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stories 61–120 of 910FUNDING$400M raised / $1.4B valuation
Tsinghua Professor's Stealth LLM Startup Hits $1.4B
A stealth-mode Chinese LLM startup founded in February by a Tsinghua University professor has quietly reached a $1.4 billion valuation after raising $400 million across three rounds, including from Tencent.
DEEP DIVE
This Week Alone Nearly Matched A Month Of AI Infra Capital
FUNDING
This Week Alone Nearly Matched A Month Of AI Infra Capital
Crusoe's $3.9B raise and CoreWeave's roughly $6B combined debt-and-equity push this week total nearly $10B, against Pulse's own tracker showing $129.9B across 347 startup deals over the past 17 weeks.
BY THE NUMBERS
25,000 Applications Later, Seed VCs Have New Rules
FUNDING
25,000 Applications Later, Seed VCs Have New Rules
LvlUp Ventures reviewed 25,000 seed-stage applications over the past year and found distribution architecture and learning velocity now matter more to investors than the product-team-pitch formula that used to be sufficient.
DEEP DIVE
Watney Raises $80M To Put Robots In Data Centers
FUNDING$80M Series A
Watney Raises $80M To Put Robots In Data Centers
Watney Robotics raised an $80 million Series A co-led by Valor Atreides AI Fund and Hummingbird Ventures as Meta tests its dual-arm robots against ABB and Kinova hardware inside live data centers in Iowa and Ohio.
DEEP DIVE
OpenAI, Anthropic Add Nearly $3 Trillion In One Week
FUNDING
OpenAI, Anthropic Add Nearly $3 Trillion In One Week
OpenAI's prospective $1.5T round and Anthropic's prospective $2T IPO would together add close to $1.7 trillion in paper valuation versus their last priced rounds -- in the same week.
BY THE NUMBERS
D-Robotics Raises $400M To Build Chips For Every Robot
FUNDING$400M Series C
D-Robotics Raises $400M To Build Chips For Every Robot
Chinese robotics-chip maker D-Robotics closed a $400 million Series C led by Mirae Asset, with Meituan and government-backed funds participating, in what's described as China's largest robotics funding deal in four years.
DEEP DIVE
Nex Raises $150M As Active-Play Console Hits 1M Sales
FUNDING$150M Series E
Nex Raises $150M As Active-Play Console Hits 1M Sales
Nex raised more than $150 million in Series E debt and equity funding co-led by Baillie Gifford and BAI Capital as its motion-based Nex Playground console crossed 1 million units sold.
DEEP DIVE
Crusoe Closes $3.9B Series F At $30.9B, Up From $10B
FUNDING$3.9B Series F
Crusoe Closes $3.9B Series F At $30.9B, Up From $10B
Crusoe's AI data-center buildout tripled its valuation to $30.9B in under a year, with Nvidia, Founders Fund and three sovereign-linked funds among the backers of the initial close.
FOLLOW-UP
Crusoe Closes Series F At $3.9B, Valuation Hits $30.9B
FUNDING$3.9B Series F / $30.9B valuation
Crusoe Closes Series F At $3.9B, Valuation Hits $30.9B
AI data-center builder Crusoe closed its Series F at $3.9 billion and a $30.9 billion valuation, funding the Abilene, Texas OpenAI campus and a new line of truck-deployable modular data centers.
DEEP DIVE
Insight Partners Leads $45M Round For AI Captive Insurer
FUNDING$45M Series B
Insight Partners Leads $45M Round For AI Captive Insurer
Luzern Risk, an AI-native captive insurance manager formerly known as XN Captive, raised a $45 million Series B led by Insight Partners to speed up how quickly custom captive insurance programs can be launched and run.
DEEP DIVE
CoreWeave Launches $3B Convertible Bond, New ATM Program
FUNDING$3B convertible notes + $2.9B ATM
CoreWeave Launches $3B Convertible Bond, New ATM Program
CoreWeave is raising up to $3.5 billion via convertible notes due 2033 and opened a 35 million-share ATM program, pushing toward an investment-grade credit profile to fund its AI data-center buildout.
DEEP DIVE
Bain Capital Ventures Raises $1.6B To Bet On 'Life After AGI'
FUNDING$1.6B Fund XI
Bain Capital Ventures Raises $1.6B To Bet On 'Life After AGI'
Bain Capital Ventures closed its largest fund yet, built around backing startups that sell AI-completed work itself rather than the software tools underneath it.
DEEP DIVE
Comp AI Raises $34M To Push Compliance Into Agentic Security
FUNDING$34M Series A
Comp AI Raises $34M To Push Compliance Into Agentic Security
Comp AI closed a $34 million Series A led by Roo Capital and Grand Ventures to expand its agentic compliance platform into continuous cybersecurity monitoring, after 15x year-over-year ARR growth.
DEEP DIVE
The Fed Just Hiked Rates. AI Capital Didn't Blink.
FUNDING25bp hike to 3.75%-4%
The Fed Just Hiked Rates. AI Capital Didn't Blink.
The Fed's first rate hike since 2023 knocked the Dow down 630 points, but the week's venture data shows AI-adjacent megarounds barely slowed -- a split worth watching closely.
DEEP DIVE
Khosla-Backed Mazama Energy Raises $135M For Hot-Rock Power
FUNDING$135M Series B
Khosla-Backed Mazama Energy Raises $135M For Hot-Rock Power
Mazama Energy closed an oversubscribed $135 million Series B led by Centaurus Capital and Doerr Capital, with ConocoPhillips, Shell Ventures and returning backer Khosla Ventures, to drill three miles into superheated rock for round-the-clock power.
DEEP DIVE
D-Robotics Closes $400M Series C For Robot Chips
FUNDING$400M Series C
D-Robotics Closes $400M Series C For Robot Chips
Hong Kong-based D-Robotics closed a $400 million Series C led by Mirae Asset to expand its Sunrise chip line and software platform for AI robots.
DEEP DIVE
Vishal Sikka's Hang Ten Adds $53M, $85M Total In 4 Months
FUNDING$53M extension / $85M total
Vishal Sikka's Hang Ten Adds $53M, $85M Total In 4 Months
Vishal Sikka's four-month-old enterprise AI startup Hang Ten Systems has raised $85 million total after a $53 million extension led by Temasek's Xora.
DEEP DIVE
OpenAI Weighs New Funding Round At $1.5T Valuation
FUNDING$1.2T-$1.5T valuation
OpenAI Weighs New Funding Round At $1.5T Valuation
OpenAI is negotiating a fresh funding round that could value the company at up to $1.5 trillion -- roughly double its $730 billion mark from March -- as Sam Altman pushes back on an IPO.
DEEP DIVE
Bain Capital Ventures Closes $1.6B Fund For 'Post-AGI' Bets
FUNDING$1.6B Fund XI
Bain Capital Ventures Closes $1.6B Fund For 'Post-AGI' Bets
Bain Capital Ventures closed its eleventh flagship fund at $1.6 billion, 14% larger than its predecessor, betting on AI agents as the primary driver of a coming 'post-AGI' economy.
DEEP DIVE
AI Hearing-Aid Startup Fortell Hits $740M Valuation
FUNDING$163M raised / $740M valuation
AI Hearing-Aid Startup Fortell Hits $740M Valuation
Fortell, backed by Founders Fund and Thrive Capital, has raised $163 million and reached a $740 million valuation building AI hearing aids meant to isolate speech from noise in real time.
DEEP DIVE
Arcee AI Hits $1B+ Valuation Building Open-Weight Models
FUNDING$150M Series B / $1B+ valuation
Arcee AI Hits $1B+ Valuation Building Open-Weight Models
Arcee AI closed a $150 million Series B at a pre-money valuation above $1 billion, betting enterprises will pay to run open-weight models instead of renting closed frontier APIs.
DEEP DIVE
Impulse Space Adds $308M, Valuation Jumps To $5.6B
FUNDING$308M ext. / $5.6B valuation
Impulse Space Adds $308M, Valuation Jumps To $5.6B
Impulse Space closed a $308 million Series D extension at a $5.6 billion valuation, growing its Series D to $808 million total as demand for in-space transportation outpaces the company's launch manifest.
DEEP DIVE
Manufacturing AI Startup CADDi Reaches Unicorn Status
FUNDING$114M Series D / $1.18B valuation
Manufacturing AI Startup CADDi Reaches Unicorn Status
CADDi raised $114 million in a Series D round that values the Chicago- and Tokyo-based manufacturing data platform at $1.18 billion, officially making it a unicorn as it pushes further into North America.
DEEP DIVE
Sling Banks $123M To Push Oral Thyroid Eye Disease Pill
FUNDING$123M Series C
Sling Banks $123M To Push Oral Thyroid Eye Disease Pill
Sling Therapeutics closed a $123 million Series C led by Forbion to fund a Phase 3 trial of linsitinib, an oral pill positioned as a more convenient alternative to injectable treatments for thyroid eye disease.
DEEP DIVE
Why One September Day Explains AI Capital's Mood
FUNDING$2.2B+ priced in one day
Why One September Day Explains AI Capital's Mood
Three unrelated capital events -- two new unicorns and an $8 billion acquisition financing -- landed the same day the FTC chair warned AI labs against seeking both new regulation and antitrust protection at once.
DEEP DIVE
$2.2B Priced In One Day Across Three AI Bets
FUNDING$2.2B across 3 events
$2.2B Priced In One Day Across Three AI Bets
Value Add Pulse tallied the capital raised across three separate September 15 announcements -- Profound, Thatch and Rocket Lab's Iridium financing -- against the prior week's eleven largest US venture rounds.
BY THE NUMBERS
Euclyd Raises $231M To Challenge Nvidia On Inference
FUNDING$231M Series A
Euclyd Raises $231M To Challenge Nvidia On Inference
Dutch chip startup Euclyd raised more than $231 million in a Series A led by Samsung, with former ASML chief executive Peter Wennink joining as chairman to help commercialize a memory-centric architecture aimed at AI inference.
DEEP DIVE
Inspiren Raises $70M To Scale AI Senior-Living Platform
FUNDING$70M Series C / $500M+ valuation
Inspiren Raises $70M To Scale AI Senior-Living Platform
Inspiren raised $70 million in a Series C round valuing the ambient-sensor senior-living startup above $500 million, its largest round yet as it expands an AI platform that predicts falls before they happen.
DEEP DIVE
Thatch Hits Unicorn Status As Health Costs Surge
FUNDING$108M Series C
Thatch Hits Unicorn Status As Health Costs Surge
Thatch, an ICHRA marketplace that lets employers fund individual health plans instead of one group policy, raised a $108 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation as revenue grew nearly sevenfold over the past year.
DEEP DIVE
Flam Raises $40M Series B With Shah Rukh Khan
FUNDING$40M Series B
Flam Raises $40M Series B With Shah Rukh Khan
AI interactive-content startup Flam raised a $40 million Series B led by QED Investors with backing from Shah Rukh Khan and Datadog's Olivier Pomel, pushing past its 2021 mixed-reality roots toward AI-generated brand content.
DEEP DIVE
SoftBank's Payoff Shows Who's Really Financing The AI Boom
FUNDING
SoftBank's Payoff Shows Who's Really Financing The AI Boom
SoftBank refinancing its OpenAI bridge loan with bonds and margin loans, not IPO proceeds, is more evidence that debt -- not venture equity -- has become the financing engine of the AI infrastructure buildout.
TRACE'S TAKE
Oracle, Microsoft And The Pentagon, By The Numbers
FUNDING
Oracle, Microsoft And The Pentagon, By The Numbers
Value Add Pulse tallies three numbers from the past week's AI infrastructure coverage -- Oracle's $664B cloud backlog, Microsoft's 38GW power target, and the Pentagon's proposed $5B loan to Fluidstack -- that together price the buildout's capital intensity.
BY THE NUMBERS
Eleven US Rounds, $10.8B, Ten Days: September's Real Pace
FUNDING$10.8B across 11 rounds
Eleven US Rounds, $10.8B, Ten Days: September's Real Pace
Value Add Pulse totaled the eleven largest venture rounds of September 5-11 and found roughly $10.8 billion committed, with four deals at $1 billion or more and ten of eleven going to US companies.
BY THE NUMBERS
Anthropic Signs A $13.7B Compute Deal With Trump-Linked Rum Group
FUNDING
Anthropic Signs A $13.7B Compute Deal With Trump-Linked Rum Group
Anthropic agreed to pay Rum Group -- the Rumble-owned infrastructure company that hosts Truth Social and counts Peter Thiel and JD Vance among its early backers -- $13.7 billion over six years for GPU capacity at a Georgia data center still under construction, days after publicly calling for the industry to slow down.
DEEP DIVE
Teravolt Wants To Turn Smelters Into AI Data Centers
FUNDING
Teravolt Wants To Turn Smelters Into AI Data Centers
Teravolt is converting aluminum smelters, retired thermal plants and bitcoin mines into AI data centers, arguing a megawatt-hour earns roughly four times more running GPUs than running a smelter.
DEEP DIVE
The Departed Founder Who Still Owns 20% Of Your Company
FUNDING
The Departed Founder Who Still Owns 20% Of Your Company
Startup lawyer David Siegel argues the standard four-year vest with a one-year cliff manufactures litigation, and says VC tolerance for equity held by departed founders has collapsed from as much as 20% to about 2.5%.
DEEP DIVE
Clarity Act Odds Jump After Trump Accepts Ethics Limits
FUNDING
Clarity Act Odds Jump After Trump Accepts Ethics Limits
Betting markets moved sharply after Senate Republicans released a Clarity Act draft with more than 120 changes, including new ethics provisions barring the president and Congress from sponsoring digital assets for payment, ahead of a September 15 cloture vote.
DEEP DIVE
Tandem Health Raises $100M For Clinical AI Co-Pilot
FUNDING$100M Series B
Tandem Health Raises $100M For Clinical AI Co-Pilot
Stockholm's Tandem Health raised €86.5 million in a Series B led by EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund to build an AI co-pilot for clinical documentation, betting European healthcare fragmentation favors a local-native builder over Abridge or Microsoft's Nuance.
DEEP DIVE
Fortaegis Raises $50M To Put Security In The Silicon
FUNDING$50M Series A
Fortaegis Raises $50M To Put Security In The Silicon
Fortaegis closed an oversubscribed $50M Series A led by Serendipity Capital to commercialize silicon-level security for AI accelerators, satellites, defense hardware and autonomous machines.
DEEP DIVE
Tandem Health Raises $100M To Build An AI Clinic OS
FUNDING$100M Series B
Tandem Health Raises $100M To Build An AI Clinic OS
Stockholm-based Tandem Health raised $100 million in Series B funding led by EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund, its first healthtech investment, bringing Tandem's total funding to $160 million as it expands from AI documentation into a full clinic operating system.
DEEP DIVE
YC's Newest Batch Skews Deep Tech: Barges, Brain Chips, Mars
FUNDING
YC's Newest Batch Skews Deep Tech: Barges, Brain Chips, Mars
Y Combinator's September 2026 Demo Day produced nine startups VCs flagged as buzziest, spanning floating nuclear data centers, jet-powered counter-drones, brain-cell computing and humanoid robots, with valuations investors described as more grounded than recent batches.
DEEP DIVE
Qupital Raises $300M To Scale AI Trade-Finance Underwriting
FUNDING$300M raise
Qupital Raises $300M To Scale AI Trade-Finance Underwriting
Hong Kong fintech Qupital raised $300 million in combined Series C equity and asset-backed financing led by M Capital with MUFG participation, pushing cumulative loans processed past $9.5 billion as it eyes an IPO.
DEEP DIVE
September's Megadeals Already Top $8 Billion
FUNDING
September's Megadeals Already Top $8 Billion
Six companies -- The Boring Company, Cognition, Positron AI, Mach Industries, Harvey, and Ayar Labs -- have absorbed more than $8 billion in the first ten days of September, almost all of it into physical AI infrastructure and applied AI.
BY THE NUMBERS
Pentagon Weighs $5B Loan For AI Cloud Startup Fluidstack
FUNDING$5B loan (in talks)
Pentagon Weighs $5B Loan For AI Cloud Startup Fluidstack
The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital is negotiating what would be its largest loan ever -- not to build a new AI data center, but to shore up the supply chain behind the ones already under construction.
DEEP DIVE
Mecka AI Nears $500M On Robot Data Rush
FUNDING~$500M valuation (round in progress)
Mecka AI Nears $500M On Robot Data Rush
Mecka AI, which pays crowdsourced workers to record everyday tasks for training humanoid robots, is nearing a Sequoia-led round at close to a $500 million valuation.
DEEP DIVE
Khosla Ventures Leaves Sand Hill Road For NYC
FUNDING
Khosla Ventures Leaves Sand Hill Road For NYC
Khosla Ventures is opening its first office outside Sand Hill Road, a 14th Street outpost in New York set to open this fall as the city overtakes the Bay Area in tech headcount.
DEEP DIVE
Kinetix AI Raises $75M For Humanoid Robots
FUNDING$75M Angel+ round
Kinetix AI Raises $75M For Humanoid Robots
The year-old embodied-AI startup, led by former Huawei autonomous-driving executives, raised an Angel+ round led by Temasek's Vertex Ventures to fund its full-size humanoid, KAI.
DEEP DIVE
Ayar Labs Adds $150M, Tops $650M For 2026
FUNDING$150M add, $5B valuation
Ayar Labs Adds $150M, Tops $650M For 2026
A $225 million secondary sale priced the optical-interconnect chipmaker above $5 billion, a 33% markup from its March valuation, as it races to reach high-volume manufacturing.
DEEP DIVE
Robotics And Defense Tech Are Smashing 2026 Records
FUNDING
Robotics And Defense Tech Are Smashing 2026 Records
Robotics startups have raised $18.8 billion so far in 2026, already the biggest annual total on record, while defense tech has pulled in $35.6 billion year-to-date, up roughly 40% versus all of 2025.
BY THE NUMBERS
Motive Raises $1.3B To Scale Fleet AI
FUNDING$1.3B private equity round
Motive Raises $1.3B To Scale Fleet AI
Fleet management software company Motive raised $1.3 billion in private equity funding led by General Catalyst, one of four US companies to raise $1 billion or more in a single week.
DEEP DIVE
Boring Company Raises $3B At $23B, UAE Leads
FUNDING$3B Series D at $23B valuation
Boring Company Raises $3B At $23B, UAE Leads
Elon Musk's tunneling venture The Boring Company raised $3 billion in a Series D led by the UAE, valuing the company at $23 billion -- a fourfold increase from 2022 -- to fund more than 150 kilometers of new tunnels across the Emirates.
DEEP DIVE
Instinct Eyes $1B Raise As Compute Costs Bite
FUNDINGup to $1B raise sought
Instinct Eyes $1B Raise As Compute Costs Bite
Personal AI assistant Instinct is in talks to raise as much as $1 billion at a valuation up to $10 billion, weeks after its last round, as compute costs strain its free-to-use product.
FOLLOW-UP
Bending Spoons Buys Miro For $1.355B, Weeks After Airtable
FUNDING$1.355B acquisition
Bending Spoons Buys Miro For $1.355B, Weeks After Airtable
Italy's Bending Spoons agreed to acquire whiteboard-turned-AI-workspace Miro at a $1.355 billion enterprise value, its second major collaboration-software acquisition in weeks.
DEEP DIVE
This $950M Fund Bets Against VC-Fueled Growth
FUNDING$950M Fund VI
This $950M Fund Bets Against VC-Fueled Growth
Boston growth-equity firm Volition Capital raised $950 million for its largest fund yet, targeting profitable, bootstrapped software companies as LPs worry about AI disrupting SaaS.
DEEP DIVE
Positron AI Raises $875M At $5B Valuation
FUNDING$875M at $5B valuation
Positron AI Raises $875M At $5B Valuation
AI inference-chip startup Positron AI raised $875 million at a $5 billion valuation, more than quadrupling its value in seven months as it races to tape out its memory-heavy Asimov chip on TSMC's N3P process.
DEEP DIVE
Pinegrove Closes $1.5B Fund Of Funds, Oversubscribed
FUNDING$1.5B fund close
Pinegrove Closes $1.5B Fund Of Funds, Oversubscribed
Pinegrove Venture Partners closed its Strategic Investors Fund XII at $1.5 billion across early- and scale-stage strategies, an oversubscribed vehicle giving institutional LPs concentrated exposure to a curated set of venture managers.
DEEP DIVE
VC Firms Are Buying Sports Teams And Cards
FUNDING
VC Firms Are Buying Sports Teams And Cards
Thrive Capital, Collaborative Fund and a Griffin Gaming managing director are all redirecting venture money and personal capital into sports franchises and trading cards as a hedge against startup-market froth.
DEEP DIVE
Mach Industries Doubles Valuation To $3.7B
FUNDING$600M add-on at $3.7B valuation
Mach Industries Doubles Valuation To $3.7B
Defense-tech drone maker Mach Industries raised an additional $600 million, doubling its valuation to $3.7 billion just three months after its original Series C, an eightfold jump in a little over a year.
FOLLOW-UP
Alibaba, Tencent Back UniPat AI At $2.5B
FUNDING$300M at $2.5B
Alibaba, Tencent Back UniPat AI At $2.5B
Alibaba is leading a $300 million investment in UniPat AI, an AI model-testing and benchmarking startup founded by a former Alibaba intern, valuing the company at $2.5 billion with Tencent also participating.
DEEP DIVE
29 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In August
FUNDING
29 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In August
Twenty-nine companies crossed billion-dollar valuations in August, adding roughly $63 billion in aggregate value, with AI software and semiconductors leading and 16 of the 29 based in the US.
DEEP DIVE