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.

The week saw another five startups lock up rounds of $100 million or more. While the week was a little slower than last, it still is a strong showing for larger, big-money rounds. Biotech took center stage, notching three of the top four rounds. 

1. Obsidian Therapeutics, $161M, biotech: It was another big week for biotech startups raising huge sums of cash. This week, Obsidian Therapeutics leads the way. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company locked up a $160.5 million Series C financing led by new investor Wellington Management. Obsidian is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing engineered cell and gene therapies. The new cash will be used to further its tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte program.

2. Flip, $144M, social media: Social commerce startup Flip locked up $144 million in new cash led by Streamlined Ventures in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion. It also included a $50 million investment from advertising software firm AppLovin. The Los Angeles-based startup is a marketplace that offers video reviews. Reviewers get paid based on views and product sales and Flip gets a commission on sales and making reviews more visible. Founded in 2019, the company has raised nearly $239 million, per Crunchbase.

3. Alterome Therapeutics, $132M, biotech: Oncology biotech Alterome Therapeutics raised a $132 million Series B led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives. Alterome says its machine learning platform for drug discovery — Kraken — is helping it advance a pipeline of small molecule therapies targeting a spectrum of oncogenic targets. The company has focused on approaches designed to specifically target cancer cells over normal cells. Founded in 2021, the company has raised $231 million, per Crunchbase.

4. Diagonal Therapeutics, $128M, biotech: Diagonal Therapeutics, which is discovering and developing agonist antibodies to fight illness, is the next biotech on the list. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm launched this week with a $128 million Series A co-led by BVF Partners and Atlas Venture. The firm’s lead program is for the treatment of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, a severely debilitating bleeding disorder with limited therapeutic options.

5. Aerospike, $109M, database: Real-time NoSQL database management system Aerospike nabbed a nine-figure round this week, closing a $109 million investment led by Sumeru Equity Partners. The company will use the fresh cash to meet increasing demand for databases that can scale thanks to the rapid adoption of AI. Founded in 2009, the Mountain View, California-based startup has raised $241 million, per Crunchbase.

6. Alsym Energy, $78M, energy: Woburn, Massachusetts-based Alsym Energy, a developer of nonflammable rechargeable batteries, announced a $78 million funding round co-led by Tata Limited — a subsidiary of Tata Sons — and General Catalyst. Founded in 2015, the company has raised $110 million, per Crunchbase.

7. SiMa.ai, $70M, semiconductor: San Jose, California-based semiconductor startup SiMa.ai raised $70 million led by Maverick Capital. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $330 million, per Crunchbase.

8. Torus, $67M, energy: South Salt Lake City, Utah-based Torus, which designs and manufactures energy storage and management products, closed a $67 million round — consisting of new equity, conversion of outstanding notes and a loan facility — led by Origin Ventures. This is the first announced round for the company founded in 2021, per Crunchbase.

9. Binx Health, $65M, healthcare: Boston-based Binx Health, a diagnostic testing device for sexually transmitted diseases for healthcare practices and hospitals, says it provides a result within 30 minutes rather than 10 days, which leads to immediate treatment. The company raised a $65 million Series F funding including debt. The funding was led by Hildred Capital with participation from EQT Life Sciences.

10. Homebase, $60M, human resources: San Francisco-based Homebase, a human resources and team management app, locked up a $60 million Series D led by L Catterton Growth. Founded in 2014, the company has raised $189 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

In a rarity, the second-biggest round of the week went to a French startup.

• Paris-based Pigment, a business forecasting platform, raised a $145 million venture 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 March 30 to April 5. 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

The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Redpoint, Microsoft Ventures (M12), Conviction, NEA and others. The round was at a reported $350 million valuation

The Palo Alto, California-based startup is developing a public cloud purpose-built for ML workloads. The company says its mission is to “ensure humanity maximizes the utility of the computing power we already have, and will produce” — as compute becomes harder and more expensive for many companies trying to embrace the AI revolution.

“AI accelerator compute is arguably the most critical resource in civilization today, so the bottlenecks here reverberate broadly,” said founder and CEO Jared Quincy Davis, a former DeepMind employee, in a statement. “While the much-discussed GPU shortage is part of the challenge we face, it’s not the only issue. Arguably, the industry suffers vastly more from under-utilization than from under-supply. The work we are doing at Foundry is addressing this from multiple angles.”

Money continues to flow for AI

Despite some predictions of a funding slowdown this year, the AI industry has held relatively strong.

While it seems unlikely to hit the $50 billion mark it did last year, the space has already seen more than $10 billion flow into it this year from investors, per Crunchbase data.

Just last week, AI startup Together raised a $106 million round led by Salesforce Ventures 1 that doubled its valuation to $1.25 billion. The Menlo Park, California-based company has developed a cloud platform to allow developers to build on open and custom AI models — allowing customers to fine-tune open source foundation models. 

Related Crunchbase Pro queries:

• Rounds Raised By Startups Using AI In 2024
• Astera Shares Soar Following IPO

Related reading:

• Eye On AI: Startups Should Heed ‘AI-Washing’ Warnings

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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.

This week was a story of the haves and have-nots. Of course there were more big AI-related rounds (the haves) but also a couple of big raises from some sectors that had been eschewed by investors not that long ago  — autonomous vehicles and industrial security (the have-nots). 

All in all, it was another strong week for big rounds. The top 10 list also includes three new unicorns.

1. Applied Intuition, $250M, autonomous vehicles: Autonomous vehicle software developer Applied Intuition locked up a $250 million Series E valuing the company at $6 billion — a 67% uptick in value from its previous round. The new round was led by Lux Capital, Elad Gil and strategic investor Porsche Investments Management. The Mountain View, California-based startup develops software for the automotive, trucking, construction, mining and other industries. The company leverages generative AI in developing software to help customers create driver-assistance systems and automated driving solutions. The up round comes despite venture funding in the autonomous vehicle sector continuing to be in decline. Last year, autonomous driving startups raised less than $5 billion — the sector’s lowest funding total since 2017, per Crunchbase data. The drop has come amid numerous setbacks for the industry. Just last month, Apple unceremoniously shuttered its autonomous electric car initiative after a decade of work. Founded in 2017, Applied Intuition has raised more than $600 million, per Crunchbase.

2. Luminary Cloud, $115M, software: Engineers make a lot of cool things nowadays. To do that, they need to simulate how things will react under certain conditions. Luminary Cloud, a computer-aided engineering SaaS platform, came out of stealth this week to help them do just that. The San Mateo, California-based startup also announced a $115 million raise led by Sutter Hill Ventures. The company has customers in the aerospace and defense, automotive, industrial equipment and other industries, looking to solve challenges such as increasing the range of electric vehicles and achieving energy efficiency goals.

3. Zephyr AI, $111M, biotech: Mclean, Virginia-based healthcare startup Zephyr AI closed a $111 million Series A from investors that included Revolution Growth and Eli Lilly & Company. Like many biotech startups raising big money currently, Zephyr is bringing AI to the sector. The company pairs its healthcare dataset with artificial intelligence algorithms to create insights in the areas of oncology and cardiometabolic disease. Founded in 2020, the company has raised nearly $130 million, per Crunchbase data.

4. Together, $106M, artificial intelligence: It was less than four months ago that AI startup Together made this list with a $102.5 million Series A funding round led by Kleiner Perkins. Well, the Menlo Park, California-based startup is back with a $106 million round led by Salesforce Ventures 1. The new round doubles the company’s valuation to $1.25 billion. The Nvidia-backed company has developed a cloud platform to allow developers to build on open and custom AI models — allowing customers to fine-tune open source foundation models. Founded in 2020, the company has raised nearly $230 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Nozomi Networks, $100M, cybersecurity: Things are looking up for industrial cybersecurity startups. A week after Claroty made this list, startup Nozomi Networks locked up a $100 million Series E from investors including Mitsubishi Electric and Schneider Electric. The San Francisco-based company offers industrial security — also called operational technology (OT) security — and IoT security platforms. While the sector is not threatening generative AI’s hold on investors, it does show once again investors — especially strategics — are eyeing the industry as attacks and threats mount. New OT security platforms have long been thought to hold potential, but securing older industrial control systems that were designed decades ago — long before cyberattacks were a reality — has proven difficult to build. Founded in 2013, Nozomi has raised $266 million, per Crunchbase.

6. CarbonCapture, $80M, climate: Los Angeles-based CarbonCapture, a direct air capture company, completed a $80 million Series A led by Prime Movers Lab. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $115 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Liquid Death, $67M, beverage: Trendy beverage startup Liquid Death hit unicorn status after closing a $67 million financing at a $1.4 billion valuation. No lead investor was named, but the round included investment from the likes of SuRo Capital, strategics and several folks in the entertainment and sports world. The Los Angeles-based healthy beverage startup, founded in 2017, has raised nearly $268 million, per Crunchbase.

8. Bear Robotics, $60M, robotics: Redwood City, California-based Bear Robotics, a robot waiter startup, raised a $60 million from LG Electronics. Founded in 2017, the company has raised nearly $176 million, per Crunchbase data.

9. Serenity Kids, $52M, food: Austin, Texas-based Serenity Kids, a maker of shelf-stable pouched baby food, closed a $52 million minority investment and partnership with Stride Consumer Partners. Founded in 2016, the company has raised nearly $64 million, per Crunchbase.

10. Berachain, $69M, blockchain: Minnesota-based blockchain platform Berachain reportedly raised  more than $69 million in a funding round co-led by Brevan Howard Digital and Framework Ventures that values the company at $1.5 billion. Founded in 2021, the company has raised $111 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Applied was the biggest round of the week globally, but the second largest of the week came from Europe.

• Germany-based Tubulis, a chemotherapeutic medication developer, raised a more than $139 million Series B.

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 March 9 to 15. 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

Two companies from China joined the board after raising around a billion dollars in funding each: a year-old foundation model company and a 6-year-old satellite network company. 

The next-largest funding for a new February unicorn was raised by a 2-year-old U.S.-based robotics company.  

The artificial intelligence theme was evident again on the board last month: Two of the new companies on the board are in the AI sector, and many of the other newcomers have the technology woven into their products.

Four of the new unicorns hail from the U.S., three from China and one each from France, The Netherlands and Italy. 

Now let’s take a closer look at the new unicorns of February 2024 and the sectors from which they hail.

AI

• One-year-old foundation model LLM company Moonshot AI raised a Series B of $1 billion led by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and Sequoia Capital China. The Beijing-based company was valued at $2.5 billion in the deal. 
• San Francisco-based Lambda, a cloud-based GPU company, raised its $320 million Series C. Pittsburgh-based US Innovative Technology Fund led the funding to the 12-year-old company, at a value of $1.5 billion.  

Security

• Texas-based endpoint management company NinjaOne has grown in recent years with the shift to hybrid work and the need for oversight of remote devices by IT teams. According to the company, it has around 17,000 customers. The 10-year-old company raised a $232 million Series C led by ICONIQ Growth. It was valued at $1.9 billion. 
• San Francisco-based crowdsourced security platform Bugcrowd raised a $102 million Series E funding. The 11-year-old company was valued at $1 billion in the funding led by General Catalyst. 

Fintech

• Paris-based Pennylane, a bookkeeping platform for small and medium sized businesses, raised a Series C of $43 million at a value of $1.1 billion. The 3-year-old company’s funding was led by DST Global and Sequoia Capital.
• Amsterdam-based DataSnipper, a financial audit company, raised a Series B of $100 million. The 6-year-old company was valued at $1 billion by Index Ventures. The company plans to automate tedious tasks using AI, freeing auditors to focus on higher level tasks. 

Space

• Low-orbit broadband satellite network company Yuanxin Satellite raised a Series A of $943 million and joined the unicorn ranks. The 6-year-old Shanghai-based company’s funding was led by China Development Bank.

Transport

• Two-year-old electric hydrogen truck company Zhizi Automobile, based in China, raised a  $53 million funding at a $3.3 billion value. 

Robotics

• Sunnyvale, California-based humanoid robot developer Figure raised a $675 million Series B funding. The 2-year-old company raised a party round including Microsoft, OpenAI’s Startup Fund, Nvidia and Bezos Expeditions, among others, that valued it at $2.7 billion.

Sales and marketing

• Milan-based Bending Spoons — a digital app developer known for image and video editing as well as the acquirer of Evernote, Meetup and Mosaic — raised $156 million in funding led by Durable Capital Partners. The 10-year-old company was valued at $2.6 billion.

Downgraded

While 10 new companies joined the board, one fell off. 

Online checkout company Bolt was removed from the unicorn board as the company initiated a share buyback plan at a mere $300 million valuation, as reported by The Information. In that move, the company shaved 97% off its value from its last known valuation of $11 billion in January 2022. 

Related Crunchbase unicorn queries 

• The Crunchbase Private Unicorn Company List (1,516)
• Unicorns in the U.S. (736)
• Unicorns in Asia (486)
• European unicorns (208)
• Unicorns from LatAm (35)
• Emerging unicorn leaderboard (386)
• Exited unicorns (448)

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round. 

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter. 

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board. 

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits. 

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.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

Before the year started, we pontificated there might be a slowdown in venture dollars and for the first few weeks it was looking like that prediction might be borne out.

While the first half of January saw some nice-sized funding rounds for AI startups, extremely big rounds were nonexistent. In fact, there were no rounds of $100 million or more until the month’s waning days (both Rebellions.ai and Kore.ai announced big raises on Jan. 30).

Overall, the month saw less than $2.2 billion go to AI startups, per Crunchbase data. That came after a year that saw more than $50 billion invested in the AI space.

February, however, has told a very different story — highlighted this week with reports China’s artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI raised more than $1 billion in a funding round led by the Alibaba Group Holding and HongShan, formerly Sequoia Capital China.

In total, the first three weeks of the month have already seen more than $2.6 billion invested — including a half-dozen rounds of $100 million or more — with still a week-and-a-half left.

Aside from the Moonshot AI raise — the first $1 billion AI round of the year — other large rounds in the last week-plus include:

• San Jose, California-based Lambda raised a $320 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation led by Thomas Tull’s US Innovative Technology Fund. The company offers cloud computing services and hardware for training artificial intelligence software.
• San Francisco-based Sierra, a conversational AI company, raised $110 million led by Sequoia Capital and Benchmark at a reported valuation of nearly $1 billion.
• Recogni, which is developing its AI inference chip for both the generative AI and automotive industries, raised a $102 million Series C co-led by Celesta Capital and GreatPoint Ventures. The San Jose-based company says its accelerator chip uses live data in trained models for predictions — all while requiring less energy.

On top of all of that, it has been reported other big-name AI startups such as Scale AI and Perplexity AI may be raising at big valuations.

That predicted slowdown — which many VCs really believed was coming — seems to be more mythical than the unicorn.

Things that caught our eye and other stuff:

• It was a couple of healthcare tech startups that raised money this week that caught our attention. First up, Nashville, Tennessee-based UnityAI locked up a $4 million seed round led by Max Ventures. The company uses AI to improve hospital bed management, resource allocation and patient care. It wasn’t that long ago a pandemic threw hospital management for a loop and caused administrators headaches. Perhaps AI could have helped.
• Next up is Paris-based AZmed. The startup raised a Series A worth approximately $16.2 million. AZmed used AI tech to automatically detect fractures in X-rays — allowing doctors to spend more time on more immediate, life-threatening exams and procedures. Doctors have a limited amount of time, and several startups seem determined to use AI to free up more of that time.

Related Crunchbase Pro query:

• Rounds Raised By Startups Using AI In 2024

Related reading:

• AI Compute Startup Lambda Hits $1.5B Valuation After Massive $320M Raise
• Generative AI Chip Designer Recogni Locks Up $102M

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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 — where the top raise was only $57 million — this week saw a nice pickup thanks again to AI. Four companies raised nine-figure rounds and there were several other big rounds just under that. Of course, Anthropic’s round late in the week was the top raise, but biotech took three of the top five spots.

1. Anthropic, $500M, artificial intelligence: Just last month, San Francisco-based company Anthropic — a ChatGPT rival with its AI assistant Claude — inked a deal with Amazon for the e-commerce and cloud titan to invest up to $4 billion in the AI startup. But why stop there when there are more billions of dollars to be had? The WSJ reported late Friday that previous investor Google agreed to invest up to $2 billion in the OpenAI competitor. The deal includes $500 million upfront and an additional $1.5 billion more over time, per the report. The new investment is just the latest in what has become a fundraising spree for Anthropic this year. In February, it was reported that Google had invested between $300 million and $400 million in the startup. In May, the company raised a $450 million Series C led by Spark Capital. In August, Anthropic raised a $100 million round from SK Telecom. The Amazon deal followed late last month.

2. Aiolos Bio, $245M, biotech: Investors have always backed startups looking to take on asthma and other respiratory ailments. That continues with this week’s $245 million Series A for San Francisco- and London-based Aiolos Bio. Atlas Venture, Bain Capital Life Sciences, Forbion Capital Partners and Sofinnova Investments led the massive round. The newly launched company plans to use the fresh cash for phase 2 clinical trials of its lead drug candidate, AIO-001, designed for patients with moderate to severe asthma. More than 20 startups have been funded in the past several quarters and have raised close to $1.8 billion total, per Crunchbase data. The company that has received the most funding on the list is Waltham, Massachusetts-based Upstream Bio, which has raised more than $400 million to date. 

3. (tied) Island, $100M, cybersecurity: Venture funding to cybersecurity startups is down 30% year to year, but this week saw a handful of good-sized rounds going to U.S.-based security firms. None were bigger than Dallas, Texas-based cybersecurity startup Island’s $100 million Series C led by Prysm Capital and valuing it at $1.5 billion. Island offers an enterprise browser that the company says enhances both security and productivity of workers, giving security teams control of what is often referred to as the “last mile” — how end-users interact with work and web applications. The enterprise browser developer raised a $115 million Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation last year led by Insight Partners. Founded in 2020, the company has now raised $385 million, per Crunchbase.

3. (tied) Pony.ai, $100M, autonomous vehicles: It may not have been a great week for the autonomous driving sector in general, as Cruise’s driverless taxi service in San Francisco was suspended. However, it was a good week for Fremont, California-based Pony.ai, which announced a $100 million investment from the Neom Investment Fund. The new deal is a joint venture to develop and deploy autonomous vehicles in Neom and other parts of the Middle East/North Africa region. Founded in 2016, the company has raised $1.3 billion, per Crunchbase.

5. Triveni Bio, $92M, biotech: Yet another biotech makes it high on the list. Waltham, Massachusetts-based Triveni Bio closed a $92 million series A financing co-led by Atlas Venture and Cormorant Asset Management. The startup is developing treatments for atopic dermatitis, asthma and other inflammation and immunology disorders. This is the company’s first outside raise, per Crunchbase.

6. Rampart Bioscience, $85M, biotech: Next-generation biologics developer Rampart Biosciences locked up an $85 million Series A led by Forbion Capital Partners. The company has developed a proprietary DNA-based medicines platform — called HALO — which is designed to produce highly potent and redosable therapies. The company’s current lead program is for the treatment of hypophosphatasia, an often fatal genetic disease that prevents bone mineralization. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $125 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Adlumin, $70M, cybersecurity: Washington, D.C.-based Adlumin, a managed detection and response startup, raised a $70 million Series B led by SYN Ventures. Founded in 2016, the company has raised nearly $129 million, per Crunchbase.

8. MangoBoost, $55M, IT infrastructure: Seattle-based data processing unit developer MangoBoost has raised a $55 million Series A co-led by IMM Investment and Shinhan Venture Investment. It was reported the new round gave the startup around a $300 million valuation. Founded in 2022, the company has raised nearly $66 million, per Crunchbase data.

8. (tied) AgentSync, $50M, insurance: Denver-based insurance infrastructure startup AgentSync raised an additional $50 million co-led by existing investors Craft Ventures and Valor Ventures. Founded in 2018, AgentSync has raised $161 million, per the company.

8. (tied) Censys, $50M, cybersecurity: Ann Arbor, Michigan-based threat hunting and exposure management startup Censys raised $75 million in a mix of equity and debt. The $50 million equity portion of the round was led by Decibel Partners, GV, Greylock and Intel Capital. The $25 million in debt funding was led by SVB Capital. Founded in 2017, the company has raised $128 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

No round was bigger than Anthropic’s raise, but another across the pond was close.

• London-based property and real estate firm Canary Wharf Group locked up a venture round worth approximately $486 million.

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 Oct. 21 to Oct. 27. 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

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.

There are some reports the AI craze may be cooling, but that’s not the case in funding this week. Three of the top four rounds went to startups directly tied to AI — with the other going oddly enough to an insurance tech company. All in all, it was a slow week that ended rather quietly.

1. Mapbox, $280M, logistics: SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son told investors months ago his multinational investment holding giant would again be shifting from “defense mode” as it looked to be a leader in AI. He has seemed to keep his word, as just days after the successful initial public offering of SoftBank-owned U.K. chip designer Arm — arming the firm with even more cash — SoftBank led a $280 million funding round for San Francisco-based location-mapping startup Mapbox. The startup, whose platform is used by the likes of Toyota and General Motors, is trying to bring AI to help with automated driving and safety. Founded in 2010, the company has raised more than $600 million, per Crunchbase.

2. (tied) Openly, $100M, insurance: If you own a home, you know home insurance matters, as does who you get it from. Openly provides independent insurance agents with a platform that offers coverage to homeowners and streamlines processes, improves risk underwriting, and helps with claims. The Boston-based insurtech firm will be able to push that offering after raising a $100 million Series D led by Eden Global Partners. Openly says it already serves 30,000 independent agents across 21 states in the U.S. Founded in 2017, the company has raised nearly $240 million, per Crunchbase.

2. (tied) Pryon, $100M, artificial intelligence: AI startup Pryon locked up a $100 million Series B investment led by Thomas Tull’s US Innovative Technology Fund this week as the company looks to grow its market for its “knowledge management” platform. The Raleigh, North Carolina-based startup allows companies to upload internal data and information to produce answers to employee questions. It’s basically AI building an institutional knowledge base for a company. It was reported the new round values the company between $500 million and $750 million. Founded in 2017, the company has raised nearly $160 million, per Crunchbase.

2. (tied) Writer, $100M, artificial intelligence: Writer joined a handful of other San Francisco-based generative AI startups such as Anthropic, Adept AI and OpenAI in raising a big round. The AI startup raised a $100 million round led by Iconiq Growth, and values the startup at $500 million, per Bloomberg. Writer’s platform is designed to help businesses use large language models to generate writing and content that can be used across different departments, such as operations, product, sales, human resources, marketing and more. The company has grown revenue by 10x in the past two years with a customer base that includes Spotify, L’Oreal and Uber. Writer had previously raised a $5 million seed funding in 2020 and a $21 million Series A round in 2021, according to the company.

5. Dragos, $74M, cybersecurity: It’s been a while since we’ve written about industrial security — also called operational technology security. Just a few years ago, the space saw huge raises constantly, including New York-based Claroty closing a $400 million Series E back in 2021. However, while things have been quiet recently, maybe Hanover, Maryland-based Dragos’ raise this week will change that. The company locked up a $74 million Series D extension led by WestCap. The company originally announced its $200 million Series D at a valuation of $1.7 billion way back in October 2021, so it’s been a while. Founded in 2016, Dragos has raised approximately $440 million, according to the company.

6. Harbinger Motors, $60M, electric vehicles: Garden Grove, California-based electric chassis developer Harbinger Motors secured a $60 million Series A led by Ridgeline and Thor Industries. Founded in 2021, the company has raised nearly $85 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Hyku Biosciences, $56M, biotech: Lexington, Massachusetts-based biotech firm Hyku Biosciences launched with a $56 million seed round led by RA Capital Management, Droia Ventures and Novartis Venture Fund.

8. MotherDuck, $53M, database: Seattle-based data analytics platform MotherDuck raised a $52.5 million round led by Felicis 1. Founded last year, MotherDuck says it has raised $100 million.

9. (tied) Four companies tied for our last two spots with $50 million rounds: Austin, Texas-based AI security firm HiddenLayer, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Magnet Biomedicine, Latham, New York, supply chain startup Rail Modal Group and Dallas-based ReCode Therapeutics.

Big global deals

Mapbox’s raise is the second biggest of the week globally, beaten out by an automotive company.

• China-based FAW Pentium, a maker of budget-friendly cars, raised a nearly $329 million venture 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 Sept. 16 to Sept. 22. 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.

Generative AI platform Writer raised $100 million led by Iconiq Growth. The round values the startup at $500 million, per Bloomberg.

Others participating in the round include WndrCo, Balderton Capital, Insight Partners and Aspect Ventures.

Writer’s platform is designed to help businesses use large language models to generate writing and content that can be used across different departments, such as operations, product, sales, human resources, marketing and more.

The company has grown revenue by 10x in the past two years with a customer base that includes Spotify, L’Oreal and Uber.

“Our foundation models are best-in-class, and they’re auditable, inspectable, and hostable — but it’s not just about the models,” co-founder and CEO May Habib said in a release. “Any CIO who’s tried to build an internal generative AI application will tell you that the last mile of quality is the hardest. And we help them nail that, at scale, dozens and dozens of times as they build AI applications and assistants that enable their entire organization.”

Writer had previously raised a $5 million seed funding in 2020 and a $21 million Series A round in 2021, according to the company.

Big money in SF

Writer becomes just the most recent San Francisco AI startup to raise big money.

Only last month San Francisco-based Anthropic — a ChatGPT rival with its AI assistant Claude — raised a $100 million round from SK Telecom, after raising a $450 million Series C in May.

Adept AI’s $350 million Series B in March, gave the San Francisco-based startup a post-money valuation of at least $1 billion. The startup is developing AI models that do more than respond to text commands — like chatbots do — but actually turn that command into actions.

Of course, San Francisco-based OpenAI helped lead the current AI craze back in January when ​​Microsoft confirmed it had agreed to a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment” into the startup.

There have been other smaller rounds, and there is undoubtedly more to come.

Further reading

• Microsoft Agrees To Multibillion-Dollar Deal With OpenAI
• Adept Latest AI Startup To Raise Big — Nabs $350M
• AI Craze Hits New Level As Anthropic Locks Up $450M, Builder.ai Closes $250M Round
• AI Startup Anthropic Raises More Cash — $100M From South Korea’s SK Telecom

Illustration: Dom Guzman

While the round has not completely closed — that is expected later this month — the company said it will total $50 million-plus. The rounds includes some big investor names — Lightspeed Venture Partners, Stanford University, First Spark Ventures, Samsung Next, LG Technology Ventures and other existing investors.

Inworld has now raised more than $100 million since being founded in 2021, per the company. 

The Mountain View, California-based startup sits at the intersection of AI and gaming. It has developed a “Character Engine” to create non-playable characters for gaming and other interactive experiences using multiple machine-learning models.

Developers can use the platform to create characters that can learn and adapt, have memories and motivations, and even navigate relationships.

“The financial runway means we can take a long-term view when it comes to supporting the developer community today, and stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving landscape of generative AI for tomorrow,” said co-founder and CEO Ilya Gelfenbeyn in a blog.

Gaming funding slows

While Inworld’s platform can be applied to different use cases, there is no denying how it can be used in gaming — which has seen limited VC interest this year, according to Crunchbase data.

Funding to U.S.-based gaming startups hit a high in 2021 — like many other industries — topping more than $5 billion.

Last year, such startups saw about $3.8 billion invested, although $2 billion of that went to Epic Games in a massive round.

However, with more than half of 2023 gone, U.S.-based gaming startups have received just more than $400 million to date.

It’s likely AI’s applications to gaming will spur on more investment, but the industry has a long way to go to even come close to last year’s funding numbers.

Related Crunchbase Pro list

• Funding To US-Based Gaming Startups

Clarification: The amount of money raised was updated from the original publication of this story. 

Illustration: Dom Guzman

That’s not the case anymore. Not only because companies are staying private longer, or because the volume of venture dollars has only increased since the term “unicorn” was coined a decade ago. 

Now, 2021 feels like a land far, far away, where funding was plentiful and companies were able to raise a new round just months after another. Valuations climbed higher than Jack did the beanstalk — consider that 78% of the companies on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board had their valuations set in the past two years. 

But that chapter of the story is over, and some of those sky-high valuations now seem as real as unicorns.

These days, we’re much more keen on looking at startups’ 409a valuations. These internal valuations determine the price of common stock in these companies and differ from the valuations set by investors during priced funding rounds. They’re meant to reflect how much stock would cost if these companies did go public, and from what we can tell, plenty of unicorns are itching to. 

Unfortunately, we don’t know definitively how many startups have lowered and raised their internal valuations over the past two years. 

But we’ve managed to scrounge up a handful of companies that have reportedly changed their 409a valuations after raising money in 2021.

Checkout.com, the digital payments platform, dramatically reduced its internal valuation to $11 billion less than a year after raising a $1 billion round at a $40 billion valuation in January 2022. That’s a 73% difference. 

Grocery delivery startup Instacart met the same fate. Its $12 billion internal valuation, reportedly set in April, was 69% lower than the $39 billion valuation investors pinned on it during a March 2021 funding round.

Stripe, another fintech startup that may as well be a household name, reportedly lowered its internal valuation 40% in the span of six months. The Information reported in January the company’s internal valuation was $63 billion, a 34% drop from when it was valued at $95 billion in March 2021. (The company is reportedly now valued at $50 billion after raising a round in March.)  

But a lowered internal valuation can be a good thing or bad thing for employees, depending on who you are. If an employee already exercised their options at a higher strike price, their shares are now worth less. But, as Checkout.com’s CEO told TechCrunch, the move would create more “upside potential” for employees that haven’t exercised them. They get to pay less for options and can live happily ever after.

Related Reading

• The Crunchbase Unicorn Board
• The Crunchbase Emerging Unicorn Board
• Run, Unicorns, Run: April’s VC Funding Landscape In 3 Charts
• Swiggy Investor Slashes Food Delivery Unicorn’s Valuation To $5.5B

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

Learn More