xAI and Anthropic Raise Billions Again

This is a monthly feature highlighting the top 10 funding rounds of the month in the US. Check out October’s biggest rounds here.

While some things tend to slow down as the end of the year approaches, artificial intelligence funding apparently isn’t one of them. Last month, xAI and Anthropic raised a combined $9 billion as AI funding remains tight. There were also big deals in other sectors such as IT management and robotics. Let’s take a look.

1. xAI, $5 Billion, Artificial Intelligence: Generative AI startup xAI has raised $5 billion in a round that values ​​the company at $50 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new funding more than doubles the company’s valuation from the $6 billion it raised in May. The latest deal includes investments from Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. When Elon Musk’s xAI formally announced its long-awaited funding this spring, it became the world’s second most valuable generative AI company, behind only competitor OpenAI.

2. Anthropic, $4 billion, artificial intelligence: Amazon has agreed to invest an additional $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, another ChatGPT rival with its AI assistant Claude. Last fall, Amazon agreed to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, giving the Seattle-based e-commerce and cloud giant a minority stake in the company. The initial investment is $1.25 billion, with the remaining $2.75 billion expected to be raised early this year. The deal included Anthropic naming Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider and using AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy its models. The new investment means Amazon will invest $8 billion in Anthropic and maintain a minority stake in the company, according to Anthropic’s blog.

3. Tricentis, $1.3 billion, DevOps: Tricentis received a $1.3 billion investment from private equity firm GTCR, which valued the software testing startup at $4.5 billion. It is unclear from the report whether this is a new stock or an existing stock, but for now it is on the list. The Austin, Texas-based startup was founded in Austria in 2007. Insight Partners acquired a majority stake in 2017 and has now raised a total of $1.5 billion.

4. LogicMonitor, $800 million, IT management: LogicMonitor, which provides IT observability and monitoring, has raised $800 million in new equity and debt from a consortium of investors including PSG Equity, Golub Capital and others. The transaction is part of Vista Equity Partners’ sale of a minority stake in the company, currently valued at approximately $2.4 billion. The IT infrastructure company said it will use the fresh cash for M&A activities and entering new markets globally. Vista acquired LogicMonitor in May 2018 for approximately $415 million.

5. Insider, $500 million in digital marketing: Marketing technology platform Insider has raised $500 million in Series E led by General Atlantic to fund U.S. expansion and AI product development. The latest round of funding comes about 18 months after last year’s round, which valued the company at $1.9 billion. The New York-based company declined to disclose the valuation for its latest round. Co-founded in Istanbul in 2012, Insider has now raised $772.1 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. The company operates in 28 countries around the world, and its customers include major companies such as Nike, Samsung, L’Oréal, Unilever, Allianz, and Disney.

6. Physical Intelligence, $400 million in robotics: Physical Intelligence, a startup developing the brains of various robots, has raised $400 million at a $2 billion valuation led by Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital and Thrive Capital. The New York Times reported. . The San Francisco-based company had raised a $70 million seed round in March at a valuation of about $400 million. Physical Intelligence is a state-of-the-art technology that uses AI to improve the way robots operate and seeks to create foundational software that can be used with a variety of robot models, rather than creating separate operating software for each individual model. is a startup company. Investors, especially Mr. Bezos, are already making big bets on the intersection of robotics and AI-enhanced underlying software. In February, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Figure Inc., which is developing AI-enhanced robots it hopes can perform dangerous jobs and ease labor shortages, was valued at about $2 billion before funding. In dollar terms, it raised a huge amount of $675 million. The round included investments from Nvidia, Bezos’ Explore Investments, and others. In July, Pittsburgh-based Skild AI, which also develops a variety of robots and brain models that can be used for a variety of tasks, announced a Series A round of 3 through Bezos Expeditions, led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SoftBank Group and Bezos. Raised $1 billion. . This funding brings the company’s valuation to $1.5 billion. Overall, this year has been a good year for funding for robotics startups.

7. Cyera, $300 million, Cybersecurity: After raising $300 million in a Coatue-led Series C in April at a valuation of $1.4 billion, data security startup Cyera doubled its previous valuation last month. That’s another $300 million windfall. The New York-based company announced a $300 million Series D led by Accel and Sapphire Ventures at a valuation of $3 billion. Cyera is a cybersecurity company that is definitely riding the AI ​​wave. The startup offers an AI-powered data security platform that helps enterprise security teams understand their data, how it’s used, and how to protect it across complex digital environments. Of course, as companies advance their AI efforts, their reliance on data will increase. Cyera was founded in 2021 and has raised $760 million to date, according to the company.

8. Wonder, $250 million, food delivery: Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder should not be left out on this list. It was here in June 2022 and again in March of this year. Last month, the company made another major acquisition as part of its $650 million acquisition of Grubhub, raising an additional $250 million solely from unnamed new investors. The deal price is a significant discount for Grubhub, which was acquired by Just Eat Takeaway in 2021 for $7.3 billion. Wonder was founded in 2018 and has raised nearly $1.9 billion, according to Crunchbase.

9. Metsala, $215 million, biotech: The New York-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical startup emerged from stealth with $290 million in funding led by Arch Venture Partners just in April. It was about. The company made a similar effort last month, raising $215 million in Series B led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and Wellington Management. The company is investigating combinations of oral incretin, injectable incretin, non-incretin and combination therapies to treat obesity and metabolic diseases.

10. Writer, $200 million, Artificial Intelligence: San Francisco-based Writer has secured a $200 million Series C valuing its generative AI platform for enterprises at $1.9 billion. This new valuation is a significant increase from the $500 million the company was valued at after a $100 million round led by Iconiq Growth last year. The new Series C was co-led by Iconiq, Premji Invest, and Radical Ventures. Writer’s platform is designed to help businesses improve workflows with language models at scale, delivering AI solutions that can run complex enterprise operations across systems and teams. The new funding will be used for the company’s quick-start AI applications and agents for workflows in healthcare, retail and financial services. Writer continues to grow its customer base, which includes names like Accenture, L’Oreal, and Uber.

large global deals

The largest trade outside the US came from Europe.

Spain-based e-commerce payment solution SeQura has raised $429 million in a venture round.

methodology

We tracked the largest rounds raised by US-based companies in November 2024 in the Crunchbase database. Most announced rounds are visible in our database, but some rounds are reported later in the month, so there may be a slight lag. .

Illustration: Dom Guzman