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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.
AI once again dominated venture funding this week, claiming five of the 10 largest announced rounds, including a pair of billion-dollar financings for AI infrastructure and cybersecurity that led the pack. Investors also continued to back quantum computing, geothermal energy, crypto infrastructure and aerospace startups with large checks. Let’s take a look.
1. (tied) Keyfactor, $1B, cybersecurity: Keyfactor raised a $1 billion private equity round led by Summit Partners. Other investors in the private equity round for the Independence, Ohio-based company included Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth. Keyfactor provides digital identity and machine identity management software that helps enterprises secure certificates, encryption keys and connected devices. It has now raised $1.21 billion to date, per Crunchbase.
1. (tied) SambaNova, $1B, AI infrastructure: Palo Alto, California-based SambaNova officially announced a long-awaited $1 billion Series F deal at an $11 billion post-money valuation led by General Atlantic. A very long list of other investors joined the round, including Battery Ventures, BlackRock, Capital Group, Intel Capital, Qatar Investment Authority, T. Rowe Price and Vista Equity Partners. SambaNova develops AI chips and enterprise AI infrastructure for training and inference workloads. The company has raised nearly $2.5 billion to date, per Crunchbase.
3. Oratomic, $300M, quantum computing: Arch Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Spark Capital co-led a sizable $300 million Series A for South Pasadena, California-based quantum startup Oratomic. A total of 16 investors participated in the round, including Bezos Expeditions, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, and computer scientist Scott Aaronson. Oratomic is developing neutral-atom quantum hardware and fault-tolerant architectures designed to accelerate the commercialization of quantum computing, an area that has seen robust venture investment in recent years.
4. Quaise Energy, $134M, clean energy: Houston-based Quaise Energy raised a $134 million Series B led by Prelude Ventures. Additional investors included Jera Ventures, Idemitsu Americas Holdings Corp. and Safar Partners. Quaise is developing millimeter-wave drilling technology to unlock deep geothermal energy, an emerging source of carbon-free power. To date, the company has raised $225 million.
5. Prime Intellect, $130M, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Prime Intellect raised a $130 million Series A led by Radical Ventures. A long list of investors — many of them prominent Silicon Valley figures — joined, including Box CEO Aaron Levie, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince and Ramp co-CEO Karim Atiyeh. Corporate investors Dell Technologies Capital, Intel Capital and NVentures also backed the round. Prime is building an open platform for training and deploying AI models across distributed compute networks. It has now raised $200.4 million total, per Crunchbase.
6. Gauntlet, $125M, crypto infrastructure: New York-based Gauntlet reportedly raised a $125 million Series B, with Japan’s SBI Group as the sole investor. The company develops simulation, risk management and optimization software for decentralized finance protocols.
7. Norm AI, $120M, artificial intelligence: New York-based Norm AI secured a $120 million Series C led by Khosla Ventures at a reported $1.2 billion valuation to expand its AI-powered regulatory compliance platform. The company develops AI systems that translate complex laws and regulations into software to help enterprises automate their compliance workflows. The latest funding included a long list of other venture, corporate and individual backers including Bain Capital Ventures, Fenwick & West, Craft Ventures, Coatue, New York Life Insurance, Vanguard and Hamilton James, the chairman of Costco and former president of Blackstone Group, which also participated in Norm AI’s deal. The startup has now raised just over $256 million, per Crunchbase.
8. Venus Aerospace, $91M, aerospace and defense: Aerospace continues to draw substantial investor attention, as was the case this week with Houston-based Venus Aerospace’s $91 million Series B. Mercury backed the round, which will be used to advance development of Venus’ hypersonic propulsion technology. The company is building engines and aircraft designed to dramatically reduce long-distance flight times while supporting future defense applications. It has now raised $197 million total. An array of investors joined in its Series B, including Trousdale Ventures, Prime Movers Lab, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Airbus Ventures and Draper Associates.
9. EDX Markets, $76M, fintech: Digital asset exchange EDX Markets raised $76 million as institutional interest in crypto trading infrastructure continues to grow. The deal was backed by sole investor SBI Group, marking the second large crypto funding deal for the Japanese firm this week, along with Gauntlet’s aforementioned round. EDX operates a marketplace designed specifically for institutional investors. It’s not clear how much it raised in previous rounds.
10. Fore Biotherapeutics, $67.4M, biotechnology: Philadelphia-based Fore Biotherapeutics (previously known as NovellusDx) raised $67.4 million in Series D funding to advance its precision oncology therapies targeting rare cancer mutations. The company is developing targeted treatments for patients whose tumors are driven by specific genetic alterations. SR One led the latest round, which brings its total to date to just over $274 million. Windham Venture Partners, Wellington Management, Primer Ventures, Samsung Securities and other investors also joined.
Large non-US deals:
Several startups based outside the U.S. also raised notable fundings this week. They include:
- Proxima Fusion, €411M, fusion energy: Munich-based Proxima Fusion raised a €411 million (about $468 million) Series B funding round to develop what’s poised to become Europe’s first commercial fusion energy power plant. Lead investors in the round include East X Ventures, Google, RWE and XTX Ventures.
- Skello, €200M, workplace tech: Bridgepoint Group led the €200 million ($229 million) private-equity round for Paris-based Skello, which makes HR software for employers to handle tasks such as payroll, scheduling, compliance and employee communications.
Methodology
We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of July 4-10. 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
