Startup funding news — seed rounds, Series A through late-stage, and the investors backing new companies.
Iceland-based Treble raises $18 million for its voice simulation platform
Treble, an Iceland-based voice simulation startup, has closed an $18 million funding round to expand its synthetic voice technology platform. The roun…
Musk’s long-time backer is giving SpaceX stock to its investors
Valor Equity Partners, a venture capital firm with deep ties to Elon Musk and his ventures, is distributing SpaceX stock directly to its limited partn…
How Fortell is using AI (and $163M) to crack a hearing aid monopoly
Matthew de Jonge spent six years obsessing over a simple question: why do hearing aids feel like a burden while glasses feel natural? That frustration…
Why Thrive, Founders Fund, and Antonio Gracias are betting on hearing aids
Matthew de Jonge spent six years pursuing a deceptively simple observation: people wear glasses without hesitation, but hearing aids carry stigma that…
Next wave of VCs judging Startup Battlefield 200 contenders at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 revealed
TechCrunch has announced the next cohort of venture capital judges for Startup Battlefield 200 at its flagship Disrupt 2026 conference. The five newly…
Health benefits platform Thatch reaches $1B valuation as healthcare costs surge
Thatch, a health benefits platform focused on shifting how employers fund employee healthcare, has reached unicorn status at a $1 billion valuation. …
Evvy raises $40M as it seeks to further women’s health research with vaginal microbiome data
Evvy, a women's health startup focused on vaginal microbiome research, has closed a $40 million Series B round led by Catalio Capital Management. The …
AEO startup Profound hits unicorn valuation, raises $180M Series D 7 months after last round
Profound, an AI-powered autonomous equipment optimization platform, has achieved unicorn status with a $180 million Series D raise at a $1.8 billion v…
Wonder scores a $425 million partnership with DoorDash as it builds its food empire
Marc Lore's Wonder announced a $425 million partnership with DoorDash, marking a major validation of the startup's strategy to build a vertically inte…
Sector Snapshot: AI Takes A Growing Share Of Sales And Marketing Startup Funding
AI-powered sales and marketing startups are capturing an outsized share of venture funding as the category remains one of the most competitive in tech…
AI infrastructure company Cornelis raises $205M to chip away at Nvidia’s dominance
Cornelis Networks, an AI infrastructure startup, has closed a $205 million funding round to challenge Nvidia's grip on the GPU compute market. The com…
Y Combinator Still Busiest Startup Investor In August As Nvidia Ramps Up Its Dealmaking Pace
Y Combinator maintained its position as the most prolific startup investor in August, extending its streak as the accelerator network's most active de…
The 9 buzziest startups from Y Combinator’s latest Demo Day, according to VCs
Y Combinator's latest Demo Day showcased nine standout startups that captured venture capitalist attention across diverse sectors, from advanced nucle…
Fusion power startups find new partners in the defense world
Fusion energy startups are pivoting toward defense contracts as a new revenue stream and validation mechanism, marking a strategic shift in how these …
Kimi-maker Moonshot AI targets $2B in annual revenue
Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based startup behind the Kimi conversational AI model, is aggressively targeting $2 billion in annual revenue as it scales it…
Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data
Mecka AI, a robotics training data startup, is closing in on a $500 million valuation in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital. The deal undersco…
Y Combinator’s Garry Tan wants US open-weight AI labs to ‘distill’ frontier models, too
Y Combinator's president Garry Tan is pushing for a new AI strategy that would democratize frontier model capabilities across American open-weight lab…
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: The Boring Co., Cognition And Motive Lead A Massive Week
The U.S. startup funding market delivered a blockbuster week with four companies breaking the billion-dollar ceiling, signaling robust investor appeti…
Central Eurasia names its 2026 Road to Battlefield winners: Cerberus, WeGlobal AI, and LOOQ
Three startups will carry Central Eurasia's banner to San Francisco this October. Cerberus, WeGlobal AI, and LOOQ won the regional final of Road to Te…
Nscale adds former OpenAI exec Fidji Simo to its board ahead of potential IPO
Nscale, the enterprise software platform for managing supply chains and logistics, has appointed Fidji Simo to its board of directors. Simo held the p…
Proxima Fusion bets €140M on a critical fusion ingredient dominated by Asian suppliers
Proxima Fusion is building a 140 million euro manufacturing facility to produce high-temperature superconducting tape, a critical component for its fu…
Defense tech Mach Industries doubles valuation to $3.7B in 3 months
Mach Industries, a defense-focused technology company, has reached a $3.7 billion valuation after raising an additional $600 million in a Series C ext…
Thrive Capital led VCs into pro sports ownership; Collaborative Fund just upped that play
Collaborative Fund has joined the growing cohort of venture capital firms using sports team ownership as both portfolio strategy and founder recruitme…
Furo’s founders left Silicon Valley — and it’s paying off
Furo, an energy startup helmed by three 28-year-old founders, defied conventional wisdom by relocating from Silicon Valley to Germany and still landin…
The Boring Company raises $3B in round led by UAE
Elon Musk's The Boring Company closed a $3 billion funding round led by investors from the United Arab Emirates, a watershed moment for the infrastruc…
29 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In August, Led By AI Software And Semiconductors
August marked a blockbuster month for startup valuations, with 29 companies crossing the $1 billion threshold to join Crunchbase's Unicorn Board. The …
Maven Robotics wants to steal your robot deployment deal
Maven Robotics launched from stealth mode today announcing a $100 million Series A funding round, backed by a roster of top-tier venture investors. Th…
Harvey hits $15.5B valuation, months after reaching $11B
Harvey, the AI-powered legal research platform, has reached a $15.5 billion valuation following a new funding round, according to TechCrunch. The valu…
Uber invests $10M in Indian fleet operator Carrum at $168M valuation
Uber has invested $10 million in Carrum Mobility, the Indian fleet operator and its largest partner for the Uber Black premium service in India, valui…
Sequoia doubles down on Cymphony as AI agents create new enterprise security risks
Sequoia Capital is doubling its bet on Cymphony, the enterprise security startup tackling risks posed by AI agents in corporate environments. The firm…
CloudNC raises $20M to automate manufacturing’s most pressing bottlenecks
CloudNC, the UK-based manufacturing automation software company, closed a $20 million B extension round Wednesday, pushing its total raised to $128 mi…
Cognition hits $48B valuation, signaling investors believe AI coding is far from a winner-take-all market
Cognition AI has reached a $48 billion valuation in its latest funding round, a landmark valuation that reflects investor conviction in the AI coding …
The Exploration Company nabs $450 million to challenge SpaceX
The Exploration Company closed a $450 million Series C funding round, positioning the Luxembourg-based spacecraft developer as a direct competitor to …
Mistral AI Raises $3.5B At $24B Valuation In Another Record European AI Round
Mistral AI has locked down $3.5 billion in Series D funding, pushing the Paris-based generative AI startup to a $24 billion valuation. Samsung Electro…
Google’s revived nuclear power plant gets $1.9B loan from US government
Google's bet on nuclear power for data centers just got a major government boost. Constellation Energy received a $1.9 billion loan from the U.S. Depa…
Mistral raises €3B as sovereign AI becomes big business
Mistral AI has secured €3 billion in Series D funding, catapulting the French AI startup to a €21 billion valuation and cementing its position as Euro…
Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy raises $50M seed round, just two months after launch
Bluecore Energy closed a $50 million seed round in an oversubscribed funding event, arriving just two months after the nuclear startup launched public…
Poseidon Aerospace lands $60M ahead of first pilotless test flight
Poseidon Aerospace has secured $60 million in funding as the autonomous cargo aircraft startup prepares for its first pilotless test flight. The compa…
Eric Wu’s newest company, out of stealth since May, is going after construction’s labor crunch
Eric Wu is returning to startups with a construction-focused AI play. NavigateAI, his company launched publicly this May, has raised $25 million from …
XDOF, just 3 months out of stealth, is in talks for a Series B at a $1.2B valuation
XDOF, a robot data startup founded by former Tesla and Boston Dynamics engineers, has entered Series B fundraising discussions at a $1.2 billion valua…
The complex corporate web behind a $3.2 billion AI data center
# The Complex Corporate Web Behind a $3.2 Billion AI Data Center A $3.2 billion AI data center project reveals the murky accountability structures th…
XDOF, just three months out of stealth, is in talks for a Series B at a $1.2B valuation
XDOF, a robotics data platform that launched publicly only three months ago, has entered discussions for a Series B funding round that would value the…
AI compute provider Nscale is looking for $3.5B in pre-IPO financing
Nscale is pursuing a $3.5 billion pre-IPO funding round as the AI infrastructure company accelerates toward a public market debut, according to TechCr…
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Crusoe And Fluidstack Lead Multibillion-Dollar AI Infrastructure Haul
Crusoe Energy and Fluidstack dominated venture funding this week, securing a combined $4.5 billion in fresh capital as AI infrastructure investment re…
Krafton doubles down on India with another $250M bet beyond gaming
Krafton, the South Korean gaming giant behind PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), plans to invest an additional $250 million in India, bringing its …
Crusoe reportedly raises $3B at a $30B valuation
Crusoe Energy, the data center company focused on serving AI workloads, has raised $3 billion in funding at a $30 billion valuation, according to Tech…
Accel reportedly in talks to lead $1B round for Thinking Machines at $40B valuation
Accel Partners is negotiating to lead a $1 billion funding round for Thinking Machines at a $40 billion valuation, according to reports. The AI infras…
Utilities are racing to link up with fusion startups, with Realta Fusion the latest to benefit
# Utilities Racing to Secure Fusion Power as AI Data Centers Strain the Grid Power grid operators across North America face a capacity crunch. Data c…
Qualcomm backs Ultrahuman in $70M round on bet to turn smart rings into computers
Qualcomm is backing wearable startup Ultrahuman with $70 million in new funding, betting that smart rings can evolve into full-fledged computing devic…
Global Venture Funding Jumps 122% In August As Streak Of Billion-Dollar Deals Continues
Global venture capital markets snapped back into momentum in August, with investors deploying $42 billion across 1,500-plus startups worldwide, accord…
Former Apple Engineers’ Physical AI Startup Lyte Raises $165M At $1.6B Valuation
Lyte, a physical AI startup founded by former Apple engineers, has secured $165 million in Series C funding at a $1.6 billion valuation, with Maverick…
Enhanced geothermal notches another win as Google buys 400 MW from Fervo
Google is backing enhanced geothermal energy with a major power purchase agreement. The company will buy 400 megawatts from Fervo Energy, a startup fo…
Wonderful more than doubles its valuation to $5B in under 6 months
Wonderful, the food-tech startup backed by billionaire entrepreneur Marc Lore, has more than doubled its valuation to $5 billion in less than six mont…
HiddenLayer nabs $100M as enterprises rush to secure their AI deployments
HiddenLayer, an AI security startup, closed a $100 million funding round as enterprises accelerate efforts to lock down their artificial intelligence …
AfterQuery reportedly becomes Y Combinator’s fastest-ever unicorn, now valued at $3.2B
AfterQuery, an AI model-training startup, has achieved unicorn status in record time. The company closed a funding round valuing it at $3.2 billion, j…
WhatsApp Remittance Startup Félix Secures $200M Series C Led By A16z, General Catalyst
Félix, the Miami-based remittance startup built on WhatsApp, has landed $200 million in Series C funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and General Cat…
Sequoia-incubated Empirik launches with $21M to predict outages before they happen
Empirik, a Sequoia Capital-incubated startup, launches with $21 million in seed funding to predict IT infrastructure outages before they occur. The co…
AIR raises $50M to help companies vet the skills and add-ons AI agents use
AIR, an AI governance startup, has closed a $50 million funding round to expand its platform that audits and controls AI agent behavior within enterpr…
Sector Snapshot: Proptech Funding Holds Up, But Investors Are Placing Different Bets
Proptech investors are tightening their focus on artificial intelligence and automation-driven solutions as funding activity shifts away from traditio…
Lachy Groom backs Indian startup aiming to keep aircraft aloft for a year
Lachy Groom, the Sequoia Capital partner known for early bets on climate and infrastructure plays, has backed Alteon, an Indian startup building auton…
Polymarket reportedly raises $300 million from Donald Trump Jr.’s investment fund
Polymarket, the decentralized prediction market platform, raised $300 million in a funding round led by 1789 Capital, the investment fund backed by Do…
a16z brings growth fund to $8.5B days after launching new $1.1B fund
Andreessen Horowitz announced the expansion of its growth fund to $8.5 billion, capitalizing on momentum days after the firm launched a separate $1.1 …
Harvard Law dropout raises $6M for Blue Voice to build a ‘Harvey for police officers’
# Harvard Law Dropout's Blue Voice Raises $6M to Deploy AI Legal Assistant for Police Departments Blue Voice, an AI legal assistant built specificall…
Clipto uses AI to search terabytes of video and is now valued at $250M
Clipto, an AI video search platform, raised a $15 million Series B round that values the company at $250 million, the startup announced. The three-yea…
Nvidia’s $3.5B MediaTek bet reveals its plan for tackling Big Tech’s AI chip buildout
Nvidia invested $3.5 billion into MediaTek, the Taiwanese semiconductor powerhouse, in a strategic move that exposes how the GPU giant plans to mainta…
Biotech Startup Investment Held Steady Even As AI Funding Surged
Biotech startups escaped the volatility that has defined venture capital over the past three years, maintaining a consistent funding moat even as arti…
Self-driving truck startup Gatik raises $200M following PepsiCo deal
Gatik, an autonomous vehicle startup focused on middle-mile logistics, closed a $200 million Series C round led by Qatar Investment Authority and Koch…
Meta executive leaves for OpenAI as the social media giant faces growing scrutiny in India
Sandhya Devanathan, Meta's Vice President of India Operations, is departing the social media giant to join OpenAI as Vice President of Southeast Asia …
Runable hits $21M to bet AI agents can go from building businesses to growing them
Runable has raised $21 million to expand its AI agent platform, betting that autonomous systems can move beyond building businesses to actively growin…
Neocloud Lambda secures $1B in debt to buy more chips
Neocloud Lambda closed a $1 billion debt financing round to accelerate its chip acquisition strategy. The company plans to deploy the capital toward p…
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: AI Tools And Assistants Lead Sparser Lineup Of Megadeals
# AI Assistants Dominate Weekly Funding as Megadeals Thin Out Artificial intelligence startups commanded the top funding slots this week, with AI ass…
Friend-focused photo-sharing app Retro snags $21M
Retro, a photo-sharing platform built by former Instagram employees, has closed a Series A round of $21 million, according to TechCrunch. The funding …
a16z creates a $1.1B ‘Machine Age’ fund to ‘accelerate the physical buildout of AI’
Andreessen Horowitz launched a $1.1 billion fund focused on the hardware and infrastructure required to deploy artificial intelligence at scale. The "…
Sector Snapshot: Space Tech Startup Funding Orbits New Highs
Space technology startups have shattered all previous funding records, pulling in $20.3 billion across seed through growth-stage rounds in just eight …
Rivian’s CFO is leaving the company
Rivian's Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough is departing the electric vehicle maker effective October 30, the company disclosed in a regulatory …
Socure Secures $156M at $5.2B Valuation, Acquires AI Fraud Investigation Startup Fravity
Socure, the identity verification and fraud prevention company, closed a $156 million strategic growth investment that values the company at $5.2 bill…
Viral AI startup Instinct has raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation
Instinct, a one-year-old AI startup, has closed a $350 million funding round at a $2.5 billion valuation, cementing its status as one of the fastest-g…
Amazon just tripled its order of Nvidia chips over ‘surging demand’
Amazon has tripled its order of Nvidia graphics processing units, committing to purchase 2 million additional GPU chips for deployment across its data…
Anthropic continues compute-gobbling streak in $45B deal with Nscale
Anthropic has locked in a $45 billion infrastructure deal with Nscale, the latest move in an aggressive compute acquisition strategy that underscores …
What’s driving Sweden’s startup boom, from Lovable to Legora
Sweden's startup ecosystem is experiencing a surge driven by a trio of breakout companies commanding unicorn-scale valuations and investor enthusiasm.…
Sector Snapshot: Legal Tech Funding Down Slightly From All-Time High
# Legal Tech Startups Enter Pullback After Record Year Venture investors deployed more than $7 billion into legal tech startups over the past two yea…
India’s Ringg gets backing from Peak XV as it pushes voice AI past the phone call
Ringg, an India-based voice AI platform, has secured $10 million in Series A extension funding led by Peak XV Partners, the venture capital firm forme…
Robotics startup Generalist reaches $3B valuation, sources say
Generalist, a physical AI and robotics startup, has reached a $3 billion valuation following a $200 million funding extension, according to sources fa…
Why Bootstrapped Businesses Are More Relevant Than Ever
# Bootstrapped Businesses Are Reclaiming Ground in a Venture-Saturated Market Richard de Silva, managing partner at Lateral Investment Management, ar…
India’s Airbound bags $37M to take on trucks with rocket-like drones
Airbound, an Indian drone delivery startup, closed a $37 million funding round led by Greenoaks Capital, with participation from food delivery giant D…
Situational Awareness, star AI hedge fund that nearly imploded, now being probed by the SEC
Situational Awareness, the AI-focused hedge fund that captured Wall Street's attention with bold claims about artificial intelligence's market implica…
Trump bought SpaceX shares two weeks after blockbuster IPO
# Trump Purchases SpaceX Shares at Premium Following Company's IPO President Trump acquired SpaceX shares roughly two weeks after the company's initi…
Valor, Point72 back General Intuition at $6B valuation as AI startup pushes into robotics
General Intuition has emerged as one of AI's hottest young companies, commanding a $6 billion pre-money valuation in a fresh funding round led by Valo…
Hugging Face reportedly in talks to be acquired for $13B
Hugging Face, the open-source AI platform that has become the go-to repository for machine learning models, is in acquisition discussions that could v…
Starcloud raises $250 million for orbital data centers as launch options dry up
Starcloud has secured $250 million in funding to build orbital data centers as the space launch market faces a critical bottleneck. The startup plans …
TikTok reaches $400M settlement over children’s privacy lawsuit
TikTok agreed to pay $400 million to settle federal allegations that it violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, concluding a two-year l…
US battery startups have found a lifeline in defense
# US Battery Startups Score $500M DOE Lifeline as EV Market Shifts U.S. battery startups just caught a critical break. The Department of Energy hande…
Which Investors Have Backed The Most 2026 Unicorns?
The unicorn factory is running hotter than ever in 2026. Through mid-August, 250 companies have crossed the billion-dollar valuation threshold, outpac…
Japanese space tech startup Letara expands beyond satellite thrusters with $16M
Letara, a Japanese space technology startup, secured ¥2.6 billion ($16 million) in fresh funding as it pivots from a narrow focus on satellite thruste…
Nvidia partners with data center developer Cloverleaf
Nvidia has deepened its infrastructure play by partnering with Cloverleaf, a data center developer focused on building AI-optimized facilities. The pa…
How AI accounting startup Rillet raised $100M and became a unicorn in 48 hours
# AI Accounting Startup Rillet Hits Unicorn Status in Record Time After Casual Board Meeting Rillet, an AI-powered accounting software company, achie…
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Defense Tech, AI Tools And Infrastructure Lead The Way
# Defense Tech and AI Infrastructure Dominate Week's Largest Funding Rounds Castelion, a defense technology startup building hypersonic missile syste…
AI code-testing startup Blacksmith’s valuation jumps almost 10x in less than a year
Blacksmith, an AI-powered code-testing platform, has seen its valuation surge nearly 10x in less than a year, capitalizing on explosive demand for aut…
General Catalyst leads $1.1B round into 2-month-old River AI
General Catalyst has led a $1.1 billion funding round into River AI, a two-month-old startup founded by Igor Babuschkin, xAI's co-founder and former V…
Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M
# The Fusion Elite: Billions Flow to a Narrow Set of Energy Startups Fusion energy startups have amassed $7.1 billion in total funding, yet the capit…
Silkroad Innovation Hub’s Road to Battlefield competition continues
Silkroad Innovation Hub has advanced its "Road to Battlefield" competition into its second year, cementing the initiative as a consistent pipeline for…
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Data, Neolab, AI Infrastructure, Defense And AI Coding Lead
Databricks leads this week's funding pack with a fresh $5 billion round, doubling down on its momentum just eight months after closing an identical $5…
AI coding startup Cognition reportedly already in talks to raise at $40B valuation
Cognition, the AI coding assistant startup behind the popular Devin platform, is already in early-stage discussions to raise fresh capital at a $40 bi…
40 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In July, The Highest Count In 4 Years
July's unicorn wave hit a four-year high, with 40 companies crossing the $1 billion valuation threshold. The last time venture-backed startups hit thi…
Databricks wanted to raise $1B, investors wanted $15B. It settled on $5B at a $190B valuation.
Databricks closed a $5 billion Series G funding round at a $190 billion valuation, nearly doubling its previous $100 billion valuation from just six m…
The Biggest Consequence Of An AI IPO Isn’t The IPO Itself. It’s What Happens Afterward.
The next phase of venture capital's AI boom won't play out on public markets. It'll play out in private fundraising offices. As artificial intelligen…
Sector Snapshot: Fitness Startup Funding Is Rebounding, But Investors Want AI And Data, Not Treadmills
Venture capital is flooding back into fitness and wellness startups after years of skepticism, with first-half 2026 funding totaling $3.6 billion and …
Global New Unicorn Counts In The First Half Of 2026 Have Already Surpassed 2025’s Totals
The unicorn creation machine accelerated sharply in the first half of 2026, with 195 startups crossing the $1 billion valuation threshold. That figure…
Lovable confirms new $13.3B valuation, raises another $400M
Lovable, an AI-powered web development platform, has closed a $400 million funding round at a $13.3 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch. The ra…