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 deal roundup here.

It was going to be a fairly business as usual top 10 list this week until decided to disrupt our Friday with news that it raised $110 billion in new funding. Yes, $110 billion. That is so much money, and so record-setting as a private company funding round, that it makes all those other $100 million and $200 million rounds we usually write about look very paltry by comparison.

That said, we did nonetheless see a number of these kinds of rounds, in sectors including semiconductors, AI, healthcare and biotech.

1. , $110B, artificial intelligence: Generative AI giant OpenAI that it has raised $110 billion in new investment at a valuation of $730 billion pre-money, or $840 billion post-money. The deal includes $50 billion from , $30 billion from , and $30 billion from . San Francisco-based OpenAI says more investors are expected to join as the round progresses.

2. (tied) , $500M, semiconductors: MatX, a startup that designs custom chips and hardware architectures to support large language models, secured $500 million in Series B funding as it prepares to scale manufacturing. and led the financing for the Mountain View, California-based company.

2. (tied) , $500M, broadband: Boulder, Colorado-based Vero Networks, a fiber infrastructure and broadband internet provider, picked up $500 million in a growth funding round backed by , and .

4. , $240M, fusion: Janesville, Wisconsin-based Shine Technologies, a developer of fusion technologies with applications in the medicine and energy sectors, raised $240 million in equity funding led by .

5. , $150M, hardware testing tools: Revel, developer of a software platform for hardware test and control, closed on $150 million in Series B funding. led the financing for the Los Angeles-based company, which plans to expand its offerings across aerospace, defense, robotics and industrial sectors.

6. , $140M, healthcare: Nashville, Tennessee-based Honest Health, a provider of tech-enabled tools for primary care providers, secured $140 million in a new financing led by .

7. , $130M, biotech: Slate Medicines, a startup working on therapeutics for headache disorders, announced its launch alongside $130 million in Series A financing. , and led the investment for the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company.

8. , $106M, smart infrastructure: Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Ubicquia, provider of an analytics platform for smart lighting, grid monitoring and public safety applications, raised $106 million in Series D funding. and led the financing for the 12-year-old company.

9. (tied) , $100M, AI-enabled accounting: Basis, an AI agent platform for accountants, closed on $100 million in Series B funding at a $1.15 billion valuation. led the round for the New York-based startup, along with , and .

9. (tied) , $100M, satellite and network communication: spinout Aalyria, a developer of software that configures communications satellites to meet demand, secured $100 million in Series B funding. and led the financing for the Livermore, California-based company.

9. (tied) , $100M, smart glasses: Viture, a San Francisco-based maker of extended reality (XR) smart glasses and accessories, says it $100 million in a financing led by .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 附近上门 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Feb. 21-27. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

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CEO and CRO met a decade ago in college and began building different ventures together. After a few pivots, they raised funding for New York-based Flip in 2018 with the goal of building AI that 鈥渁nswers and automatically resolves routine requests鈥� for customers calling into a variety of businesses. They started with a focus on transportation companies and moved into retail in 2021 and healthcare in 2024.

AI-based customer service is a saturated space, but Schiff claims Flip鈥檚 approach is differentiated because it鈥檚 a vertical one that is very focused on just three industries.

Among vertical players, Schiff claims that Flip has an advantage because its AI 鈥渋s battle-tested on more than 300 million phone calls.鈥�

and co-led the round for Flip, which says it has raised a total of $31 million in funding. also participated in the round, alongside , , and a group of angel investors. Flip declined to reveal valuation, saying only that it was up 3x compared to its seed raise.

Year-over-year growth

Today, Flip has hundreds of enterprise customers, including , , and global transportation companies. The company has reached an eight-figure ARR, growing 3x year over year, according to Schiff.

Interestingly, the idea for Flip came when Schiff and Krut were students at . They had built a ride-hailing app called Red Route for calling taxis at Cornell, at a time when was still banned in upstate New York. It was during that experience they came up with the idea for what is today Flip.

鈥淐ustomer service is one of the obvious AI categories for business, and we’re talking on a daily and weekly basis with the largest brands on the planet,鈥� Schiff said. 鈥淓ven for them, it’s not a question of 鈥榠f.鈥� It’s a question of 鈥榳hen鈥� and 鈥榳ith whom.鈥欌��

That, he said, has created 鈥渁 huge amount of noise鈥� in the market.

Over the past year or so, a number of what Schiff described as 鈥済eneric AI providers鈥� popped up.

鈥淭he great irony of this space right now is that while all of the headlines and much of the funding has gone into these generic platforms that are trying to be the AI everything for everyone, across every industry, every channel, every use case. In reality, most of the actual traction, most of the successful customer stories, are working with vendors like Flip that are going very deep into one or a couple of specific industries,鈥� Schiff told 附近上门 News in an interview.

Another differentiator, in his view, is that few companies have developed deep expertise with AI telephone customer service.

鈥淢ost people are doing it inside of chatbots or auto email responders,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e really look at the quality of the experience. It doesn’t matter how nice it is to talk to 鈥� it’s still just another bot that’s in the way of a customer trying to solve their problem.鈥�

When it comes to the revenue model, Flip doesn鈥檛 charge an upfront cost or require a long-term commitment. Rather, it charges per automated call 鈥� a usage model it has implemented since its early days.

鈥楢 vertical approach yields the best results鈥�

, managing partner at , believes that customer service is one of the few huge markets where generative AI has produced tangible results for enterprise customers and a better experience for users.

鈥淏ased on our 30+ years of investing in software, we believe a vertical approach yields the best results,鈥� he wrote via email. 鈥淔lip has taken a different approach than many others by focusing on a couple of verticals and going really deep 鈥� While there are plenty of competitors making noise, some are going after different parts of the market, and Flip has quietly, up to now, launched more live customer deployments, at scale, than anyone.”

, co-founder and managing director at , said he has spent nearly two decades in and around call centers and voice technologies and has 鈥渘ever seen a more compelling ROI for customers鈥� than what Flip offers.

He added: 鈥淭he founding team is exceptional, customer feedback has been tremendous, and the potential for Flip to become a $1 billion business is clear.鈥�

Smerklo said he is also impressed with the company鈥檚 capital-efficient approach to growth.

鈥淪everal other companies that have raised tremendously more money have to rely on ‘forward engineering’ to get their product to work for customers,鈥� he said. 鈥淔lip’s solution works, doesn’t require a massive investment from customers, and solves real, salient business issues.鈥�

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