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This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding deal roundup here.
Venture investors’ thirst for AI isn’t close to quenched yet. That’s the takeaway from this week’s lineup of large U.S. funding rounds, which was mostly a mix of AI pure-plays and companies with a heavy focus on the technology.
The week’s largest round however, a $600 million financing for drone delivery provider Zipline, offered evidence that investors are also keen on platforms and technologies with applications in the physical world. The second-largest round, a $480 million seed deal for upstart AI lab Humans&, meanwhile, showed there’s also still appetite for ultra-ambitious newcomers.
1. Zipline, $600M, drones: Drone delivery unicorn Zipline says it closed on over $600 million at a $7.6 billion valuation from investors including Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners and Tiger Global. South San Francisco, California-based Zipline also says it expects to expand into at least four new states this year, with initial plans to begin service in Houston and Phoenix.
2. Humans&, $480M, AI: Humans&, an AI lab working to apply the technology in ways that are centered “around people and their relationships with each other,” secured $480 million in seed funding. The company was founded in September by top researchers from Google, Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI and Meta.
3. Baseten, $300M, AI infrastructure: AI infrastructure startup Baseten reportedly raised $300 million with backing from IVP, CapitalG and Nvidia. The financing set a $5 billion valuation for the 7-year-old, San Francisco-based company.
4. OpenEvidence, $250M, medical AI: OpenEvidence, an AI platform for doctors, announced that it picked up $250 million in a Series D funding round that doubled its valuation to $12 billion. Thrive Capital and DST co-led the round, which marks the fourth fundraise for the Miami-based startup in less than a year.
5. Noveon Magnetics, $215M, rare earth magnets: San Marcos, Texas-based Noveon Magnetics, a manufacturer of sintered rare earth permanent magnets, says it secured $215 million in Series C funding, including $200 million from One Investment Management. The money will go toward expanding the company’s rare earth magnet manufacturing capacity.
6. Upscale AI, $200M, AI infrastructure: AI networking infrastructure startup Upscale AI landed $200 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global, Premji Invest and Xora Innovation. The financing set a valuation of more than $1 billion for the Santa Clara, California-based company, which was founded less than two years ago.
7. (tied) Preply, $150M, online tutoring: Language learning marketplace Preply raised $150 million in Series D funding led by WestCap. The financing reportedly sets a $1.2 billion valuation for the 14-year-old, Brookline, Massachusetts-based company.
7. (tied) Inferact, $150M, AI inference: Inferact, a startup founded by creators and maintainers of open-source LLM inference engine vLLM, announced its launch along with $150 million in initial funding. Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing, which set an $800 million valuation for the company.
7. (tied) Claroty, $150M, cybersecurity: Security provider Claroty picked up $150 million in Series F funding led by Golub Growth. The 11-year-old company, founded in Israel and now headquartered in New York, has raised close to $900 million in equity funding to date, per Crunchbase data.
10. Zanskar, $115M, geothermal energy: Salt Lake City-based Zanskar, a startup applying AI to geothermal exploration, raised $115 million in Series C funding led by Spring Lane Capital and joined by a long list of new and existing investors.
Methodology
We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Jan. 17-23. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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