American companies raised just around $13 billion in seed- through later- and growth-stage funding so far this month, per 附近上门 . Unless momentum suddenly picks up, that puts March on track to deliver just a fraction of investment tallies from either of the prior two months, as charted below.

Slowdown more pronounced at late stage

The slowdown is almost entirely due to fewer giant AI megarounds closing this month.听

Given that, there鈥檚 a case to be made against reading too much into the topline numbers. After all, most of February鈥檚 huge tally came from a single round 鈥� 鈥檚 record-setting $110 billion fundraise 鈥� that happened to be announced on the second-to-last day of the month.听

A couple weeks before that, secured a $30 billion financing. Also in early February, robotaxi pioneer picked up $16 billion in fresh late-stage funding.

Early- and seed-stage dealmaking in March, by comparison, is on track to come in close to the prior two months鈥� levels, as charted below.

Iran War and US investor jitters听

The March startup funding slowdown also coincides with the Iran War, which commenced on Feb. 28. Broad stock indexes have fallen in tandem in subsequent weeks, although Monday did bring a much-awaited partial rebound.

Notably, this month鈥檚 funding deceleration is mostly a U.S. phenomenon. European startup funding, by contrast, actually hit its highest point of the year in March, boosted by megarounds for AI infrastructure unicorn and artificial intelligence startup .

February may be one for the record books

While there are plenty of potential catalysts that could drive funding higher in coming weeks, both economic and geopolitical, it鈥檚 likely February鈥檚 U.S. funding tally will remain one for the record books.听

Clearly, a $110 billion funding round 鈥� something without close precedent in startup history 鈥� will be听 tough to top. If it does happen, it鈥檒l likely take years, not weeks or months.

For now, we鈥檒l be keeping a close eye on the health of later-stage funding by more typical comps. By those measures, the March slowdown looks considerably less dire.

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• Global VC Investment Surged In January, With U.S. Dominating Funding, But A Pair Of AI Model IPOs In China听
• OpenAI鈥檚 New $110B Raise At A $840B Valuation Marks The Largest Venture Deal Ever
• Anthropic Raises $30B At $380B Valuation In Second-Largest Venture Funding Deal Of All Time
• Turing Winner LeCun鈥檚 New 鈥榃orld Model鈥� AI Lab Raises $1B In Europe鈥檚 Largest Seed Round Ever听

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led the financing, which included participation from 听and angel investors from , 听and , among others. Founded in 2022 by former institutional commercial real estate operators and , Cambio has now raised a total of $22 million. It participated in Y Combinator鈥檚 summer 2022 cohort and then went into 鈥淩&D mode.鈥�

The San Francisco-based company launched its offering at the end of 2023, and de Guzman claims it has since seen 鈥渞apid adoption鈥� across enterprise customers and geographies 鈥� scaling to 35 countries and to more than 2 billion square feet in assets. It recently opened a London office to support EU and APAC growth.听

From 鈥榤essy鈥� to investment-grade data

Put simply, Cambio uses large language models and agentic artificial intelligence workflows to turn 鈥渕essy building data into investor-grade decisions and reporting.鈥� And it claims to do so within minutes.

鈥淐ommercial real estate owners sit on thousands of pages of unstructured documents 鈥� spreadsheets, PDFs, invoices, energy audits, regulatory filings 鈥� that historically required months of manual analysis,鈥� de Guzman told 附近上门 News. 鈥淐ambio applies large language models and agentic AI to ingest, reason over, and synthesize that data automatically, delivering investment-grade capital and compliance decisions in minutes.鈥�

Cambio, she said, is architected around agentic AI software that can reason across unstructured data, run multi-step analyses, and 鈥渃ontinuously adapt as regulations, assets, and market conditions change.鈥�

In a nutshell, it aims to help institutional investors figure out where to deploy capital, which assets to prioritize, and how to maximize returns. Customers include , , , 听and , among others.

The market opportunity, according to de Guzman, is enormous: commercial real estate is estimated to be in the U.S. alone.

In 2025, global real estate-related startups pulled in about $10.5 billion in seed- through growth-stage financing, per 附近上门 . That鈥檚 up about 17% from $9 billion in 2024.

An industry track record

Part of Cambio鈥檚 strategy is to have built a (largely female) leadership team that has directly worked in the space it is trying to serve. De Guzman and Grayson began their careers at large institutional firms such as and Oxford Properties.听

The startup also recently hired alumna to serve as head of product innovation. , formerly of Oxford Properties and , has been tapped to serve as lead of Cambio鈥檚 European and APAC business.

The moves from institutions to a startup serving them reflect a broader shift happening in commercial real estate, noted Grayson 鈥� the choice 鈥渢o step inside AI transformation, and not just observe it from the sidelines.鈥�

Cambio operates an enterprise SaaS revenue model. It plans to use its new capital primarily to scale product and engineering.

, managing director at Maverick Ventures, told 附近上门 News via email that his firm was impressed with the fact that Cambio鈥檚 founders had spent more than two decades running commercial real estate portfolios.

鈥淭hat lived experience matters,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t gave them an intuitive understanding that this wasn鈥檛 a tooling problem 鈥� it was a workflow problem.鈥�

Maverick was also impressed by the fact that Cambio wasn鈥檛 trying 鈥渢o bolt AI onto existing processes.鈥�

鈥楻e-architecting the workflow鈥�

鈥淐ambio isn鈥檛 automating around the edges, it鈥檚 re-architecting the workflow end to end in an AI-native way, with a deeply product-minded approach,鈥� Isono said. 鈥淜nowing what to build, which workflow to wedge into, and how to sequence products requires having lived these workflows, which Leia and Steph have.鈥�

The investor also praised the startup鈥檚 technical team, noting that CTO was one of the earliest backend engineers at , a marketplace and wholesale platform that was valued at nearly $13 billion in 2022. That technical team, he said, also includes Ph.D.s with 鈥渄eep expertise鈥� in building science.听

鈥淭hat matters because commercial real estate is fundamentally tied to the physical world. Much of the data isn鈥檛 clean or fully digitized, and automating it is meaningfully harder than in purely digital domains,鈥� Isono said. 鈥淪olving that unlocks a uniquely valuable dataset that compounds over time.鈥�

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It鈥檚 no simple goal to achieve, of course. But these days there are almost infinite ways to spend money trying, including classes, gear, biometric trackers, supplements, and so on.听

Just don鈥檛 expect newly funded startups to get you to the finish line. Venture investment in the fitness and wellness space peaked about four years ago. It hit a cyclical low last year, with just over $5 billion in reported global funding.

Where the money is going

That said, it鈥檚 not as if investors have abandoned the space, and there are still companies securing big rounds.

In recent months, the standout was , maker of a smart ring that collects data on dozens of personal health and wellness metrics. In October, the 12-year-old Finnish company that it closed on more than $900 million at an impressive $11 billion valuation.

Another longtime player in the space, fitness app , reportedly reached a $2.2 billion valuation earlier this year after raising an undisclosed amount of new funding led by . And on the wellness front, , an at-home testing platform, picked up $165 million in a Series F early last year.

Getting a good night鈥檚 rest is also fundamental for healthy living, and in this arena smart sleep system developer was a standout. The 12-year-old company raised $100 million for its Series D last summer.

Below, we put together a list of some of the larger funding recipients this past year.

Outside the venture sphere, private equity and growth investors are also eyeing the intersection of fitness and AI. Last week, fitness and wellness brands , , 听and announced they are merging under a parent company, . The transaction includes $785 million in new equity investment, led by , and values the combined company at $7.5 billion.

Where the money isn鈥檛 going

Yet while investors are keen on some fitness startups strategies, others have fallen out of favor.

So where is the money not going? Connected fitness equipment startups are one of the areas that have lost financial support in a big way.

Shares of what used to be the sector鈥檚 most famous success story 鈥� 鈥斕� are down over 95% from the pandemic-era highs. Others that raised considerable capital have been mostly running on existing reserves.

This includes rowing machine startup , which raised more than $360 million between 2018 and 2022, but hasn鈥檛 had a reported financing since, per 附近上门 data. Another, smart home gym maker , secured $580 million but has not landed a fresh round in nearly three years.

Prediction: More AI

As we look ahead to contemplate what fitness and fitness-adjacent areas might be best primed to attract investment, it鈥檚 not quite obvious. For now, IPO activity in the space looks muted, though last week鈥檚 Playlist rollup offers a sign that acquirers see some value.

Perhaps for now, the only thing one can be comfortable prognosticating is the same thing that applies to every sector on earth: that AI-enabled offerings will be more widespread and more heavily funded.听

Now, if only the AI could lift weights and go on runs for us too.

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While a relatively small acquisition, the deal is significant in that it鈥檚 representative of the role that artificial intelligence is playing in many of the fastest-growing venture-backed startups 鈥� even those that aren鈥檛 necessarily strictly AI companies.听

New York-based fintech Ramp is definitely among that rapidly growing bunch, having achieved a valuation of $22.5 billion, as well as annualized revenue of $1 billion, in 2025. That鈥檚 up from just a few months earlier in March, as well as an increase from as of January.听

The company says it began 鈥済enerating cash flow鈥� earlier this year.

has raised just under $2.5 million in funding since its 2022 inception from investors such as , and . The startup initially was a load-testing platform before pivoting in 2024 to launch an AI coding assistant for large production-scale code, according to CEO and founder .

More startups buying startups

Besides being strategic for Ramp, the acquisition is also representative of an uptick in the number of startups buying other startups. In the first three quarters of 2025, there were 647 reported M&A deals globally in which startups bought other startups, according to 附近上门 . That compares to 539 in the same period last year, a 20% increase.

For comparison鈥檚 sake, in the full years 2021 and 2022, there were nearly 1,000 deals in which startups bought other startups, per 附近上门 data.

鈥楳aking engineers radically more productive鈥�

鈥淭he need for both of those is even more important now with AI and agentic work taking hold in finance,鈥� he said.听

He claims that thanks in part to AI, Ramp customers can get 3x more done in Ramp today than they could just two years ago.听

鈥淎nd in the next two years we want that to be 30x,鈥� Atiyeh said. 鈥淲e think the way to get there is by focusing on AI and agentic workflows, making Ramp鈥檚 platform dramatically more powerful. We鈥檙e focused on hiring the best engineering talent there is to make this happen and then, importantly, making our engineers as productive as possible.鈥�

That鈥檚 what got him so excited about the Jolt team. Their entire focus, Atiyeh said, 鈥渋s on making engineers radically more productive 鈥� helping them ship faster.鈥�

Jolt AI鈥檚 2024 pivot proved to be the right move. So much so in fact that the CEO of one of its early customers introduced the small startup to Atiyeh and Ramp earlier this year.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Ramp鈥檚 purchase, notably, involved only the company鈥檚 three-person team, and not its product.

鈥淛olt is a team of world-class engineers who have spent years solving some of the hardest problems in developer productivity,鈥� Atiyeh said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e now bringing that expertise to Ramp鈥檚 developer tools and beyond. I鈥檓 most excited to see what their team can do within Ramp, so that鈥檚 what this deal was focused on.鈥�

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Ramping up

Today, Ramp has more than 45,000 customers, in early March. Those customers include , , , , , , , , , 听and , among others.

Presently, Ramp has 1,200 employees. The Jolt team 鈥� made up of Spektor, (CTO) and (principal engineer) 鈥� will integrate into Ramp鈥檚 engineering platform team with a 鈥渃ore focus on helping engineers build faster.鈥�

鈥淭hey鈥檙e going to do this by strengthening our core AI platform and infrastructure, supercharging our dev experience, and transforming product and tooling with applied AI,鈥� Atiyeh said.听

The trio is also going to be working on Ramp鈥檚 AI and agentic products for its customers, he added.

It鈥檚 not the first time that Ramp has acquired AI-related companies. In 2023, it in an effort to accelerate AI-powered customer support. And in 2024, it to automate procurement workflows.

鈥淔rom a talent perspective, Ramp鈥檚 engineering team is made up of founders, math olympiads, and AI researchers,鈥� Atiyeh told 附近上门 News. 鈥�… My goal is to hire elite technical talent, and then get out of their way.鈥�

For his part, Jolt鈥檚 Spektor admitted in an interview that he didn鈥檛 expect to get acquired by a company like Ramp, but that he鈥檚 鈥渆xtremely happy鈥� it is where his team landed.

The trio will be working on a number of things including Ramp鈥檚 internal engineering platform.

鈥淪ome of that does involve AI tooling. Our whole goal is to make sure engineers are as fast and effective as possible,鈥� Spektor said. 鈥淎nd on the customer-facing side of things, there鈥檚 a lot of development around bringing AI agents and features to financial workflows. So we鈥檒l be helping out in that department as well.鈥�

Bottom line, according to Atiyeh, AI is changing the way Ramp uses and builds software.听

鈥淲ith the Jolt team on board, we鈥檙e doubling down on both fronts,鈥� Atiyeh wrote in a blog post, 鈥渂uilding the internal AI devtools that help our engineers ship at high velocity, and creating products that save finance teams time and money at scale.鈥�

Over the years, Ramp has built a name for itself in the corporate card and expense management space. It鈥檚 branched out into travel, bill pay, and, in January, released that had it encroaching into digital bank territory.听

Its latest acquisition is in line with what experts are seeing in 2025. Earlier this year, , co-founder of , noted an interesting trend she鈥檚 seeing: more asset acquisitions plus acqui-hires.听

She said one reason for that increase is a rush to market, most particularly in the extremely competitive AI field and with companies who have incorporated AI in their offerings..

Indeed, Ramp operates in an extremely competitive space against the likes of 鈥� which recently filed an S-1 to go public despite being far from profitable 鈥� 听and . In an Oct. 2 , Brex CEO and co-founder wrote that his company 鈥渨as operating cash flow positive for the first time in history.鈥澨�

Since its 2019 inception, New York-based Ramp says it has raised a total of $1.9 billion in equity funding. Investors include , , , ,, , and , , (formerly Google Ventures), and .

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• Why More Startups Are Buying Other Startups In 2025
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All told, Q3 venture investment reached $97 billion, up from $70 billion in Q3 2024, per 附近上门 data. Quarter-over-quarter听 funding was up slightly from $92 billion in Q2.听

In each of the past four quarters, global startup funding has been above $90 billion 鈥� quarterly amounts not seen since Q3 2022 鈥� 附近上门 data shows.听

Startup investment has also now posted a year-over-year increase for the past four quarters, driven by megarounds of $500 million or more, largely to AI-related companies.听

Table of Contents

• Capital concentration
• AI leads
• Late stage funding up YoY
• Early stage slightly up
• Seed increases
• Strong exit activity in Q3 2025
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Capital concentration

As funding has increased this year, so has capital concentration.听

Over the past four quarters, venture investment has concentrated into rounds of $500 million or more, an analysis of 附近上门 data shows, with more than 30% of funding each quarter going toward such megarounds.听

The three largest venture rounds in Q3 2025 were raised by foundation model companies ($13 billion), ($5.3 billion) and ($2 billion). Billion-dollar-plus funding deals also went to , , , , and .

All in all, a third of all venture investment in Q3 went to just 18 companies that raised funding rounds of $500 million or more each. That is well above historical proportions before Q4 2024. Megaround funding also gained steam as the quarter progressed, with 11 of the 18 companies raising funding in September.

AI leads

In another blockbuster quarter for AI funding, $45 billion 鈥� or around 46% of global venture funding 鈥斕齱ent to the sector, with 29% invested in a single company, Anthropic.听

Hardware was the second-largest sector, with large rounds raised by robotic, semiconductor, quantum and data infrastructure companies in the third quarter totaling $16.2 billion, per 附近上门 data.

The healthcare and biotech sector raised $15.8 billion in venture funding in Q3, making it the third-largest sector for the quarter.听

Financial services, the fourth-largest sector, raised $12 billion in total.听

Along with a greater concentration of capital in larger companies, the U.S. predominated, with $60 billion 鈥� or just under two-thirds of global venture capital 鈥� going to U.S.-based companies in Q3.听

Late-stage funding up YoY

Most of the third quarter鈥檚 year over year gains were in late-stage funding. Late-stage investment in Q3 totaled $58 billion, up more than 66% year over year, and slightly higher quarter over quarter, 附近上门 data shows.听

(The peak quarter for late-stage funding in 2025 was Q1, with the $40 billion round for significantly boosting the numbers.)听

Early stage slightly up

Early-stage funding totaled nearly $30 billion for more than 1,700 companies in Q3, 附近上门 data shows. That鈥檚 up just over 10% quarter over quarter and year over year.听

Larger Series A and B rounds were raised by companies working on AI data workloads, energy, quantum, robotics, biotech and AI applications.听

Seed increases

Seed funding reached $9 billion in Q3 across more than 3,500 companies. Seed funding was up slightly from $8.5 billion invested a year ago. (Seed funding totals also typically increase over time, as many seed rounds are added to the 附近上门 dataset after the close of a quarter.)

Strong exit activity in Q3 2025

For the second quarter in a row, IPO activity increased year over year. The largest venture-backed IPOs in Q3 by value were , , and .听

On a global basis, 16 venture-backed companies went public above $1 billion in Q3, collectively valued north of $90 billion at their IPO prices. That compares to 18 companies in Q2 with a collective $60 billion in value. Both quarters were up significantly from 2024.听

In Q3 2025, M&A dollar volume reached $27.5 billion in reported exit value for venture-backed companies, 附近上门 data shows. That鈥檚 down from $43.6 billion in Q2.听

Nine companies were acquired for more than $1 billion each in Q3, 附近上门 data shows. Four of the companies were in healthcare and biotech. The remainder were in sectors including cybersecurity, AI, financial services, product development and sports betting. Notable among these was OpenAI鈥檚 acquisition of and 鈥檚 acquisition of .听听

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 附近上门, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 2, 2025.听

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

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

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. 附近上门 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. 附近上门 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 鈥淪eries [Letter]鈥� naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.听

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a 鈥渧enture鈥� round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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

AI startups and California-based companies have been scooping up an outsized share of venture funding for a while now, and this past week was no exception. Leading the ranks was , as the AI processor developer and potential IPO candidate picked up $1.1 in fresh funding. Other large rounds went to companies in areas including AI, enterprise software, cybersecurity, blockchain and biotech.

1.听, $1.1B, AI hardware: Cerebras Systems, a developer of AI processors, that it raised $1.1 billion in Series G funding at an $8.1 billion post-money valuation. and led the financing for the Sunnyvale, California-based company, which filed to go public last year.听

2. (tied) , $300M, AI: Silicon Valley-based Periodic Labs launched with $300 million in initial funding to develop AI models for science. Venture backers include , 听1, , and .听

2. (tied) , $300M, cloud infrastructure: Vercel, a developer of tools and cloud infrastructure to build websites, secured $300 million in a Series F round co-led by and . The financing sets a $9.3 billion valuation for the 10-year-old company.听

4. , $205M, biopharma: San Diego-based Crystalys Therapeutics launched with $205 million in Series A financing to support its mission of addressing the unmet medical needs of people living with gout. , and led the financing.

5. , $200M, blockchain: Flying Tulip, a provider of blockchain financial products, it raised $200 million in a private funding round. Backers included , , , 听and .

6. , $180M, cybersecurity: CyberCube, a provider of cyber risk management tools, said it locked up more than $180 million in an investment from . Founded in 2015, San Francisco-based CyberCube has raised at least $285 million to date, per 附近上门 data.

7. , $125M, antibody therapies: South San Francisco, California-based Star Therapeutics, a developer of antibodies for bleeding disorders and other diseases, picked up $125 million in Series D financing co-led by and .听

8. , $103M, legal tech: Eve, a San Francisco-based AI platform for plaintiff law firms, $103 million in Series B funding at over a $1 billion valuation. led the financing, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, 听and .

9. , $100M, database technology: Postgres development platform Supabase that it closed on $100 million in Series E funding at a $5 billion valuation. Accel and led the financing for the 5-year-old, San Francisco-based company.

10. , $90M, accounting software: DualEntry, a provider of AI-enabled business accounting tools, $90 million in a Series A round that comes just 18 months after its launch. and led the financing for the New York-based company.

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We won鈥檛 opine on whether the business鈥� fundamentals merit that pricetag. However, we will note that it鈥檚 the most dramatic example of a broader trend: Hot private companies posting huge and often sharply rising valuations.

For now, OpenAI has clinched first place as the most valuable private company. But, per 附近上门 data, there are also at least five more private, venture-backed U.S. companies with valuations exceeding $100 billion.

Below, we鈥檝e ranked the top five other companies, including a look at how their valuations have risen in recent quarters

• : Founded in 2002, Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX is no longer a startup. However, it is the second-most highly valued U.S. private, venture-backed company. The company was reportedly poised to hit around a this summer in a secondary transaction. It hit a reported $350 billion valuation in a secondary share sale late last year.
• : Generative AI startup Anthropic has certainly been moving up the ranks. The San Francisco company secured a $183 billion valuation for its $13 billion Series F round a month ago. The new round nearly tripled its valuation from March, when it raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation.
• : Payments infrastructure provider Stripe reportedly an all-time-high $106.7 billion valuation last month. That鈥檚 up from the $91.5 billion valuation for a February tender offer aimed at providing liquidity to current and former employees.
• : GenAI startup xAI is one of the more complicated companies for ascertaining valuation, particularly in the wake of founder 鈥檚 to merge it with the social media platform earlier this year. In that combination, Musk set an $80 billion valuation for xAI and a $33 billion valuation for X. Last month, the combined company was to be securing a $200 billion valuation for a $10 billion financing, but Musk later that this was 鈥渇ake news.鈥�
• : San Francisco-based data intelligence platform Databricks鈥� latest financing, a Series K, sets a $100 billion valuation for the 12-year-old company. That鈥檚 up sharply from January, when Databricks completed a $10 billion in Series J equity financing at a $62 billion valuation.

Private valuations taking cues from public markets

Given that many large-cap public tech companies have seen large share-price hikes in recent months, particularly for those perceived as leaders in AI, it鈥檚 not entirely a shocker to see the most high-profile private companies getting valuation boosts as well.

Still, it鈥檚 worth noting that these are unusually large gains in the space of a few months, particularly for GenAI leaders. At current levels, they鈥檙e certainly priced with high expectations for future performance.

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• OpenAI鈥檚 $6.6B Secondary Share Sale Gives It Record $500B Startup Valuation, Topping SpaceX
• The 附近上门 附近上门
• Unicorn Valuations Crest Higher

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Per 附近上门 data, private U.S. biotechs with $50 million or more in funding to date secured their last reported financing between three and five years ago. The list includes at least 15 biotech unicorns and emerging unicorns that known funding for at least the past three years.听

From boom to not

Part of the reason for the backlog of companies with long funding lags is the shift in investor appetite for biotech. During the boom years from 2020 through 2022, startup investors put an average of $40 billion per year into the space 鈥� well above current levels.听

Some of those were truly huge financings as well. The largest, in early 2022, went to , a San Francisco startup focused on cellular rejuvenation that with $3 billion in committed capital.

The biotech IPO market was also quite happening then compared to now. This offered companies yet another avenue to raise capital to fund research and clinical trials.

This year, by contrast, is on track to come in much lower. So far in 2025, only about $17 billion has gone to U.S. biotechs, per 附近上门 . And of that, roughly half has gone to seed and early stage startups 鈥� leaving a smaller portion for late-stage financings for well-funded companies.听

High profile companies see funding lag times

A number of the companies that have gone three-plus years without a round were fairly high-profile startups as well. Many are still chugging along, likely helped by having secured large commitments when funding flowed more freely.

For example , a startup focused on applying machine learning to drug discovery and development, raised $643 million between 2018 and 2021 but hasn鈥檛 raised a known round since. This spring, the company a 22% workforce cut in a move it said 鈥渆xtends our runway into 2027.鈥�

Agtech unicorn , which develops听 microbial nitrogen for farms, also hasn鈥檛 secured known financing in more than four years, per 附近上门 data. However, it should be noted that its last round 鈥� a $430 million Series D in 2021 鈥� was pretty big. The company has a number of open positions and this spring announced to relocate a significant portion of its operations from Berkeley, California, to the Midwest.听

, developer of a low-cost sequencing platform, is another company that had a big round a few years ago and hasn鈥檛 raised since. The Newark, California-based startup in May 2022 with $300 in initial funding from backers including and . Of late, it鈥檚 been steadily announcing new partnerships.听

Collectively, it鈥檚 a huge sum of commitments

If we look at all the well-funded biotechs in our query, they鈥檝e collectively raised a tremendous amount of money.

In total, the 204 companies in our sample 1 that haven鈥檛 raised for three-plus years previously pulled in $17.9 billion. That鈥檚 roughly equivalent to all the venture money that鈥檚 gone into biotech this year.听

Will investors eventually see some return on investment for these commitments? Despite having some preternatural disposition toward pessimism, I鈥檇 say the outlook is reasonably positive.听

For one, while the biotech IPO market has been quiet lately, cycles do turn. And when this one does, it looks like there鈥檚 a strong pipeline of compelling companies that could pursue listings. An uptick in M&A could also be in the cards.听

Of course, not all these well-funded companies will prove successful, and some will likely fold in coming quarters and years. But hopefully, some of those that do make it will succeed in a big way.

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• Biotech Share Of US Funding Hits Lowest Point In 附近上门 History听

The transaction and resulting valuation also grant OpenAI the distinction of now being the world鈥檚 most valuable private, venture-backed company, surpassing , which was valued at $400 billion after .

According to , OpenAI had authorized up to $10.3 billion in shares for sale, which was up from its original $6 billion target. But only about two-thirds of what it had authorized ultimately got sold.

Besides OpenAI and SpaceX, several other high-valued private companies have turned to secondary sales, which are often used to reward employees and as a retaining tool for companies not ready to go public.

In February, fintech giant announced a in which investors would buy shares from past and present employees at a valuation of $91.5 billion. Last December, raised $10 billion at a $62 billion valuation in a deal that included a secondary share sale aimed at providing liquidity for current and former employees.听

In April, OpenAI also made headlines for an investment of up to $40 billion from Japanese investment conglomerate in a deal that marked the largest startup financing ever and valued it at $300 billion.

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Twenty years ago, as the Web 2.0 wave took off and spurred a new era of tech innovation and wealth, launched. In the mid-2000s, co-founders and saw an opportunity to create an institutional seed fund to invest in a new class of products that could build off of APIs and mashups 鈥� launching new companies more cheaply and efficiently.

Now the Palo Alto, California-based firm is once again investing heavily in emerging technology that it sees as transformational, this time backing artificial intelligence startups.

鈥淭his is yet again one of these magical times for entrepreneurship,鈥� Callaghan said. 鈥淓ntrepreneurs can very efficiently 鈥� from a capital and human standpoint 鈥� build valuable applications on top of that.鈥�

We recently spoke with and , both managing partners,听at the firm鈥檚 Palo Alto offices about how they are investing in AI startups.

The firm views AI as a fundamental layer that will transform all sectors in its investment practice, from enterprise tech to consumer and 鈥渙ther鈥� areas, which includes biology and robotics. It has already made more than 80 AI-native investments since 2015.听

A rollercoaster start

Callaghan and Black met in early 1990s while they were both in their 20s and associates at Boston-based . Both then joined early-stage venture firms in the mid-1990s, the beginnings of the Internet wave. They reunited after the dot-com crash, when numerous headlines declared the death of venture capital and wrote off San Francisco. By 2005, they had a shared vision and purpose to create an institutional seed fund. Their first fund was $165 million, the largest seed fund at the time.听

Agarwal’s journey in venture has been punctuated by critical downturns in the industry. He joined 1 in 1999, just before the dotcom crash. He then left the venture side for a time to become an operator, and later joined True Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the time of the financial crisis in 2008. He became a partner in 2010.听

AI鈥檚 massive capex

Some $2 trillion to $3 trillion has already gone to AI-based capital expenditures, Callaghan estimates.听

We could see that much and more again over the next five years: , founder and CEO of , in additional infrastructure spending by 2030.听

Callaghan believes the AI industry is now at 鈥渢he application building phase.鈥�

The application layer, historically, has created 5x to 10x the value in market cap terms on top of that capex, he said.听

This wave could be even more efficient as the 鈥渢echnology itself writes code, creates products,鈥� he said.

Investing 5 to 10 years out

The firm is less interested in what it can see today, but rather thinking about where the world will be in five to 10 years. 鈥淓arly-stage investing is more about duration as a feature,鈥� Callaghan said.

While an influx of talent and the rapid building of applications on top of significant infrastructure investment are familiar elements from previous tech waves, the AI cycle is distinguished by faster development cycles, smaller teams, increased available capital, and substantial customer budgets, Callaghan said: 鈥淚t’s different that a startup now has a pretty good shot selling to a large corporate buyer versus an incumbent.鈥�

At some companies, entire IT budgets are being turned over to AI investments, Agarwal noted.

Notable investments

True Ventures does not have deal attribution among its nine deal partners 鈥� they work collaboratively as a team. The firm manages $4 billion in capital. Around 60% to 70% of its deals come from referrals and the team has funded their 60th repeat founder. It typically invests $1 million to $5 million per deal and has around 30 to 40 portfolio companies per fund, with capital reserved for follow-on investments.听

Among True Ventures鈥� AI investments discussed were:

• , a college recruiting platform that added human intelligence for training AI models. The startup has reportedly grown to more than in less than one year for this new AI business.听
• , a startup founded by an engineer who built an open-source project to upgrade code to the next version 鈥� or the 鈥減roduction side鈥� of coding. Already, Moderne has signed large customers in financial services and insurance.听
• , an identity security company defining who has access to data and what actions can be performed.听
• AI-powered drug discovery company , which was recently valued at $1 billion.
• UK-based , which sequences the natural world for compound drug discovery and efficacy testing. The startup has also received investment from Nvidia.
• AI fashion startup
• , an AI-powered prayer and Bible study app that has ranked in the top five in 鈥檚 App Store
• , a platform that enables a solo entrepreneur to build entire businesses with AI.
• , an AI powered virtual assistant for executives.听

Boom or bust

Callaghan contrasts this current investment period from the zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) years from early 2020 through early 2022, during the pandemic.听

鈥淶IRP was super distorted,鈥� he said, with a concentration of capital and a dearth of exits.

In contrast, the current, post-ZIRP investment cycle is driven by a huge technology innovation 鈥� AI鈥� not cheap capital, he said.

Still, there is concern about consensus investing in the current market. 鈥淭hat’s precarious for the industry 鈥� the consensus trend, where there’s so much of the industry’s capital going after a couple things,鈥� Agarwal said.

I think we are in for a boom, but it will be bumpy, said Callaghan. However, 鈥渨e have, as an industry, always underestimated the tail and the size of the area underneath the curve.”

The total addressable markets are expanding faster than the scarcity of bumping up against another startup. This climate might be more competitive, but outcomes will be bigger, he said.听

听Agarwal is equally bullish on the current startup environment. 鈥淚 can’t think of a better time to be a builder or I can’t think of a better time to be a venture capitalist 鈥� if you’re doing it the right way,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese are waves you live for.”听

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