That, at least, was the trend following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Total annual U.S. mental health spending, estimated at around $280 billion in 2020, rose sharply in subsequent years across age groups, boosted in part by the rise of telehealth platforms.

These days, more than one-fifth of American adults receive mental health treatment in a given year, per a recent federal government estimate. Much of that comes in the form of one-on-one therapy.

Founders and investors in the space have taken notice. Funding to mental health-focused startups surged beginning in 2020, with large rounds going to companies developing telehealth offerings, AI-enabled platforms and services targeted to specific groups, such as teenagers or the elderly.

Yes, investment in mental health startups has tapered off since the 2021 peak. Nonetheless, we’re still seeing steady deal flow and big rounds getting done, as evidenced in the chart below:

Startups focus on covered care

One unifying theme for the largest investments this year is an emphasis on providing mental health care that is covered by insurance.

This was a core talking point for New York-based Talkiatry, a psychiatric care startup that in mid June picked up $130 million in the largest mental health financing this year. The round consisted of a combination of Series C equity financing led by Andreessen Horowitz and debt financing from Banc of California.

In its funding announcement, Talkiatry noted that it works in-network with providers that extend coverage to a majority of privately insured Americans. The startup, as its name implies, also focuses on connecting patients with psychiatrists who are able to both provide therapy and prescribe medications when needed.

New York-based Grow Therapy, which landed $88 million in a Sequoia Capital-led Series C this spring, also pitches itself as a provider of covered mental health care. The startup offers an online platform to match people with therapists who work with their insurance plans.

Meanwhile, Brightside Health, which closed on a $33 million Series C in March, markets its mental health offering as “affordable help, with or without insurance.” The San Francisco-based company provides online therapy for anxiety and depression, works with most major insurers, and also offers fixed monthly pricing for those who self-pay.

The right match

Investors are also backing good-sized rounds for startups honing screening tools and targeted services to match people with therapists best-suited to their needs.

Among these is San Francisco-based Two Chairs, which offers a platform run with its proprietary algorithm to help match the  right therapist with a patient. The company closed this spring on a $72 million Series C round that was a mix of debt and equity.

Boston-based InStride Health, which secured $30 million in Series B funding in March, is more narrowly focused. The 3-year-old company offers outpatient care for pediatric anxiety, considered the most common mental health disorder among kids and teens.

Backpack Healthcare closed a $14 million Series A in May and is also focused on pediatric mental health. The startup has a particular focus on extending mental health care to children and families covered by Medicaid, who have previously faced limited options.

What not to do

While recently funded startups hope to set an example of the right approach to mental health care, they can turn to predecessors for a lesson on how to do it wrong.

For this, they can look to Done, a seed-backed telemedicine startup whose CEO and clinical president were arrested last month for an alleged fraud scheme involving the drug Adderall.

Founded in 2019, Done describes itself as an online platform specializing in psychiatric care for ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Per the U.S. Department of Justice, the company “exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to develop and carry out a $100 million scheme to defraud taxpayers and provide easy access to Adderall and other stimulants for no legitimate medical purpose.” (Done has said it disagrees with the charges.)

A couple years earlier, another funded startup, Cerebral, came under investigation over charges that it prescribed Adderall and Ritalin for ADHD without properly screening patients. The company was also recently fined $7 million over its privacy practices. Cerebral raised over $460 million in 2020 and 2021 from SoftBank and others, but has not secured fresh financing since.

Therapy demand still drives deals

Even with a mixed track record in mental health investing, venture backers still see opportunity in the space as demand for therapy and treatment remains strong, with continued high levels of unmet needs.

For now, focus areas of the most recently funded startups, which include extending covered care and targeting underserved populations, look like a sensible approach. We’ll stay tuned to see how effectively they continue to scale.

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

• US Mental Health Startup Funding

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.

It was a huge week for startups raising big. A company had to raise nine figures to make the list this week and five raised $200 million or more. It’s unlikely the short week next week will see these kinds of rounds, so don’t expect the same type of dollar figures in the next seven days.

1. Sila Nanotechnologies, $375M battery: A next-generation battery materials company led the way this week with a huge round. Alameda, California-based Sila, a next-generation battery materials company, announced it raised a $375 million Series G led by existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. The new cash will help the  company finish construction of its Moses Lake, Washington, plant — scheduled for the first quarter of next year — for the production of its Titan Silicon anode material. Founded in 2011, the company has raised $1.4 billion, per Crunchbase.

2. Formation Bio, $372M, biotech: Every week there is a big biotech raise and this week’s is really big. Formation Bio, an AI-enhanced pharma company, raised a $372 million Series D led by a16z. The New York-based startup, launched in 2016 as TrialSpark, has built AI-enabled platforms and processes to accelerate drug development and clinical trials — integrating large language models, AI models and applications throughout its platform. More and more biotech startups are using AI to help with their drug processes and investors are clearly taking note. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $528 million, per Crunchbase.

3. CData Software, $350M, data integration: A round that likely skipped under most folks’ radar was data connectivity company CData Software’s massive $350 million growth round from two big-named firms. The round was led by Warburg Pincus, with participation from Accel. The Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based company develops data products and connectivity solutions that provide access to live data from hundreds of on-premises and cloud applications. Founded in 2016, the company has raised $510 million, per Crunchbase.

4. (tied) Creatio, $200M, customer relationship management: Low-code and no-code startups are not seeing the funding they did a couple of years ago, but it clearly has not dried up completely. Creatio achieved unicorn status after landing a $200 million round led by Sapphire Ventures. The new cash, a minority investment, values the startup at $1.2 billion and will be used to help the company expand globally as it continues to grow revenue 50% year to year. The Boston-based startup is a developer of a no-code platform to automate customer relationship management and enterprise workflows. Not surprisingly, the company has an AI angle — creating a new generative AI copilot to help automate different marketing and sales tasks. Founded in 2014, Creatio previously raised $68 million in 2021 in a round led by Volition Capital, per Crunchbase.

4. (tied) Foodsmart, $200M, healthcare: Foodsmart locked down a massive $200 million round led by TPG’s global impact investing platform, The Rise Fund. The San Francisco-based company has developed a telenutrition and food benefits management platform. Founded in 2010, Foodsmart helps those facing chronic disease and food insecurity by partnering with health plans and providers to give patients access to affordable healthy eating options, virtual nutrition counseling and meal plans. Foodsmart has raised nearly $315 million, per Crunchbase.

6. Sidecar Health, $165M, healthcare: Healthcare is a mess — nearly everyone can agree on that. Sidecar Health, a health insurance company providing major medical coverage to businesses, closed a $165 million Series D led by Koch Disruptive Technologies to try to untangle it at least a little bit. The El Segundo, California-based startup offers plans that eliminate the need for prior authorizations, referrals and networks for doctors — allowing patients to go where they want. Sidecar Health believes a free-market approach will ensure healthcare is more accessible and affordable. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $328 million, per Crunchbase.

7. EvolutionaryScale, $142M, biotech: It was a big week for biotech. New York-based EvolutionaryScale, which has developed a large language model for creating novel proteins, raised a $142 million seed funding, led by Daniel Gross, Lux Capital and Nat Friedman. Amazon Web Services and NVentures, the venture capital arm of Nvidia, also took part in the round. While the company’s AI can be used for accelerating drug discovery, it also believes it can be used for other other applications such as breaking down plastics.

8. Etched.ai, $120M, semiconductor: Etched.ai became the latest startup to ride the wave of investor enthusiasm for AI chips. The San Francisco-based startup locked up a $120 million round led by Positive Sum and Primary Venture Partners. The startup is the creator of the transformer-specialized AI chip Sohu, used to train and deploy large language models that are the underpinning of generative AI. Etched has announced a partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to produce the chip, which will be a direct competitor to chip giant Nvidia — which dominates the market in AI. However, the large energy consumption of AI remains a concern, and Etched believes it can provide a more cost-effective and energy-efficient chip that is faster.

9. Bright Machines, $106M, manufacturing: San Francisco-based Bright Machines, a developer of software-defined manufacturing, raised $126 million in a Series C funding — with $106 million in equity led by investment from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. Founded in 2018, Bright Machines has raised more than $400 million, per the company.

10. (tied) Hebbia, $100M, artificial intelligence: New York-based Hebbia, a startup using generative AI to search large documents and find answers, raised nearly $100 million in a Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz. Founded in 2020, the company has raised more than $130 million, per Crunchbase.

10. (tied) LanzaJet, $100M, fuel: Chicago-based LanzaJet, a sustainable fuels technology company, announced a $100 million growth equity round. Investors included Mitsubishi UFG Financial.

Big global deals

There were a few big rounds outside the U.S. this week. The largest was:

• Turkey-based Getir, which provides on-demand delivery services, raised a $250 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 June 22 to June 28. 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

Summer is here and the time is right to maybe read a little less tech news and have some fun.

If that’s the case, you may have missed some intriguing capital raises this month. No worries, we have you covered with what caught our eye — starting with an eye-related startup.

Check your eyes

Usually when we talk about healthcare and AI, it relates to a biotech using the technology to refine therapeutics or help with the clinical trial process.

However, Eyebot locked up $6 million this month led by AlleyCorp and Ubiquity Ventures for a different business model. The Boston-based startup is looking to build out a network of AI-powered kiosks that provide 90-second vision exams

Yes, self-serve, rapid eye tests with no optometrist. Hey, we scan our own groceries, why not be your own eye doctor? The prescription the kiosk spits out actually is finalized by a teledoctor, but it still eliminates the need for a traditional eye appointment — which might be good considering the optometry labor shortage.

The startup is looking to roll out its kiosks — which look like old-school arcade machines — in places such as shopping centers and pharmacies in October in the Northeast before scaling next year.

Keep an eye out!

Voice clues

Now moving from seeing to speaking, Canary Speech is next on the list after it raised a $13 million Series A funding round led by Cortes Capital.

The Provo, Utah-based AI-powered voice biomarker healthtech startup uses patented vocal analysis to screen for mental health and neurological disorders.

Canary’s vocal biomarker tech can actually capture and analyze speech data within seconds to identify irregularities in behavioral and cognitive changes — besting current clinical screening standards and before experiencing noticeable symptoms for illnesses like anxiety, depression and dementia.

Canary’s ambient listening tools can not only assess a patient’s health, but also simultaneously evaluate physicians’ health — something more important than ever with the American Medical Association reporting that at the end of 2021 nearly 63% of physicians experienced symptoms of burnout.

AI for social media

Ever been lonely on social media and needed a friend?

Well, now you can just create one — or at least an AI one.

Butterflies.AI locked up a $4.8 million seed round led by Coatue In June. The Bellevue, Washington-based startup is creating a social media platform where humans and AI can “co-exist,” by letting users create AI friends.

The platform relies on AI models to help users create a new “friend” in just minutes. The AI persona’s are fully fleshed out with a profile, backstory and even emotions. They then can create and interact with other people and AI personas on the platform.

To be honest, we don’t completely get the idea. Isn’t the point of social media to argue with people who don’t think like you? Not to make/create friends.

Moving outside the echo chamber

How people digest news and where they get their information from is something that has evolved significantly in just the last decades.

Many news outlets are gone and newspapers are all but dead. People seem very happy to get their news delivered only in the way they want with the opinions they share.

That’s why news-reader startup Particle.News caught our eye this month. The Northern California-based startup is looking for partnerships with publishers where its AI wouldn’t merely summarize the news, but actually help the reader look deeper into stories and understand different angles by using artificial intelligence to summarize stories from a variety of publishers.

The business model received some notice from investors this month, locking up a $10.9 million Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

It also signed a deal with Reuters to be a source of news content for its service.

It’ll be interesting to see where this goes. Many are under the impression people just want to read the news in their own echo chamber. Perhaps there’s more to it.

It’s (not) a tire fire

We’ve all driven past a tire yard, with all that used rubber just creating an eyesore.

Well, LDCarbon locked up $28 million in a Series C to help deal with just that. The new round was led by Toyota’s growth fund, Woven Capital.

The Seoul, South Korea-based company has developed technologies to recycle end-of-life tires and other automotive parts into recovered carbon black and pyrolysis oil.

Those products, in turn, can be used to create new automotive parts and tires — and the cycle continues. The company is trying to solve  a major pollution issue that comes from incinerating old cars and tires — while also helping automakers hit sustainability goals and regulatory requirements.

The company is in the process of building Asia’s largest tire pyrolysis plant, and says its pyrolysis and material recovery process provides nearly 100% recovery of waste tires.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

It may be the big funding rounds that grab the headlines when it comes to the startup world, but for investors it’s the exit that actually matters.

For the past few years the M&A market for startups has been slow — and the IPO pipeline nonexistent.

However, just as AI is taking over venture, perhaps it is doing that for the M&A and IPO markets.

OpenAI — which reportedly has doubled annualized revenue to $3.4 billion — opened up its wallet the past few days to make two deals happen. The creator of ChatGPT first bought search and analytics startup Rockset last week. The San Mateo, California-based company had raised nearly $118 million in capital, per Crunchbase. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Then just this week, the AI giant bought video collaboration startup Multi, previously Remotion, in what was reportedly an acqui-hire. The San Francisco-based company had raised $13 million to date, per Crunchbase.

Overall, M&A has picked up slightly involving startups, per Crunchbase data. The current quarter already has witnessed more activity than Q1, with more than 430 deals. However, those numbers are still relatively low compared to quarters in previous years.

While those two deals will not set fire to the M&A market, it doubled the amount of deals OpenAI had previously done according to Crunchbase. It may show a new willingness for inorganic growth, a desire nearly all Big Tech companies must gain as they get larger. With OpenAI’s ever-expanding revenue numbers and the value of the company ever increasing, it certainly has the wherewithal to easily become a Goliath among suitors.

However, M&A is not the only way to exit, and AI may be looking to help there too. Last week, artificial intelligence chips startup Cerebras Systems reportedly filed confidentially for an initial public offering.

It’s a good time to be an AI chip developer. Nvidia has become one of the most — if not the most — valuable companies in the world and funding is currently gaining traction in the sector. Astera Labs — which provides data and memory connectivity solutions for some of the biggest chipmakers in the world — had a successful IPO even though its shares have tailed off its highs.

Other companies that went public this year had strong AI ties — like biotech Tempus AI — or played up their AI connections strongly — like Reddit.

Public investors are clearly intrigued by the AI tech play and where it may lead.

Investors have waited a couple years for the IPO and M&A markets to open back up, and it would not be surprising for AI to lead that charge — just as it seems to be leading everything else.

If big AI companies like OpenAI and perhaps Nvidia — which is showing interest in taking on the cloud services providers — start to get acquisitive and more startups think the time is right to test the public market, investors may start to see those long-awaited returns rolling in.

Things that caught our eye and other stuff:

• The soap opera at Stability AI took another turn this week, as investors that included ex-Facebook President Sean Parker committed $80 million to take over the artificial intelligence-driven visual art startup. Per a story in The Wall Street Journal, the new investors made a deal with suppliers to forgive some $100 million owed by Stability and also negotiated for the startup to be released from $300 million in future obligations. It’s the latest twist for Stability, which locked up a $101 million raise led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners and O’Shaughnessy Ventures in 2022. The company did not release a valuation at the time, but Bloomberg reported the new cash infusion valued the company at around $1 billion. However, in spring of last year Forbes reported Stability AI’s founder Emad Mostaque made exaggerated statements about both his own background and his generative AI startup. At the time, some AI researchers disputed the startup’s claims that it created the image generator Stable Diffusion, an open-source project developed by researchers. It also was reported the London-based startup was looking to raise an additional $1 billion of capital at a multibillion-dollar valuation, but talks had stalled. In March, reports surfaced that Mostaque left the company after an investor revolt. The company said in an internal memo it was trying to “right-size” the business after a period of unsustainable growth, per the report. Finally, in April the startup laid off 10% — estimated to be about 20 people — of its workforce, per a report by CNBC. That’s quite the whirlwind — even for an AI startup.
• Another round that caught our attention this week was raised by a Palo Alto, California-based startup. MEandMine, a developer of AI-flagging to identify psychological risks in young children, raised $4.5 million in funding led by K5 Global. The startup offers AI-powered screening to identify students’ psychological risks in real time by playing games with data points that are used for AI-flagging, allowing teachers, counselors and others to screen early and make informed decisions. Initial results from its California school pilots show a 91% accuracy, the company says. MEandMine’s algorithm launches games based on individual students’ makeup, and can help them center themselves.

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

• Global Venture-Backed M&A

Related reading:

• Deal-Making Involving VC-Backed Startups Picks Up Slightly, But Still Slow
• Accounting Startup Klarity Books $70M Series B — Report
• AI Chip Startup Etched Captures $120M In Hot Market
• Stability AI Newest Addition To Unicorn Stable
• Stability AI’s Founder Made Misleading Claims — Report
• Stability AI Lays Off 10% Of Staff — Report

Illustration: Dom Guzman

Developers of workplace robots, robotic surgery technologies, and even humanoid models have all raised large rounds in the past six months. The artificial intelligence funding boom has also helped boost the space, with investors backing big deals at the intersection of AI and robotics.

Altogether, robotics startups have pulled in over $4.2 billion in seed through growth-stage financing this year, per Crunchbase data. That puts funding on track to exceed last year’s muted levels, albeit still below its cyclical peak, as illustrated below.

Workplace robots

Where’s the money going? Per Crunchbase data, workplace robotics still accounts for the largest number of rounds, with startups looking to offset the need for human labor for tasks like delivering meals, pulling weeds and moving stuff in warehouses.

Among the largest recipients in this vein is San Francisco-based Bright Machines, a developer of software and robotics technology for factory manufacturing. The company raised $106 million in Series C funding, plus $20 million in debt, in a BlackRock-led financing announced Tuesday.

Another big round went to Silicon Valley-based Collaborative Robotics, which landed a $100 million General Catalyst-led Series B this spring. Its business model centers on building “cobots” or robots that can work alongside humans doing tasks like carrying boxes and moving industrial carts.

On the agtech front, Seattle-based Carbon Robotics has harvested a total of $85 million to date, with its latest funding raised in a May Series C. Its primary offering is an AI-enabled weeding robot that provides farmers a less labor-intensive way to reduce reliance on herbicides.

Redwood City, California-based Bear Robotics, meanwhile, snagged $60 million in an LG Electronics-led financing in March. The company makes a mobile robot capable of carrying trays or packages, which it markets to customers in hospitality, assisted living, warehouse operations and other industries.

Here come the humanoids

We’re also seeing large investments in startups developing humanoid robots — a staple of science fiction that has yet to penetrate everyday reality.

Sunnyvale, California-based Figure, which describes itself as an “AI robotics company bringing a general purpose humanoid to life,” was the biggest draw here, snapping up $675 million in a February Series B. It drew heavy interest from corporate investors, with Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon among its backers.

1X, a startup with dual headquarters in Norway and Silicon Valley, picked up $98 million in January to further development of its initial humanoid models. This includes NEO, whose human-like body is engineered with muscle-like anatomy, and EVE, a robot which resembles a human but with wheels instead of feet.

Per 1X, the humanoid robot represents the most logical form factor for integrating advanced processing and AI more deeply into the physical world. A research note on its website postulates that: “At its core, our world is designed by and for humans, which makes the human form the most effective means of interfacing with it.”

By and large, it’s still early days envisioning what these AI-powered humanoids might actually accomplish. The startup envisions them making contributions in industries including agriculture, construction and healthcare, with a particular focus on taking on dangerous and repetitive jobs.

Surgical robotics

Surgical robotics has also been a major area for robot-related startup investment over the years, and 2024 is no exception.

The biggest round went to MMI, a developer of technology for robotic-assisted microsurgical procedures that raised $110 million in a February Series C led by Fidelity. The company says its technology lets surgeons replicate movements of the human hand at the micro scale and can expand treatment options for patients needing soft tissue, open surgical procedures.

Most recently, Shanghai-based Ronovo Surgical raised $44 million in a Series B financing announced this month. The company develops a robotic-assisted system for laparoscopic surgeries.

Easy to appeal, harder to prove

Unlike many other startup sectors, founders of robotics companies usually don’t have trouble selling us on why we would want their products. After all, who wouldn’t want a robot to do jobs that are boring, backbreaking, hazardous and time-consuming for humans?

Moreover, as we face lower global population growth rates — particularly in developed economies — there won’t necessarily be enough people willing and able to do the work required to provide and maintain the level of services and infrastructure to which we’re accustomed.

The challenge is all about execution. Will today’s funded startups be capable of delivering on their visions with robotics technologies that are capable in their assigned tasks, scalable and affordable?

It’d certainly be nice to answer in the affirmative. Startup history, however, tells us that for every huge success story, there are usually many more that don’t make it.

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

Further reading:

• Collaborative Robotics Locks Up $100M, Latest Robot Startup To Raise Big
• The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Figure And Ascend Elements Climb To The Top

Illustration: Dom Guzman

Clarification: This story has changed since its original publication.

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 top five raises this week came from sectors that have seen good heat recently. Biotech/healthcare and cybersecurity dominated the run of big rounds this week, with a few AI startups also seeing good-sized checks. After a few slow weeks, megadeals seem to be back, as four companies locked up nine-figure rounds.

1. Marea Therapeutics, $190M, biotech: This big biotech round is actually the combination of two rounds. Marea Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing medicines for cardiometabolic diseases, launched with $190 million in a combined Series A and B financing. The Series A round was led by Third Rock Ventures — where the startup was incubated — and the Series B round was co-led by Forbion Capital Partners, Perceptive Advisors, Sofinnova Investments and VenBio Partners. The company didn’t split out the rounds, so we record it as one and it tops the list this week.

2. Huntress, $150M, cybersecurity: Maryland-based Huntress became the newest cybersecurity unicorn after it raised a $150 million Series D at a $1.5 billion-plus valuation. The new round was led by Kleiner Perkins, Meritech Capital Partners and existing investor Sapphire Ventures. The startup focuses on security services for small business to small enterprise customers — an often overlooked sector in cyber as many companies chase Fortune 500 companies. Huntress currently is realizing more than 70% year-to-year revenue growth for the past two years as it continues to “approach $100 million in annual recurring revenue.” Founded in 2015, Huntress has raised nearly $310 million, per Crunchbase.

3. Talkiatry, $130M, healthcare: Mental health is a growing concern. Just 31% of adults believe their mental health is “excellent,” a 20 percentage point drop from 2004. New York-based psychiatric care startup Talkiatry locked up a $130 million raise — a mix of equity and debt financing — led by Andreessen Horowitz to try to improve those numbers. The startup offers a national mental health practice that provides in-network psychiatry and therapy, trying to help the 60% of adults in the U.S. with a diagnosable mental illness who go untreated every year. Founded in 2019, Talkiatry has raised $245 million, per the company.

4. Semperis, $125M, cybersecurity: Huntress’ big round wasn’t the only one in security this week. Hoboken, New Jersey-based Semperis secured $125 million in growth financing — a mix of equity and debt — from J. P. Morgan and Hercules Capital. The new round reportedly values the company at $1 billion. Semperis provides a variety of security services, including protection for the Microsoft directory service. Founded in 2014, the company has raised nearly $500 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Elion Therapeutics, $81M, biotech: More than 150 million people suffer from serious fungal infections around the world, resulting in approximately 1.7 million deaths annually. A New York-based biotech raised big this week to try to lower those stats even as such infections have become more virulent. Elion Therapeutics, which focuses on the treatment of life-threatening invasive fungal infections, raised an $81 million Series B led by Deerfield Management and the AMR Action Fund. This is the company’s first announced round, per Crunchbase.

6. CesiumAstro, $65M, space: Austin, Texas-based CesiumAstro, a developer of space communications technology, closed a $65 million Series B+ round led by Trousdale Ventures. Founded in 2017, the company has raised more than $185 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Genspark AI, $60M, artificial intelligence: Palo Alto, California-based Genspark AI, an artificial intelligence search startup, raised $60 million led by Lanchi Ventures at a reported $260 million post-money valuation.

8. (tied) Daydream, $50M, ecommerce: New York-based Daydream, an AI-powered search platform for the retail industry, launched with a $50 million seed round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Index Ventures.

8. (tied) Iambic Therapeutics, $50M, biotech: San Diego-based Iambic Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology startup developing therapeutics using an AI-driven discovery platform, closed a $50 million Series B extension led by new investors Mubadala Capital and Exor Ventures. Founded in 2019, the company has raised nearly $233 million, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) You.com, $50M, artificial intelligence: Palo Alto, California-based You.com, an AI-enhanced search engine developer, reportedly is finishing up raising a $50 million Series B. Investors were not named. Founded in 2020, the company has raised $95 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

The biggest round of the week came from a big-named Indian startup.

• Indian grocery delivery startup Zepto raised a $665 million round, doubling its valuation to $3.6 billion.

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 15 to June 21. 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

Using Crunchbase data, we set out to track the funding trajectories of these seed- and pre-seed companies, starting with the very AI-centric winter 2024 batch, which wrapped up its demo day in early April. We grouped companies by industry and recorded who has announced funding.  We also looked at which investors are most active in backing these startups.

Although not all of the latest YC companies that raised seed funding have publicly announced it yet, a few have. Those with disclosed investments include a number bringing AI-enabled tools to sectors like legal tech, recruiting, code development and medical recordkeeping. They’ve attracted funding from active seed investors like Pioneer Fund and SV Angel 1, as well as prominent venture capital firms like Benchmark, Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst.

An AI-centric batch

Half of this recently launched batch is building with AI, said Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, in a post announcing its second post-COVID cohort that gathered in person in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.

Tan took the helm over a year ago and moved YC up to the city. (He left his firm Initialized Capital, an early-stage firm he co-founded in 2012 with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.)

Being in-person and in the city has apparently created a stronger community.

“Hundreds of founders are meeting daily for office hours and events, bumping into legendary people, and surrounding themselves with people who will go deep on subjects and celebrate hard work,” said Lindsay Amos, director of communication, via email. “There is no other place in the world with the same density of great startup founders per square mile as the area around the YC office — and this is fostering innovation and growth.”

San Francisco is experiencing a resurgence due to AI, which is borne out by Crunchbase data.

According to  Jared Friedman, YC group partner, these companies skew younger — 30% of the last batch are college students or grads. Two years ago they were around 10%. “Because of AI, it’s the best time in a decade for college students to start startups,” he said.

Enterprise companies still dominate, with more than two-thirds of the companies in enterprise SaaS. Around 11% are consumer oriented — with AI as the driver for many of the consumer offerings.

After the peak of 2021, the size of YC batches have come down. But YC still launches the largest number of companies in a single cohort — 260 companies in the winter batch.

Seed funding

Interacting in person benefits founders and their rate of progress, said Jason Gray, founder of seed investor Pioneer Fund, an active investor in YC companies, via email.

Pioneer has a network of portfolio companies and venture partners that add up to 1,500 YC alumni with relationships to founders either as a friend, former colleague or customer, according to Gray.  This allows for front loading due diligence.

On the common misconception that YC companies raise funding in advance of demo day, Gray said “while it does happen, it’s not the norm.” He added that “many founders focus on traction until demo day and are selective about which investors they allocate to before then.”

YC hosts an investor evening as well as sharing pitches online. “The in-person element does drive some urgency, which we believe is a benefit to both founders and investors,” said Gray. “Minimizing the distraction of fundraising for founders is in everyone’s best interest.”

The median raise, according to YC, is around $1.3 million post-demo day.

Based on an analysis of Crunchbase data, over all time Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are the most active multistage investors in YC companies by deal count. On the seed fund side, Liquid 2 Ventures, SV Angel, Pioneer Fund, FundersClub, Soma Capital and Garry Tan’s previous fund Initialized Capital are most active.

Of the winter 2024 cohort, meanwhile, funded companies include:

• Stockholm-based Leya, an AI assistant for lawyers using proprietary data alongside cited legal sources. The company raised a $10.5 million seed led by Benchmark with partner Chetan Puttagunta joining the board. Belgium-based Hummingbird Ventures and SV Angel participated. Leya is working with 70+ European legal firms and has plans to expand to the U.S.
• San Francisco-based Greptile, built an API that uses large language models to answer questions about a company’s code base. It raised a seed funding of $4.1 million led by Initialized Capital.
• San Francisco-based YonedaLabs, built by a team from Cambridge University, is creating a foundation model for chemists which can predict outcomes without having to run costly trials. The company raised a $4 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from 500 Emerging Europe, 468 Capital and Fellows Fund among others.
• San Francisco-based Pythagora, built by a team from Croatia, raised $4 million to help build apps with  natural-language interactions. The tool is open-sourced and said to be used by 30,000 developers. Investors include Inovo, 500 Emerging Europe, Moonfire Ventures, Rebel Fund and UpHonest Capital.
• Spacecraft software company Basalt Tech, based in San Francisco, raised a $3.5 million seed funding led by Initialized Capital.
• Paris-based Malibou helps small businesses manage payroll and compliance. It raised a $3.1 million seed led by European venture firm Breega.
• San Francisco-based Hona AI, an AI data platform for healthcare records, raised a seed funding of $3 million led by General Catalyst.
• San Francisco-based Apriora, an AI interviewer to screen job candidates, raised $2.8 million led by 1984 Ventures with participation from HOF Capital and Pioneer fund.
• Manifold Freight, a Seattle-based logistics aggregator of spot freight, raised a $2 million seed round from New Stack Ventures and YC. The founders were engineers at digital freight company Convoy which closed last fall.

Related Crunchbase Pro lists and searches

Pro subscribers can export these lists to track progress over time within their Crunchbase Pro accounts.

• Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch tracked here.
• Y Combinator Unicorn Portfolio Companies
• Y Combinator Exited Unicorn Portfolio Companies

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 few slow weeks, things picked up slightly concerning big funding deals. Most surprisingly is the fact the week was led by an autonomous driving startup — an industry left for dead by some. AI, biotech, space tech and cybersecurity also saw good-sized raises. Perhaps things are heating up as we head into summer.

1. Cruise, $850M, autonomous cars: In for a penny, in for a pound. That clearly seems to be how General Motors feels about Cruise. The auto giant agreed to pump another $850 million into the San Francisco-based startup. Cruise’s saga has been well documented. In 2021, Cruise snagged the largest round of any venture-backed U.S. startup when it upsized a round to $2.75 billion, valuing the company at  more than $30 billion. However, the tide started to turn in early 2022, when SoftBank did not release a promised $1.35 billion to Cruise as part of an agreed-upon deal when the autonomous carmaker completed a commercial deployment of vehicles. Instead, General Motors acquired SoftBank’s equity ownership stake in Cruise for $2.1 billion. Then, late last year, Cruise suspended its self-driving taxi program across the country after losing its permit to operate in San Francisco due to an incident with a pedestrian. That announcement came almost exactly a year after another autonomous vehicle startup — Ford Motor-backed Argo AI — shuttered after raising $3.6 billion in funding from investors such as Ford Motor, Volkswagen Group and Lyft. Cruise is now restarting its driving programs in Phoenix, Dallas and Houston. Clearly GM is betting — big — the autonomous driving and robotaxi market comes back.

2. AlphaSense, $650M, artificial intelligence: AI-driven market intelligence platform AlphaSense raised $650 million in funding co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners at a $4 billion valuation — a 75% increase from just nine months ago. As part of the deal, AlphaSense acquired expert research startup Tegus for $930 million. Last September, the company locked up a $150 million Series E led by Bond Capital at a $2.5 billion valuation — an increase of nearly 30% from its $100 million round at a $1.8 billion valuation in April last year. The New York-based startup’s market intelligence and search platform — powered by AI and natural language processing — helps clients form corporate and investment strategies. In total, the company has now raised $1.4 billion since its founding, per Crunchbase.

3. Santa Ana Bio, $125M, biotech: Biotech bounces back this week with a couple nine-figure rounds. First up is Alameda, California-based Santa Ana Bio, an immunology company developing therapies for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, which emerged from stealth with a $125 million Series B round led by GV. Founded in 2021, the company has raised $168 million, per Crunchbase.

4. Alzheon, $100M, biotech: Alzheon was the next biotech to raise big this week. The startup raised a $100 million Series E led by Alerce Medical Technology Partners. The Framingham, Massachusetts-based firm is developing medicines for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $237 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Apex, $95M, space: Spacecraft manufacturing company Apex locked up a $95 million Series B led by XYZ Venture Capital and CRV to ramp up its production of satellite buses. The Los Angeles-based space tech startup is helping streamline the approach to satellites with the ability to mass produce spacecraft buses — the main body and structural component of satellites — to help growing demand from customers like the U.S. Department of Defense. The new cash will allow the company to increase production to meet customer demand — following the launch of Apex’s first bus in March. Funding to VC-backed space tech startups seems to be on the uptick this year, per Crunchbase data. Last year, space tech startups raised $5.8 billion. However, through less than half of this year, such startups have already seen $3.3 billion roll into their coffers. Founded in 2022, the company has raised $122 million, per Crunchbase.

6. Cyberhaven, $88M, cybersecurity: Cybersecurity funding has shown some life recently and this week showed more proof of that trend. San Jose, California-based Cyberhaven, a data detection and response platform, raised an $88 million Series C led by Adams Street Partners and Khosla Ventures. The round comes after a year in which the company saw a 200% growth in new bookings. Founded in 2016, the company has raised nearly $137 million, per Crunchbase.

7. InduPro, $85M, biotech: Seattle-based InduPro, developing therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases, closed an $85 million Series A co-led by The Column Group and Vida Ventures. Founded in 2022, this is the company’s first announced round, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) Enveda Biosciences, $50M, biotech: Boulder, Colorado-based Enveda Biosciences, a biotechnology company using AI to engineer medicines from plants, announced a new $55 million round. No lead investor was announced, but Microsoft is a new investor in the company. Founded in 2019, Enveda says it has raised $230 million.

8. (tied) Canary Technologies, $50M, hospitality: San Francisco-based Canary Technologies, a management platform for hotels, closed a $50 million Series C led by Insight Partners. Founded in 2017, Canary has now raised nearly $100 million, per the company.

10. Posh AI, $45M, artificial intelligence: Boston-based Posh AI, a conversational AI platform for the banking industry, raised a $45 million round led by Curql. Founded in 2018, the company has raised nearly $73 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Another large AI round occurred in Europe.

• Paris-based Mistral AI finally secured its much talked about round that values the OpenAI and Anthropic competitor at $6 billion, per a report in the Financial Times. According to the report, Mistral AI raised $500 million in equity and $140 million in debt.

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 8 to June 14. 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

Deal-making volume seems to be slowing in the second quarter — with just a couple of weeks left — compared to other recent quarters, when investors’ appetite showed little to no limits for the all-encompassing technology.

According to Crunchbase data, the number of funding deals is on pace to reach only about 900 this quarter — a seemingly significant drop from the 1,052 last quarter and a decline of nearly 30% from the same quarter last year.

Not surprisingly, it is the earliest funding rounds — angel, seed and early stage — at the root of the deal-making slowdown.

The good news for AI startups is that the dollar amount is up. The second quarter already is pacing to be one of the highest-dollar quarters since early 2022 with more than $16 billion already raised.

That is due in part to some huge rounds. Five raises hit $1 billion or more this quarter — including those by xAI (the biggest one), CoreWeave, Xaira Therapeutics and Scale AI.

Seed funding slows

However, deal volume is seemingly dropping — and that starts in the earliest rounds. Although it is difficult for seed rounds to make a dramatic shift in total dollars of any sector, it is the most likely to show changes in deal flow since it is the largest category by volume of deals.

Only 423 seed/angel rounds were announced through the first week of June, putting it on pace for likely just more than 600 funding rounds. That will be a steep decline from the 779 deals announced last quarter and likely a drop of about a third from Q2 last year.

The dollar amount also is on pace to be down, but again — with seed and angel rounds being small by their very nature — it isn’t a pronounced drop to the overall total of funding AI startups receive.

Total dollar amount for the quarter seems likely to hit between $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion, just a tick below the $1.6 billion in Q1 and the $1.5 billion in Q2 2023.

Early-stage deals stagnate

The number of early-stage deals also slowed. While the quarter is on pace for a similar amount of deals compared to Q1, that is still more than a 15% decline from Q2 last year.

The somewhat good news for early-stage funding is that the dollar amount is up. Already $9.8 billion has been raised in early-stage deals, compared to the $6.4 billion last quarter or the $4.7 billion raised in Q2 last year.

However, even that comes with a large caveat; that difference is mainly due to one round. xAI’s $6 billion round — with investment from the likes of Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital — greatly skews the early-stage funding numbers, making up nearly 60% of the total.

What it means

To be honest, it likely is too early to tell if the deal volume slowdown means anything quite yet.

It could mean some investors are becoming less willing to back the youngest AI startups and instead are willing to invest in bigger rounds for somewhat  more proven companies even if the valuations are significantly higher.

In addition, since seed and growth-stage investor mindsets are often different, perhaps AI fatigue is setting in among early investors who are tiring of the story and escalating prices.

One thing to keep in mind is that as early-stage volume ticks down, that could mean fewer companies looking for large growth rounds in the next 18 to 24 months, since some may never have received the early funding when they were young to get to later-stage funding.

Nevertheless, the dollar amount is up and investors still seem eager to pour in billions to nearly anything AI related — just perhaps not in the same number of deals as before.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of June 6, 2024. Companies included in the data fall within Crunchbase’s artificial intelligence industry group tag. Some of the decline in deal counts may be attributable to the tendency for smaller, seed-stage rounds to be added to the Crunchbase dataset several weeks or months after they close.

Glossary of funding terms

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

Rarely, however, does the top search result for their area of expertise link to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In the area of radiopharmaceuticals, however, the agency turns out to be one of the more prolific publishers of reports and explainer pieces. Its involvement coincides with growing investment around these therapies, which use radioactive forms of chemical elements called radioisotopes to treat cancers and other medical conditions.

Last week, we saw both one of the larger funding rounds and one of the biggest M&A deal closings to date for the space.

On the funding front, Germany’s Isotope Technologies Munich closed on just over $200 million in an equity round led by Temasek Holdings.

Isotope Technologies said the money will go partly to prepare for a potential market launch of a treatment for a type of neuroendocrine tumor, which is currently in late-stage clinical trials. It  also plans to expand its manufacturing capabilities and pipeline of medical isotopes for cancer treatment.

On the M&A side, meanwhile, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca completed its purchase of Fusion Pharmaceuticals, a developer of oncology radiopharmaceuticals, for $2.1 billion plus up to $300 million in milestone payments. Hamilton, Ontario-based Fusion, founded in 2014, went public four years ago.

Growing pipeline of recently funded companies

Venture funding, meanwhile, continues to flow. Per Crunchbase data, at least 12 private companies focused on radiopharmaceuticals have raised venture or growth funding in the past two years. The companies in our sample set, posted below, have raised nearly $1.3 billion in funding to date.

It’s a relatively youthful list, with six of the companies on it founded less than four years ago. Across the whole list, meanwhile, a majority of funding also has come in the past couple of years.

A hot area for IPOs and acquisitions

Looking at valuations given to leading radiopharmaceuticals companies from public investors and large-cap acquirers, one can see why startup investors would be enthusiastic.

Fusion wasn’t the only multibillion-dollar radiopharmaceuticals M&A deal in recent months, nor was it even the largest. In February, Bristol-Myers Squibb completed its acquisition of Rayze Bio, a developer of radiopharmaceuticals for treating tumors, for $4.1 billion. San Diego-based Rayze had just gone public in September.

Of course, it’s not just the valuations that have attracted startup investors’ attention. We’re also seeing promising clinical trial results for treatments addressing some of humanity’s most intractable diseases.

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

• Radiopharmaceutical-Related Startups Funded In The Past Two Years

Illustration: Dom Guzman