focused venture firms in the Bay Area with a history of funding underrepresented founders. 

“Frankly, it means that they don’t just talk the talk, they actually walk the walk,” Abuzeid said. “They’ve already proven that there isn’t some weird bias going on, and I don’t have to deal with that aspect at all.”

Closing the gap in health care funding

When funding flooded into the health care space in 2020 in a pandemic-induced frenzy, Black-founded startups saw less than 2% of it, Crunchbase data shows.

According to a report from digital health-focused investment firm Rock Health, 41% of Black health care startup founders said they bootstrapped their company, while less than 25% of white and Asian founders said the same.

Inequity is often baked into the fundraising process — founders with connections in the venture world are more likely to get their foot in the door. Many venture firms look at past fundraising rounds to help determine whether or not they should invest, and some minority founders aren’t always able to scrape together a sizable friends and family round to launch their business. 

But some firms like Jumpstart Nova, an offshoot of Nashville, Tennessee-based Jumpstart Health Investors that is specifically dedicated to funding Black-founded health care companies, are rethinking the process. The fund details what kinds of startups it invests in, and all founders have to fill out the same form before being considered for an investment. 

“Black founders are chronically underfunded and health care is no exception,” Cooper said. “Health care affects all Americans. And if a certain group is going to be cut out from this funding, I don’t think that’s representative of all health care opportunities.”

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Esusu, a fintech startup that helps renters build credit with on-time payment reporting, was rejected 326 times by investors prior to its 2022 funding that valued the company at a billion dollars. 

Investors who passed over the company did not believe in “this idea of investing in low- to medium-income households and helping them get quality financial access to products,” said Wemimo Abbey, Esusu’s co-founder and co-CEO. 

That all changed in early 2022, when Esusu raised a $130 million Series B funding led by the SoftBank Vision Fund — just six months after announcing its Series A in 2021. 

Abbey, who grew up in the slums of Nigeria and came to the U.S. as a student, had direct experience of the impact of not having a credit history. He was not able to get a loan from a bank, so borrowed from a predatory lender. 

Around 47 million American households — representing more than 100 million people, or roughly a third of the country’s population — rent their homes. But those rental histories don’t help to build credit, said Abbey. Esusu works with property owners to help renters build their credit scores with on-time payment reporting. The company has 3.5 million rental units on its platform, and grew 300% over the past year. Esusu also provides rental assistance with 0% fees in order to support renters and avoid evictions. 

“As a society we’re not solving homelessness backwards, and the landlord also doesn’t have to evict people,” said Abbey. 

Esusu was one of three Black-founded U.S. startups that joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in 2022. At the top of the list was new health care unicorn Virginia-based Somatus, which raised $325 million in a round that valued the company at $2.5 billion. Somatus provides kidney care and prevention through a network of health care providers. 

Another Black-founded health care startup in recruiting, San-Francisco-based Incredible Health, raised $80 million last year, valuing the company at $1.7 billion. 

These three companies joined a 2022 cohort of 170 new U.S. unicorn companies, based on an analysis of Crunchbase data.

In the U.S., 13 current unicorn companies have a Black or African-American founder, out of 714 unicorn companies. This amounts to just 1.8% of U.S. unicorn companies. 

And in total, Black-founded startups in the U.S. raised about $2.3 billion in 2022, representing 1.1% of U.S. venture funding that year, per a recent Crunchbase News report. That’s more than a 50% drop in VC funding from 2021, while the broader U.S. funding market was down 37% over the same time period. 

Leading sectors

Behind these stark statistics are companies building key services for consumers and businesses. Leading sectors for funding in 2022 to Black-founded companies included financial services, health care, consumer goods and professional services, based on an analysis of Crunchbase data. 

San Francisco and Nigeria-based fintech unicorn Flutterwave, a cross-border payments platform that connects 34 countries in Africa to the broader payment ecosystem, was first valued as a unicorn in 2021. It went on to raise a $250 million Series D funding in early 2022 led by Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group that valued the company at $3 billion, making it the third most highly valued company with a Black founder alongside Calendly. 

Other Black-founded fintech and SaaS service companies that raised VC funding in 2022 include:

• San Francisco-based career service company Career Karma raised a Series B of $40 million led by Top Tier Capital Partners. 
• Atlanta workspace logistic fulfillment for e-commerce providers Saltbox raised a $35 million Series B led by Cox Enterprises and Pendulum Holdings. 
• An HR management platform for small businesses, Los Angeles-based Bambee, raised a $30 million Series C from QED Investors.
• San Francisco-based Wonderschool, a service to assist the setup of preschools, raised a $25 million Series B led by Goldman Sachs.
• Oakland-based Promise, a payment processor for utilities and government agencies, announced a Series B of $25 million led by The General Partnership. 

With the slower funding environment, companies tightened their belts in the latter half of 2022 to preserve cash. Only one of the companies listed here raised funding in the second half of the year. And there’s no sign of how long the U.S. venture market will have to wait to see the first Black-founded unicorn in 2023.  

Methodology

Funding amounts and counts for the most recent year were collected through Feb. 21, 2022.

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data provided by our Diversity Spotlight partners, venture partners, our community network and news sources. The data in this report is focused on the U.S. market for underrepresented minorities, namely Black-/African-American-founded companies.

Crunchbase’s dataset is constantly expanding, but there are gaps. A company may not have founders listed, or the Diversity Spotlight data may not be updated on its Crunchbase profile. We do believe we are missing companies, especially at the early stages of funding.

If you notice missing data please reach out to spotlight@crunchbase.com or verify with your company email to update your company’s Diversity Spotlight tags directly onsite.

Crunchbase, like all databases of private-market transactions, has a documented pattern of reporting delays. The data for 2022 will increase over time relative to previous years. As data is added to Crunchbase over time, some of the numbers in this report may shift.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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This is a monthly feature that runs down the month’s top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last year’s top rounds here.

The new year did not start slowly, as U.S.-based startups saw five rounds of more than $200 million. Of course, all the talk was about ​​OpenAI’s huge strategic raise, but health care, cybersecurity and renewable energy startups all saw large raises last month as investors wrote big checks.

​​1. OpenAI, $10B, artificial intelligence: The deal had been rumored for weeks, but was finally made official. Microsoft confirmed it has agreed to a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment” into OpenAI, the startup behind the artificial intelligence tools ChatGPT and DALL-E. The exact dollar amount was not confirmed, but Semafor reported earlier last month that Microsoft was in talks to invest as much as $10 billion. The deal follows a $1 billion investment in 2019 from Microsoft into the AI startup. It will help position Microsoft in what will be an all-out battle for AI dominance with other tech giants such as Alphabet and Amazon. Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal reported the startup could be valued at $29 billion thanks to a new tender offer.

2. Netskope, $401M, cybersecurity: There must be something about cybersecurity startups and $401 million in convertible notes. In October, Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Arctic Wolf raised $401 million in convertible notes led by existing investor Owl Rock. This week another startup, Santa Clara, California-based Netskope received a $401 million convertible note investment led by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value. Both Netskope and Arctic Wolf are companies that have been rumored to be IPO candidates for the past few years, so such financings make sense with the path to the public market blocked. Convertible notes work like a short-term loan, but are repaid to the investor at a later point in equity — i.e., after an IPO — typically at a discount and can also include an interest rate. Founded in 2012, Netskope has now raised $1.4 billion, per Crunchbase.

3. (tied) Monogram Health, $375M, health care: Nashville-based Monogram Health is one of several health care startups to raise big last month, as the company closed a huge $375 million funding round. The round included strategic investments from the likes of CVS Health, Cigna Ventures and others. The startup is a specialty provider of in-home care for patients living with polychronic conditions, including chronic kidney disease. More than 37 million American adults live with chronic kidney disease, according to the company. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $555 million, per Crunchbase data.

3. (tied) Silicon Ranch Corp., $375M, renewable energy: Silicon Ranch Corp. actually announced a $600 million raise last month, but only the initial funding of $375 million has closed, with the additional $225 million expected to fund in early 2023. Founded in 2011, Silicon Ranch provides customized renewable energy, carbon and battery storage solutions for a variety of partners across North America. Last year, the company installed 11 new solar facilities that produce nearly 700 megawatts of new generating capacity. Silicon Ranch is no stranger to large raises; it raised $775 million early last year. The company has now raised about $1.6 billion, per Crunchbase.

5. Paradigm, $203M, health care: New York-based Paradigm emerged last month looking to take on one of the more complicated aspects of the health care industry. The startup, conceived by Arch Venture Partners and co-incubated by Arch and General Catalyst, raised a $203 million Series A. Paradigm is trying to change the way clinical trials are run, making it more equitable for patients to get in on them while also making it easier for health care providers to participate and cooperate. The tech-enabled platform aims to open up trials for more people and reduce barriers such as location and finance as it also looks to accelerate the clinical research process. Time will tell if it is successful — the startup already has big-name backers.

6. (tied) Asimov, $175M, biotech: In what seemed like a good month for biotech, Boston-based Asimov raised a $175 million Series B led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The startup is developing a synthetic biology platform to design and manufacture next-generation therapeutics, including biologics, cell and gene therapies, and RNA. It currently partners with more than 25 companies that include pharmaceutical companies, biotechs and manufacturing organizations. Founded in 2017, Asimov has raised more than $200 million, per the company.

6. (tied) VettaFi, $175M, financial services: In the financial realm, data is gold and VettaFi has a lot of that apparently. The New York-based startup formed last year and provides data analytics and indexing for financial advisers, asset managers and institutional investors. The company received a $175 million investment from global market developer TMX Group — whose operations include both the Toronto Stock Exchange and Montreal Exchange. The deal gives TMX a 21% common equity stake in VettaFi.

8. (tied) Colossal Biosciences, $150M, biotech: The idea of bringing back the dodo also was able to bring in big money. De-extinction platform Colossal Biosciences raised a $150 million Series B, giving the startup a valuation of more than $1 billion, per reports. The Dallas-based startup, which launched in 2021, plans to use the new cash infusion to continue to advance its genetic engineering, as well as keep developing its software and hardware solutions for applications involved with de-extinction, conservation and human health care. With this new round, Colossal has launched its Avian Genomics Group, which will pursue the de-extinction of the dodo. The startup previously had talked about bringing back the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger. Last March, Colossal Bioscience raised a $60 million Series A led by Thomas Tull and At One Ventures. Per the company, it has now raised a total of $225 million.

8. (tied) Pathalys Pharma, $150M, biotech: Raleigh, North Carolina-based Pathalys Pharma raised $150 million through what it called “a combination of secured product financing and equity to support the two phase 3 clinical trials, registration efforts and pre-commercialization activities for upacicalcet” — which is used to treat hyperparathyroidism. Abingworth was the lead investor. Simultaneously, the company and Launch Therapeutics announced a collaboration to advance phase 3 clinical trials for the drug. Founded in 2021, Pathalys has raised $150 million to date, according to the late-stage biopharma startup.

10. Xpansiv, $125M, financial services: San Francisco-based Xpansiv was busy last month. The company announced the acquisition of Evolution Markets — which helps with transacting environmental commodities — and the closing of a $125 million round. Xpansiv said the new capital is “linked to the recent $400 million capital raise led by Blackstone Energy Partners which closed in August 2022.” New strategic investors Bank of America and Goldman Sachs participated in the new round. Xpansiv is looking to grow its market infrastructure platform which helps with energy transactions such as carbon credits and renewable energy certificates. Founded in 2017, the company has raised more than $700 million, according to Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Not all the big rounds went to U.S.-based startups, as another AI firm had a big raise.

• London-based global life insurance group Resolution Life raised a $1 billion investment from Nippon Life.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies in January. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Advances in data science, quantum computing and biology have collided to transform how we treat illness. Just as we decry bloodletting today, one day future scientists will laugh at how we prescribe medication based on “symptoms” and “weight” and not genetic data. 

I’m talking about the “omics”: transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics and (everyone’s favorite), genomics. We’ve only recently begun to tap into this set of sciences to create tailor-made medicines and treatments for each person instead of one-size-fits-all drugs. 

The omics is a booming industry in biotech, garnering more than $2.4 billion in venture funding as we entered December 2022, according to Crunchbase data. Since 2019, funding has nearly tripled for startups parsing through the intricacies of cells to understand the sources of diseases on a molecular level, and how to manage or eradicate them. The pandemic sparked advances in omics in the form of rapid diagnostic tests and the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. 

Even Amazon Web Services got involved in November when it introduced Amazon Omics.

Many of these startups can turn a profit long before they actually make and sell a drug, simply by licensing out their platform to other biotech companies and employing a fee-for-service model. At a time when venture firms are pulling back on funding, the omics are likely to see far more investment from biotech-minded VCs. 

“From an investor standpoint, they’re derisking their business model and they may not need as much money. All of these go hand-in-hand with genomics and bioinformatics,” said David Crean, a longtime biotech investor and managing general partner at Cardiff Advisory. “You have to have a good database to profile all this stuff and that ultimately drives personalized medicine. 

You’re going to see investors putting money in that.”

What are the omics?

Seemingly every day a new kind of omic is popping into the life science lexicon, but let’s focus on four: genomics, metabolomics, proteomics and transcriptomics. 

You may have heard of genomics, the mapping of every strand of DNA that makes up a person. Genomics can allow doctors to predict what kinds of diseases a patient will get long before they present symptoms, staving off chronic illness.

We’ve talked about metabolomics before and how it can be used to tailor medicines to properly work in the human body. Using metabolomics, pharma companies can see how drugs metabolize in the body and change them so they work faster, better and safer. 

Then there’s proteomics, the study of proteins, where most diseases are manifested. Drug development has a 90% failure rate, due in part by the fact that most drugs are built to latch onto targets in the body that aren’t successful. Protein study is the key to unlocking new targets in the body for drugs to swim to. 

Transcriptomics, which studies RNA, can help scientists tap into which genes are working, and links the genome and proteome together. 

“It’s simply a march toward having a truly multi-omic ability with biology,” said Jack Geremia, co-founder of metabolomics startup Matterworks. “I would say that probably one of the biggest advances of the last part of the last century and the beginning of this one was rapid, efficient, effective sequencing for DNA. Those tools had to be built.”

Why does this matter?

There’s a guiding principle doctors use when prescribing medication called the five rights: the right patient, the right drug, the right route, the right dose and the right time. 

If you’ve ever been prescribed medication, you’ve seen the process play out: A doctor prescribes a cocktail of drugs, often at an amount set by middle-of-the-road standards, and then spends every month with the patient tinkering with dose adjustments or cycling through different medications, weighing efficacy against side effects until the right combination works.

But identifying what “right” looks like will be very different in a world governed by omics, where scientists will be able to spend more time looking at each patients’ individual cells rather than making guesses based on blood pressure or body temperature. 

Here’s the thing: We don’t know where many diseases come from. We can’t predict them or spot them until they’re already present. Many of our treatments today are playing catch-up to ailments that are unpredictable and evolving. 

Venture is pumping money into omics to solve these problems. Cellarity raised $121 million in October for its ability to use genomics to create cancer treatments. Transcriptomics startup Vizgen raised $85.2 million in June to advance drug discovery, and expect far better returns on investment than traditional biotech startups. 

By mapping out every molecule, gene function and cell in the human body, scientists can find patterns that may allow them to predict what diseases will occur, how they will progress, and how to make effective treatments to lower pharma’s dismal 90% failure rate, allowing pharma companies to rake in more money.  

This vast data would be useless without advancements in machine learning and computing to swallow this bulk of information and spit out useful insights.

“Genomics was the first omic to really be popularized. That’s actually just one data stream. But it turns out biology is crazy complex, therefore it makes sense that we would need other omics to really understand biology,” said Sara Choi, a Wing VC partner investing in data-heavy biotech companies. “So it’s not just genomics that matter, but it could be transcriptomics, it could be metabolomics, proteomics. And so I think that the very basic data collection was just not there.”

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While last year shattered records in venture capital, 2022 started off slow and only declined from there. Large, late-stage rounds were most affected as venture capital started to pull back. However, 10 companies in the U.S. were still able to break the $1 billion barrier in individual raises this year. 

As we close out the year, let’s take a look at the top rounds of 2022:

1. Epic Games, $2B, gaming: The metaverse is going to be epic — at least that is what both Sony and KIRKBI — the family-owned holding and investment company behind The LEGO Group — are betting on. Both invested $1 billion in  North Carolina-based Epic Games, valuing the gaming giant at $31.5 billion. The deal came just a week after Epic announced a partnership with LEGO to develop a “family-friendly” metaverse for kids. The company said the new cash will “advance the company’s vision to build the metaverse.” Founded in 1991, the Fortnite creator has raised more than $7 billion to date, according to Crunchbase data.

2. SpaceX, $1.7B, space travel: Elon Musk was everywhere this year — including here. Along with the seemingly never-ending Twitter purchase, his SpaceX company made headlines after it raised $1.68 billion in June. It was reported that the raise values the Hawthorne, California-based company at around $125 billion. SpaceX raised $1.9 billion in funding in April 2020 and has raised a total of $7.8 billion in funding, according to Crunchbase data. Previous investors in the company include NASA, Stack Capital, Bracket Capital and the United States Space Force, among others.

2. (tied) Lineage Logistics, $1.7B, logistics: Logistics were big this year with the supply chain still supremely mucked up. Novi, Michigan-based Lineage Logistics rode that interest to a huge $1.7 billion private equity round led by D1 Capital Partners in January. The past couple of years exposed many flaws in the global and domestic supply chains — and investors have taken note that it is an industry ripe for disruption. Other startups such as Seattle-based Convoy and San Francisco-based Flexport also landed large rounds in 2022.

4. (tied) Anduril, $1.5B, defense: Costa Mesa, California-based Anduril locked up a Series E worth nearly $1.5 billion in December that valued the company at $8.5 billion. That nearly doubles the company’s previous valuation in June 2021. The funding round was led by Valor Equity Partners. Anduril was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, most famous for selling virtual reality company Oculus to Meta — then called Facebook — for $2 billion. Anduril builds software and hardware enhanced with artificial intelligence and machine learning for the military and defense industry. It works with the U.S. and its allies to create drones, underwater vehicles, and different operating and control systems. Luckey has said he started Anduril because many big tech firms were turning their backs on doing business with the U.S. Department of Defense, hurting the U.S. military’s ability to modernize as defense needs change.

4. (tied) Fanatics, $1.5B, retail: Jacksonville, Florida-based Fanatics raised $1.5 billion in a funding round that values the sports platform company at $27 billion. The company — which has exclusive licensing deals with most U.S.-based professional sports leagues and many universities to make and sell official team merchandise — was most recently valued at $18 billion, less than a year ago. The latest funding round includes new investors Fidelity, BlackRock and MSD Partners, as well as existing investors. Earlier this year, Fanatics acquired Topps trading cards for $500 million.

6. Cruise, $1.35B, autonomous cars: This was a strange one. In February, Cruise announced that SoftBank Vision Fund would invest $1.35 billion now that Cruise was operating fully driverless cars. The thing is — SoftBank reneged. That would be the first sign of SoftBank’s growing problems and poor investment strategy. SoftBank had made the commitment to invest when the company hit the milestone back in 2018 with its initial funding of $900 million. After SoftBank backed out, however, General Motors acquired SoftBank’s equity ownership stake in Cruise for $2.1 billion and made the startup whole on the round.

7. Citadel Securities, $1.15B, financial services: Miami-based market-maker Citadel Securities locked up a $1.15 billion minority investment led by Sequoia. The company provides both institutional and retail investors with liquidity to execute transactions across an array of equity and fixed income products. Citadel Securities works in more than 50 countries, supporting more than 1,600 clients.

8. (tied) TeraWatt Infrastructure, $1B, electric vehicles: San Francisco-based charging startup TeraWatt Infrastructure landed a huge Series A of more than $1 billion back in September. Launched out of stealth in May 2021, TeraWatt Infrastructure has built out a network of charging stations. The company acquires property in “strategically relevant” locations and helps customers operate EV fleets without the need to own and operate their own infrastructure. The new funding comes from funds managed by Vision Ridge Partners and existing investors Keyframe Capital and Cyrus Capital, and will be used for further development and expansion, including the buildout of a growing portfolio of charging centers. The round is the largest raised by a VC-backed startup in the electric vehicle segment this year, according to Crunchbase data. The company says it previously raised a $100 million seed round.

8. (tied) Securonix, $1B, cybersecurity: No cybersecurity company raised a round larger than this Lone Star State cyber company. The $1 billion-plus round was led by Vista Equity Partners, and is cybersecurity’s largest raise since San Jose, California-based cloud security provider Lacework closed a $1.3 billion round in November 2021. That was cybersecurity’s only round worth $1 billion or more last year. Addison, Texas-based Securonix offers security information and event management, and extended detection and response capabilities to companies. While we covered the heat the XDR sector has seen here, it is also interesting to add a note about the SIEM space. Earlier this year, news broke that Cisco had looked at buying Splunk in what would be the giant’s largest acquisition ever. While Splunk does a lot of things, many looked at the deal as a way for Cisco to enhance its IT security with Splunk’s SIEM platform and ability to use data to improve security.

8. (tied) Verily, $1B, health care: Google and its parent, Alphabet, have been active health care investors — especially recently. That trend has continued as Alphabet led a $1 billion investment in its former life sciences unit, Verily. Alphabet spun out what would become Verily as its own independent subsidiary in 2015. The South San Francisco-based firm — which introduced a COVID-19 testing program in 2020 — has now raised more than $3.5 billion in capital, according to Crunchbase.

Big global deals

While U.S.-based startups were able to weather the chilly conditions and raise large rounds, three of the five biggest global rounds were raised by companies outside the U.S.

• Denmark-based energy trading house Danske Commodities raised a $3.7 billion corporate round.
• China-based GAC Aion New Energy Automobile, which has five different EVs in the market, raised a Series A worth approximately $2.5 billion.
• Viacom18 Digital Ventures, a joint venture operation in India between Viacom, raised a $1.8 billion venture round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the year. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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