All told, startups in Latin America raised a combined $1.3 billion across seed- and growth-stage deals in the three-month period ending Sept. 30. That was up 26% year over year but down 9% from the second quarter.

For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 12 quarters below.

Of the quarterly total, $757 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 74% compared to the $435 million that flowed into such deals in the third quarter of 2025. However, that is down 21.3% from the $962 million in late-stage and growth rounds raised by LatAm startups in the second quarter. (Although it’s worth noting that Q2 2026 represented the most raised at that stage since the second quarter of 2022.)

Mexico startups have raised $1.52 billion in venture funding during the first three quarters of 2026, per ������Ƶ data. Notably, that’s about 40.7% more than the $1.08 billion Brazil’s startups raised in the same period. This is unusual as Brazil has historically been the largest recipient of venture funding in Latin America.

Still, Brazil continues to attract a broad range of investors.

“Over the past year, we have seen investments into Brazil from firms including , , , and ,” , managing partner of , told ������Ƶ News. “For several, this marked either their first investment in Latin America or their first in a long time.”

, Endeavor Catalyst’s vice president and head of Latin America, noted that Mexico drew more venture funding in the first half of 2026 than Brazil. But much of �ѱ�澱����’s funding went to a few startups, he pointed out, while Brazil recorded many deals.

“Investors are concentrating on a few Mexican winners, while Brazil retains the breadth,” Piquet said, adding that Brazil also leads in realized exits.

Table of contents

• Outsized rounds
• An uptick in seed funding
• ‘Another rediscovery moment’
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Outsized rounds

Several mega-raises took place in Latin America in the third quarter. And notably, the two largest funding deals were not for companies in Brazil or Mexico, which have historically raised the largest share of venture capital in the region. They also weren’t to fintech, which typically has the most funding recipients in the region, but rather to energy-related startups.

, the Chilean project company for ’s Black Giant lithium project, raised $225 million in a July round at a reported $900 million valuation. And Colombia’s , a clean energy company that builds and operates solar power systems for homes and businesses, landed a $129 million Series C in August at a reported $600 million valuation.

�ѱ�澱����’s , an AI-powered financial services company, raised a $125 million Series C in September at a $1.6 billion valuation. led the financing, which included a senior debt funding facility provided by .

And in August, Brazilian fintech brought in $106.9 million in an equity and debt seed round at a $626 million valuation.

Also in August, Brazil’s , an AI-native wealth advisory company, landed $85 million in�� what ������Ƶ shows is the largest seed funding deal ever raised for a Latin American startup. Founded by , former CTO of , and , founder of , the startup is backed by ,,, and .

An uptick in seed funding

Latin America experienced a marked surge in very early-stage funding totals in the third quarter, largely thanks to the seed rounds mentioned above.

Of the $1.3 billion raised by Latin America’s startups in the third quarter, about 20.5% — or $266 million — was raised across the angel and seed stages.

That’s up 128% from the $117 million raised across those stages in the second quarter of 2026, and up 62% from the $165 million in the same quarter last year.

Just over 22%, or $288 million, was raised at early stages, down 18.9% from $355 million in the second quarter and 34% from $437 million in the same period last year.

We expect the Q3 deal counts to rise somewhat over time; however, as seed rounds in particular are commonly reported weeks or months after they close.

‘Another rediscovery moment’

Latin America is drawing renewed interest from international venture investors, according to Endeavor’s Taylor. He said international VCs were more active in the region, particularly Brazil, during the first three quarters of 2026 than in 2024 and 2025 combined, through both new investments and follow-on funding.

“I joke that investors from the U.S. ‘rediscover’ Latin America every five or six years, and I think we are approaching another rediscovery moment,” Taylor told ������Ƶ News.

Endeavor Catalyst recently closed its oversubscribed $320 million fifth fund. Latin America accounts for nearly 40% of its portfolio by both deals and dollars, and Fund V had made 14 investments in the region as of Sept. 22. Taylor also pointed to opportunities beyond Brazil and Mexico, including repeat founders building global businesses from Colombia and emerging companies in Venezuela and Central America.

Liquidity is improving, although acquisitions and secondary transactions are providing more opportunities than public listings, Piquet said. He pointed to approximately 60 private Latin American technology companies that have each raised at least $150 million as a potential pipeline for future IPOs.

“The exit door is open, although it is not primarily opening through IPOs yet,” Piquet said.

Taylor expects more exits could help bring global investors back consistently, with potential listings by companies such as , or contributing to another “rediscovery moment” in 2027.

International investors remain interested in Latin America but have become more selective about deploying capital, according to of . Firms with a longstanding presence in the region remain engaged, while many that entered during the 2020–2021 investment boom have shifted toward AI opportunities elsewhere and are concentrating on existing portfolios, she noted.

“Global investors are increasingly investing behind themes rather than geographies,” she said, putting Latin American startups in more direct competition with companies in the U.S. and other markets.

Investor interest is increasingly centered on AI-native businesses and financial infrastructure, particularly stablecoins and cross-border payments. Gadala-Maria said more founders are targeting global markets from the outset, marking a departure from the previous wave of startups that adapted established business models to underserved local markets.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing founders build globally competitive technology companies from Latin America, rather than necessarily for Latin America,” she said.

Gadala-Maria agrees that Brazil and Mexico remain the region’s largest markets, with Brazil offering a deeper, more mature startup ecosystem and Mexico providing substantial room for financial services innovation. She pointed to Argentina as an overlooked market, citing its strong technical talent and founders building companies for global customers.

Correction: Details regarding Kapital’s Series C were updated. The deal was a debt and equity raise.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 5, 2026.

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.

������Ƶ 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 ������Ƶ 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. ������Ƶ 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. ������Ƶ 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 “Series [Letter]” 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.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration:

Twenty-one of last month’s new unicorns are U.S. headquartered. Six new unicorns joined the board from China and three from the U.K., while Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Israel, Italy, Finland, Germany and Bulgaria each added one new unicorn.

Through September, 311 companies have joined the board so far this year, putting 2026 on track to be the second-highest year for new unicorn creation, following only the venture peak year of 2021, when counts topped 600.

Several companies already on the board stand out for significant valuation increases via new raises last month. They include San Francisco-based , developer of AI for software engineering, which saw its value climb to $48 billion, up from $26 billion only four months earlier. Data center provider was valued at $31 billion last month, up from $10 billion a year ago. And Paris-based frontier lab was valued at $24.4 billion in its more recent funding, up from $13.7 billion a year ago.

New unicorns in September

Here are September’s 38 new unicorn companies:

Semiconductors

• , an Austin-based semiconductor manufacturing startup, closed a $500 million Series A at a $3.7 billion valuation, led by . The 3-year-old company builds compact chip factories and develops their manufacturing equipment internally, aiming to make semiconductor production more accessible.
• , an Irvine, California-based semiconductor company, raised a $275 million Series C, valuing it above $3 billion and bringing total funding to $415 million. , and led the round. The 2-year-old company develops digital signal processing chips for high-speed optical connectivity in AI infrastructure.
• , a Hangzhou-based AI chip developer, announced a $149 million Series C. Its IoT inference chips combine memory and computing to reduce power consumption and data movement. The 5-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a Beijing-based AI chip company, raised $298 million at a valuation of $2.2 billion. The 4-year-old company develops AI computing chips using the open RISC-V architecture.

• , a San Jose, California-based developer of specialized AI chips and software, raised a $150 million Series C at a $1.45 billion valuation, co-led by and , bringing total funding to $500 million. The proceeds for the 8-year-old company will support its software platform and next-generation hardware for robots, vehicles and drones.

Financial services

• , a Texas-based prediction-market platform, announced a strategic partnership with , which will take an equity stake following OG’s separation from . The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $5 billion. The investment amount was not disclosed; the partnership will route Robinhood event-contract trading through OG’s regulated exchange and clearing infrastructure.
• Saudi Arabia-based , a digital payments company, raised a $329.5 million Series A at a $1.85 billion valuation. Investors included , and . The 3-year-old company has processed more than $117 billion in 2 years.
• , a Nevada-based financial software company, raised a $250 million Series E at a $1.43 billion valuation led by founder and chairman . The 8-year-old company provides an AI-based investment management platform for asset and wealth managers.
• , a Miami-based remittance platform for Latino immigrants operating through , secured $200 million in financing: an $87 million Series C equity round led by valued at $1.4 billion and $113 million in debt from ’s Customer Value Fund. The 5-year-old company plans to expand to lending and add to its Latin American reach.

Space technology

• Munich-based space company raised a $450 million Series C, co-led by , and at a valuation of $2 billion. The financing for the 5-year-old company will advance its reusable Nyx spacecraft for an International Space Station mission and support development of its Storm rocket engine.
• , a Seattle-based satellite connectivity company, raised a $200 million Series C at a $1.6 billion valuation, led by , bringing total funding to approximately $300 million. The 5-year-old company enables standard Bluetooth devices to connect directly to satellites for tracking and sensor-data applications.
• Oxfordshire, U.K-based , a satellite company, secured $346 million, co-led by and, valued at $1 billion. The 11-year-old company manufactures satellites and provides infrastructure, connectivity, Earth observation and intelligence services.
• Bulgaria-based , a satellite company, raised $205 million in a round co-led by and , reaching a $1 billion valuation. The 11-year-old company has raised financing that will expand standardized spacecraft production, including new manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and Europe.

Biotechnology and medical devices

• , a Framingham, Massachusetts-based developer of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, raised around $79 million. The �� 13-year-old company was valued at $1.9 billion. Investors were not disclosed.
• Shanghai-based , an AI drug discovery company, raised $290 million at a $1.5 billion valuation following its spinoff from . , , and co-led the round. Anew develops tools for biomolecular prediction and drug discovery; ByteDance retained a 56% stake.
• , a New York-based brain-computer interface developer, closed a $250 million Series D, bringing total funding to $430 million and reaching a valuation of approximately $1 billion. and led the round. The 5-year-old company is building a brain–computer interface that is minimally invasive and removable.
• Toronto-based , a biotechnology company, raised $153 million at a $1 billion valuation led by the , with participation from and other investors. The 3-year-old company uses AI to identify abandoned drug candidates that could succeed under different treatment approaches. The financing will expand clinical development and support additional drug acquisitions.

AI and internet infrastructure

• , a San Francisco-based AI cloud infrastructure company, raised a $300 million Series B at a $3 billion valuation, led by . The 3-year-old company distributes AI inference workloads across different types of chips to improve performance and efficiency. It announced in March that its customers include one of the leading frontier labs.
• Helsinki-based , an AI cloud company, raised a $189 million Series B led by . The financing valued the 6-year-old company above $1 billion with total funding over $450 million. The company manages physical data centers along with its cloud platform.
• London-based , an internet infrastructure company supporting content delivery for large streaming, gaming and software companies, raised $570 million in its first external financing led by . The 15-year-old company was valued at $1.9 billion.

AI training

• , a San Francisco-based AI training-data company, raised more than $100 million led by at a $4 billion valuation, an eightfold increase from its valuation in September 2025. The 4-year-old company recruits and vets specialists who create training and evaluation data for AI developers. that participants included two frontier AI laboratories and two co-founders.
• , a San Francisco-based provider of expert-created AI training data, reached a $3.2 billion valuation in September, earlier, according to . The funding amount and lead investor were not publicly disclosed. The 1-year-old company’s datasets capture professional reasoning in fields such as software engineering, law and finance. AfterQuery was part of the Winter 2025 batch.

Robotics and autonomous driving

• , the Shanghai-based operator of Hello’s robotaxi business, raised about $100 million at a valuation close to $3 billion. fund led the round. The financing to the 1-year-old company will support a 10,000-GPU computing cluster, AI model development and commercialization of Level 4 autonomous driving.
• , a Sunnyvale, California-based robotics perception company, raised a $165 million Series C at a $1.6 billion valuation, led by . Founded by former and engineers, the 5-year-old company combines custom chips, sensors and spatial software to help robots perceive their surroundings. The financing will accelerate deployments across logistics, manufacturing and inspection applications.

Health insurance

• , a San Francisco-based health benefits company, announced a $200 million Series C at a $2.7 billion valuation. led the financing. It also includes $400 million in secondary financing for existing investors. The 7-year-old company provides a benefits platform using AI to make healthcare more affordable for small and midsize employers. The company services 5,000 businesses.
• , a San Francisco-based health benefits platform, raised a $108 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation. Investors included , , and . The 5-year-old company helps employers provide individualized health budgets for employees to select their own medical plans.

Energy and EV infrastructure

• China-based , a battery-swapping and charging company, agreed to a strategic transaction that gives a 30% stake. Geely will contribute its Yiyi battery-swapping operation and a $95 million investment. The 9-year-old company was valued around $2.4 billion.
• , an Austin-based developer of off-grid power systems for AI data centers, raised a $120 million Series A at a $1 billion valuation, led by . The less than 1-year-old company builds modular systems for renewable energy and battery systems as data-center operators seek access to electricity.

AI applications

• raised $150 million led by , at a valuation just over $2 billion. The 3-year-old company, headquartered in London with offices in Los Angeles and Mumbai, built an enterprise audiovisual content platform for media, advertising, sports and healthcare customers. The financing will support research, commercial expansion and a larger Silicon Valley presence.
• , a New York-based AI ranking and personalization company, raised a $90 million Series B at a $1.44 billion valuation, led by . The 2-year-old company’s software helps enterprises respond to customer behavior in real time, improving the relevance of recommendations.

Cybersecurity

• Rome-based , a cybersecurity company protecting connected devices and autonomous machines, raised $270 million at a $1.7 billion valuation, led by . The financing to the 8-year-old company will support U.S. and Asia-Pacific expansion and development of AI security models.
• Tel Aviv-based , a consumer cybersecurity company, raised $40 million at a $1.1 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $167 million. co-founder joined existing investors including and , among others. The 8-year-old company protects consumers against phishing, scams, malicious websites and AI-generated fraud.

AI models

• Beijing-based , a language-model startup, raised $120 million reaching a valuation of $1.4 billion. Investors include , , and . The less than 1-year-old company raised $400 million across three rounds so far this year, before releasing its first public model.
• , a San Francisco-based developer of open-weight foundation models, announced a $150 million Series B led by , and , valuing the company above $1 billion. The financing will support the 3-year-old company’s Trinity models and products for customizing and operating them.

Manufacturing and construction software

• , an AI company for manufacturing with dual headquarters in Tokyo and Chicago, raised a $114 million Series D at a $1.2 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $234 million. Investors included and . The 9-year-old company’s platform organizes design and procurement and production; the financing will deepen its technology and accelerate North American expansion.
• , a Georgia-based construction software company, secured a growth investment of $250 million led by , valuing it above $1 billion. The 17-year-old company manages construction projects, with the investment supporting its AI capability build out and commercial growth.

Defense technology

• , a Washington, D.C.-based defense company, emerged from stealth with $250 million raised across three rounds at a valuation above $1 billion. The 2-year-old company develops long-range cruise missiles with manufacturing in Texas, Germany and Israel. Backers who have led across three rounds include , , , 1, and .

Food

• , the New York-based parent of consumer food brands David Protein and HallPass, raised a $250 million Series B at a $2.25 billion valuation. and co-led the round. The financing to the 2-year-old company will expand retail distribution, develop new products and support additional brands.

Related ������Ƶ unicorn lists:

• (1,901)
• (666)
• (321)
• (198)
• (119)
• (102)
• (998)
• (547)
• (258)
• (39)
• (489)

Related reading:

• ������Ƶ Data: Q3 2026 Posted A Record Count Of Billion-Dollar Rounds As The Global AI Race Heats Up
• 29 Companies Joined The ������Ƶ In August, Led By AI Software And Semiconductors

Methodology

The ������Ƶ ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on ������Ƶ data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ 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 ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

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.

As the AI startup boom progresses, investors appear to be leaving few niches unfunded. That was apparent in this week’s lineup of large funding rounds, which featured AI infrastructure providers, a foundational model developer, a content protection platform for the AI age, and other AI-focused startups among the top investment recipients.

The biggest investment, $2 billion, went to , a spinout focused on cloud and power infrastructure that is hoping to benefit from the AI buildout. Other large rounds went to , developer of a fast-growing new model, and , a quantum computing startup.

1. , $2B, cloud and power infrastructure: Axiom Solutions International, a private cloud and power infrastructure company spun out of manufacturing services provider , secured $2 billion in new financing. and provided the strategic investment by purchasing shares of Austin-based Axiom from Flex at an initial enterprise value of $37.5 billion. Flex says it plans to separate Axiom into an independent publicly traded company early next year.

2. , $870M, foundational AI: TypeSafe AI, developer of Jev, a recently launched AI model with a large and growing early following, raised $870 million in new funding with as the largest investor, according to a . also participated in the round, which reportedly set a $7.5 billion valuation for San Francisco-based TypeSafe.

3. , $475M, quantum computing: Pasadena, California-based Oratomic, a startup working on fault-tolerant quantum computers, raised $475 million in fresh funding led by , , , , and . The company previously raised $300 million in a July financing.

4. , $400M, data and content protection: SignSplit, a provider of tools for protecting, licensing and contributing real-world human data and other forms of human contribution, emerged from stealth with $400 million in seed funding. backed the round, setting a $1 billion valuation for the New York-based company, which was founded in 2024.

5. (tied) , $250M, AI for engineering: Vinci, developer of an AI computational platform for hardware engineers to design products, closed on $250 million in Series B funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. , and led the round for the Palo Alto, California-based company.

5. (tied) , $250M, micro-manufacturing: Emeryville, California-based Atomic Machines, a startup working on AI-native digital manufacturing systems to build micro-machines directly from code, emerged from stealth and said it has raised $250 million to date from a long list of investors.

7. , $225M, energy distribution: Voltus, provider of a distributed energy platform aimed at bolstering grid flexibility, picked up $225 million in Series D funding. , and led the financing for the San Francisco-based startup.

8. (tied) , $200M, fusion: Knoxville, Tennessee-based Type One Energy, a developer of fusion energy technology, secured $200 million in Series B financing led by and .

8. (tied) , $200M, insurance: Ledgebrook, an AI-powered specialty insurance platform, closed on $200 million in equity financing co-led by and . The round brings total funding to date for Boston-based Ledgebrook to around $315 million, per .

8. (tied) , $200M, AI evaluation: Arena, provider of a platform for evaluating AI models, pulled in $200 million in Series B funding and said it has exceeded a $100 million annual revenue run rate. and led the round, which set a $3.1 billion valuation for the company.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the ������Ƶ database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Oct. 3-9, 2026. Although most announced rounds are in the database, there may be a small time lag, as some rounds are reported late in the week.

������Ƶ startup funding reached $25 billion last quarter, well above the $14 billion invested in Q3 2025 and up slightly from the $24 billion invested in Q2. Quarterly funding was up 77% year over year, per ������Ƶ data.

While the U.K. continued to lead startup funding totals last quarter, Germany and France both posted their strongest quarters since the boom years of 2021 and early 2022. Last quarter’s funding totals were boosted heavily by a $3.5 billion investment in Paris-based , the largest venture round ever for a Europe-based company.

Table of contents

• Billion-dollar fundings
• Venture expands beyond the UK
• Late-stage rise
• Early stage
• Seed
• Looking forward
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Billion-dollar fundings

Four ������Ƶ companies raised billion-dollar-plus fundings, representing close to 40% of the region’s startup capital raised last quarter.

They include Mistral, which also announced its new open-source model Large 4, an LLM it claims outperforms competing open source models on several vectors.

Data center provider raised a convertible note of $3.36 billion that it says it will convert once it goes public, which it has filed plans to do.

Two defense tech startups also raised billion-dollar-plus rounds last quarter: raised a Series E of $1.8 billion, and raised $1.2 billion.

AI drove 75% of ������Ƶ funding this past quarter — totaling $18.8 billion — the highest proportion on record.

Investments in physical tech in Europe in defense, data centers, energy, aerospace and robotics accounted for roughly half of ������Ƶ funding in Q3.

Venture expands beyond the UK

The U.K. led the region’s quarterly funding totals with $7.5 billion even as Germany and France gained market share for venture capital funding in Q3 with $5 billion and $4.8 billion invested, respectively.

The fourth-largest market, Sweden, saw $1.5 billion in venture capital invested while the Netherlands and Spain posted their strongest quarter since the COVID boom years with $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion invested in their startup markets, respectively.

Late-stage rise

A total of $17.3 billion — 70% of Europe’s Q3 venture capital — was invested in late-stage deals in 83 companies.

Outside of the billion-dollar rounds, large late-stage fundings between $400 million to $700 million were raised by Stockholm-based health scanning provider ; Lisbon-based autonomous drone developer ; Spain-based , which offers model compression technology for enterprise AI adoption; Amsterdam-based AI deployment startup ; Bayern-based space transportation company ; and Stockholm-based AI web application builder .

Early stage

Europe’s early-stage funding totaled $5.7 billion into just over 200 companies in Q3, down quarter over quarter and flat year over year.

The largest Series A funding deals, each $200 million or over, were raised by Eindhoven-based AI semiconductor startup and Zürich-based autonomous construction company .

Large Series B rounds were raised by Munich-based fusion energy company and London-based optical computing provider .

Seed

Europe’s seed funding fell quarter over quarter and was flat year over year. Around $2 billion was invested in more than 750 companies at seed stage in Q3.

London-based managed inference company raised the largest seed round at $100 million, followed by Munich-based AI for robotics startup , which raised $55 million.

Looking forward

Europe’s momentum in 2026 continued in Q3, which was the second quarter this year when venture totals topped $20 billion. Those are figures not seen in the region’s startup scene since Q3 2022. Along with growth in AI funding, late-stage funding noticeably increased last quarter with many of the leading rounds sourced across multiple ������Ƶ countries.

Europe represented 16% of global venture capital in Q3, although the true impact of its technology and startups is higher, with many of the region’s startups expanding or moving to the U.S. to capitalize on the rapid growth of AI there.

At the same time, Europe’s ambition to build leading deep-tech companies and meet demand for sovereign AI will be tested in the quarters ahead by its ability to mobilize the substantial capital these businesses need.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Related reading:

• ������Ƶ Data: Q3 2026 Posted A Record Count Of Billion-Dollar Rounds As The Global AI Race Heats Up
• Reporter’s Notebook: Europe’s Sovereign AI Push Needs Customers As Well As Capital

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 5, 2026.

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. ������Ƶ 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 ������Ƶ 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. ������Ƶ 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. ������Ƶ 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 “Series [Letter]” 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.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration:

So far in 2026, investors have poured more than $6 billion into companies focused on developing both fission and fusion nuclear energy technology and infrastructure, per ������Ƶ . That’s far ahead of any comparable period, including last year, the prior record-setter. Round counts are also holding up at historically high levels, as charted below.

Biggest rounds

Much of this year’s funding went to a few heavily financed nuclear startups.

This included two billion-dollar recipients. Massachusetts-based , which is developing what it describes as the “world’s first commercially-relevant net energy fusion machine,” secured $1 billion in a July equity financing. Meanwhile, , a developer of grid-independent nuclear reactors, picked up $1 billion across two Series B equity tranches.

For a bigger-picture view, below we charted 11 of the largest funding rounds for the nuclear sector this year.

IPOs were going strong too

Recent quarters have also been pretty strong for IPOs tied to nuclear power. In the past six months alone, at least three companies in the space went public at initial valuations above $1 billion. Most, however, are now far below their prior highs.

The largest debut came in April from Rockville, Maryland-based , a developer of small modular nuclear reactors and fuel engineering technology, which hit a $12 billion valuation in initial trading. Shares have subsequently shed about half their value.

The next-biggest offerings were summer debuts from Oak Ridge, Tennessee-based , a developer of advanced nuclear fuels, and Berkeley, California-based , a modular reactor startup. Shares of both are trading well below former peaks.

, the -backed nuclear fission company that to some extent kicked off the nuclear IPO boomlet with its 2024 market debut via SPAC, is also seeing weakening demand. Its shares are down about two-thirds from a high point about a year ago.

Optimism matters

It’s unclear to what extent recent share price setbacks reflect diminished optimism about the feasibility of nuclear startup ambitions or more a sense that valuations warranted a cutback. In the U.S., public backlash against massive data center buildouts also affects the energy upstarts looking to power them and has contributed to investor caution.

Moreover, next-generation nuclear power is still in its early innings. Over the past few decades, the reports, very little nuclear capacity has been built, citing high capital costs and lengthy licensing and approval processes as limiting factors. Scalable fusion, meanwhile, has yet to come online.

Still, a broad assortment of nuclear projects are moving forward. Multiple companies working on small modular reactors and microreactors have projects underway in Texas, Idaho, Utah and Tennessee, per the EIA. A longer list of projects is in the later-stage planning phase. And, hefty fundraising in recent months from both IPOs and venture rounds has given startups the runway to keep forging ahead.

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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.

After a week of multiple billion-dollar-plus rounds, startup investors have reduced the number of zeroes on their funding checks. This past week, the largest U.S. startup funding rounds were in the hundreds of millions, topped by a $550 million financing for AI infrastructure company and a $308 million investment in space vehicle developer .

The remaining list of big rounds featured mostly AI-focused companies in sectors including investment management, networking, coding and marketing as well as some energy and biotech. Data center developer , also made official its previously reported $3 billion-plus raise, co-led by , and .

1. , $550M, AI infrastructure: Temporal Technologies, developer of an open source platform for building and operating long-running AI agents and other enterprise systems, secured $550 million in Series E funding at a $12.55 billion valuation. , , , and led the financing for the Bellevue, Washington-based company.

2. , $308M, space tech: Redondo Beach, California-based Impulse Space, a developer of space vehicles for moving payloads across and between orbits, secured $308 million in Series D extension funding. The financing brings the combined round total to $808 million.

3. , $250M, investment management: Ridgeline, an AI-enabled investment management platform, picked up $250 million in a Series E funding round. The financing, led by founder and chairman , set a $1.45 billion valuation for the Incline Village, Nevada-based company.

4. , $205M, networking: Wayne, Pennsylvania-based Cornelis Networks, a developer of networking technology for AI and high-performance computing workloads, closed on $205 million in new funding backed by .

5. , $200M, AI software development: San Francisco-based Factory, a provider of AI tools for enterprise software development, announced a $200 million funding round at a $5 billion valuation, backed by a long list of venture firms and individual investors.

6. , $180M, AI marketing: Profound, a startup offering marketing software to help users appear more prominently in AI results, raised $180 million in Series D funding at a $1.8 billion valuation. and led the financing for the New York-based company.

7. (tied) , $150M, foundational AI: Arcee AI, a developer of open-weight AI models, closed on $150 million in Series B funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion. , and led the round for the San Francisco-based company.

7. (tied) , $150M, gaming: Nex, a developer of family-oriented digital games that rely on body motion rather than controllers, secured $150 million in new equity and debt financing, including a Series E led by and . The San Francisco company did not break out how much of the round consisted of equity.

9. , $135M, geothermal energy: Mazama Energy, a Seattle-based geothermal energy developer specializing in superhot rock geothermal power, picked up $135 million in a Series B round led by and .

10. , $123M, biotech: Sling Therapeutics, developer of a small-molecule therapy for thyroid eye disease, closed on $123 million in Series C funding. led the financing for the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the ������Ƶ database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Sept. 12-18, 2026. Although most announced rounds are in the database, there may be a small time lag, as some rounds are reported late in the week.

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From putting nuclear reactors on barges to grading how well AI models can control robots, this month’s crop of interesting startup deals takes AI and other emerging technologies well beyond the conventional software stack.

Other companies that caught our eye are applying automation to the decidedly old-school worlds of building-material procurement, commercial property maintenance and farm recordkeeping. Let’s take a closer look.

$50M to put nuclear power at sea

Nuclear power plants are famously difficult and time-consuming to build. thinks putting them on barges could offer another way.

The Long Beach, California-based startup raised what it says was an oversubscribed $50 million seed round led by , just two months after emerging from stealth with $10 million in pre-seed funding. The of investors in the deal included , , , and others.

Bluecore is developing compact, water-cooled small modular reactors designed to operate aboard floating barges. Rather than spending years constructing a new power plant and the accompanying infrastructure on land, the idea is to manufacture the systems and move them to where electricity is needed.

“Our focus is simple. Create and deliver zero-emission energy as safely and quickly as possible,” CEO and founder wrote in a social media . “Over 3 billion people live within an hour of water. We want to power them all.”

Its first target is the Port of Long Beach, with other ports and power-hungry AI data centers among the potential customers. The company says it’s working with the and as it pursues certification.

Bluecore’s raise comes amid a broader nuclear funding boom. Nuclear fission startups alone pulled in roughly $2 billion in venture funding in 2025, per ������Ƶ data, and investors have continued writing enormous checks this year. More broadly, cleantech-, EV- and sustainability-focused startups raised about $15 billion in the first half of 2026, with second-quarter funding reaching its highest quarterly level since 2024.

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$31M to bring AI to the building-materials business

Ordering cement and steel might not sound like an obvious AI use case, but Saudi Arabia-based sees a lot of room for improvement.

The Riyadh startup last week said it had secured $31 million in new capital, consisting of a $13 million Series B equity round co-led by , ’s venture arm, and , plus an $18 million growth-debt commitment from under a previously announced facility. The company has now raised more than $83 million, .

BRKZ operates a marketplace that connects construction companies with suppliers of building materials, while also handling sourcing, logistics and financing. More interestingly, it says it has amassed some 38 million structured data points that power an AI pricing engine trained on roughly 40,000 requests for quotes.

The company says 84% to 89% of its predicted prices come within 5% of the eventual transaction price. Another AI agent reads photos of cement delivery notes sent through , matches them to orders and verifies deliveries — with roughly three-quarters processed without human intervention.

BRKZ is riding a in Saudi Arabia even as startup investors remain selective about construction and property technology more broadly. Global proptech startups raised about $6.5 billion via roughly 640 deals in the first half 2026, ������Ƶ data shows. That’s on pace to top last year’s dollar figures, even as deal count has dipped this year. Similar to other startup sectors, investors in proptech are increasingly directing capital toward companies using AI and automation to cut costs and streamline operations.

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$24M for robots to take care of commercial properties

Robots are already assembling cars and moving packages around warehouses. wants them to also mow lawns and sweep parking lots —��and do security patrols of those properties while they’re at it.

The Santa Clara, California-based autonomous robotics startup last week said it has raised a $24 million Series A led by to scale its fleet of robots designed to handle outdoor property maintenance for commercial real estate owners and operators.

Its machines combine autonomous navigation with attachments that allow them to perform jobs like sweeping, debris removal and landscaping tasks — all while conducting “soft security” — across large campuses and commercial properties.

Rather than trying to build a general-purpose humanoid robot, Viabot is applying autonomy to repetitive jobs that property owners already pay people and contractors to perform. The startup, which operates on a “robot as a service model,” sees an opportunity to fill a labor shortage for what’s often considered “dirty, dull and dangerous” outdoor work, , founding partner at , told ������Ƶ News in 2021, when the company raised earlier funding.

Startup investors are pouring money into those sorts of real-world AI applications. Global venture funding to physical AI companies — including robotics, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, drones, industrial automation and sensors — reached $47.4 billion across 521 deals in the first half of 2026, ������Ƶ data shows. That’s nearly 4x the $12 billion invested in the second half of 2025 and almost 80% above the year-ago period.

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$10M to give AI robots an independent report card

As frontier AI models move from controlling software to controlling robots and machines in the real world, wants the public to have an independent way to understand what they can actually do.

The 3-month-old San Francisco startup announced last week that it raised a $10 million seed round led by , with participation from , , and others.

Robocurve says it wants to act as an independent third-party auditor for physical AI, testing how well frontier models can control real robots and publicly reporting the results. The company says its own research has already found that general-purpose large language models can outperform specialized robotics vision-language-action models on some simple tasks.

Importantly, Robocurve isn’t positioning itself as a conventional robotics benchmarking startup. It is incorporated as a Public Benefit Corporation with a legal duty to independently evaluate the robotics capabilities of frontier AI systems and report those findings to the public.

The company says AI labs don’t dictate its research agenda, evaluation methodology or published results, and it plans to work with governments, policymakers and civil society as robot capabilities advance.

Academia is a big part of that model, too. Rather than developing every benchmark itself, Robocurve funds academic teams and supplies them with robot hardware to create open-source benchmarks. More than 200 institutions — including researchers from 19 of the world’s top 20 universities, according to the company — have signed up for its benchmarking program. Robocurve is offering a combined $500,000 in funding plus free robotic arms to participating academic groups.

Its funding is timely given the massive influx of capital pouring into robotics and physical AI. Within the broader physical AI sector, robotics startups alone raised more than $21 billion globally in the first half of 2026, ������Ƶ data shows, already eclipsing the nearly $16 billion raised in all of 2025 and even the $15.3 billion invested during the venture market’s 2021 peak.

As ever more powerful models move from screens into machines capable of manipulating the physical world, figuring out what those models can — and can’t — safely do becomes a more consequential problem.

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$5M to let farmers talk instead of type

A lot of agricultural software has one basic problem: Farmers don’t spend their days sitting at desks.

With that in mind, this month raised a $5 million pre-seed round led by for a voice-first AI platform designed specifically for farmers, agronomists and other agricultural workers.

Instead of asking someone working in a vineyard or almond orchard to stop and fill out a form or type notes into a computer, Tellia enables them to leave a voice note, send a message, or even submit a photo to log records, generate reports and set reminders. It says its AI then turns that unstructured information into records associated with the correct field, crop and crew.

For example, for a livestock farmer that might mean a voice prompt like: “Tellia, the vet just checked Herd 3. All clear, next health check due in 6 weeks, log that.”

Or a vineyard manager might ask: “Tellia, based on this year’s Brix and pH logs, what’s the projected alcohol level for the Cabernet lot?” and receive an instant answer based on previously collected data.

San Francisco- and Paris-based Tellia was founded last year and says its technology is already deployed across 1 million acres, including at and wineries in the U.S., as well as agricultural organizations in Europe.

and also participated in its latest funding.

Its raise comes amid a much tougher environment for agtech startups overall. Venture investment in agriculture and farming remains in a correction from its 2021 peak, when startups in the space raised $10.5 billion across more than 1,400 deals, ������Ƶ data shows. That makes companies applying increasingly cheap and accessible AI to specific, everyday farming problems an interesting corner to watch. Voice AI, in particular, has emerged as one of the hot spots in artificial intelligence funding in recent years.

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• Sector Snapshot: Robotics Startups On Fire As Venture Funding Surges To Record Numbers In 2026
• VCs Pour Billions Into Physical AI As The Next Wave Of AI Investing Takes Shape
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• Why Big Investors Are All Ears For Voice AI Startups

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U.S. venture-backed technology��1 companies have secured nearly $90 billion in domestic public offerings this year, per ������Ƶ data. That’s already the second-highest annual tally on record, and we’ve still got a few months to go.

However, virtually all the money went to two companies. alone accounted for 83% of the $90 billion raised this year, while AI infrastructure company scooped up another 6%. A potential offering from , meanwhile, could be even bigger.

The remaining field is comparatively modest. Just 21 other venture-backed technology companies went public this year in sizable or offerings 2, per ������Ƶ data. Collectively, their offerings, which include traditional IPOs and SPAC deals, pulled in less than $10 billion.

This small cohort is intriguing for what it excludes as well as what it includes. Enterprise software, long a staple industry among venture-backed IPOs, was essentially a no-show this year. Energy, defense and space tech, by contrast, were well-represented. We also saw smaller offerings from other sectors, including medical devices and consumer-facing startups.

Here are some of the key findings in more detail:

Energy powers the most IPOs: About a quarter of this year’s tech startup offerings hail from the energy sector. The largest of these was from geothermal energy provider . Several nuclear power-focused startups also made their debuts, including and , developers of small modular nuclear reactors, as well as , focused on advanced nuclear fuel.

A dash of quantum, defense, aerospace, devices and consumer: Beyond energy, quantum computing company delivered one of the year’s larger debuts, as did equipment rental platform . Defense tech and aerospace were also strong performers, with offerings from satellite intelligence provider and spacecraft developer . And on the consumer front, e-bike and scooter platform finally made its market entrance, albeit at a valuation below its one-time .

An IPO SaaS-pocalipse: But what about SaaS? Mostly MIA. The paucity of enterprise software offerings this year isn’t entirely surprising given the impact of AI on the sector. VCs are pouring capital into a newer generation of AI-first platforms in legal tech, accounting and other enterprise software sectors. Existing SaaS unicorns are also moving fast to incorporate more AI in their offerings.

One end result is there are an awful lot of SaaS unicorns and former unicorns that have concluded this year is not the time to pursue an IPO.

Winner-takes-almost-all

Another end result is that investment returns are looking more concentrated than ever.

Of course, winning big or not at all is far from a new thing in the startup world. Tech venture returns have always been propped up largely by a few enormous wins, with the remainder of portfolio companies producing either losses or smaller profitable exits. But lately, the winner-take-almost-all-the-IPO-proceeds tilt is more pronounced than ever.

The pipeline of tech companies that have filed for future IPOs doesn’t offer much consolation that this pattern will change. Giant potential market debuts from Anthropic and still dominate IPO chatter. Enterprise SaaS offerings do not.

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Always-busy was the most active backer of U.S.-based startups by deal count, while led or co-led the most rounds of $5 million or more, ������Ƶ data shows.

Chip giant , meanwhile, sharply accelerated its dealmaking, ranking among the most active and highest-spending investors for the month. The chip giant participated in nine disclosed rounds of at least $5 million — marking its busiest month for investing since at least the beginning of 2025 — and led or co-led financings collectively valued at $1.3 billion.

The flurry of activity came as global venture funding reached $42 billion in August, up 122% year over year, with seven companies raising billion-dollar-plus rounds last month.

Below, we rank August’s most active startup investors across several categories, including lead backers, prolific venture dealmakers, highest spenders and seed investors.

Active lead investors

San Francisco-based General Catalyst ranked as the most active lead investor in rounds of $5 million or more, leading or co-leading five such deals. Its largest was the $1.1 billion Series A for, which provides custom AI fine-tuning for businesses. General Catalyst also led or co-led a $116 million Series E for, along with three seed rounds ranging from $10 million to $25 million, ������Ƶ data shows.

, and tied for second, with four lead or co-lead deals each.

The scale of those rounds varied considerably. The four deals that Andreessen led or co-led totaled more than $1.15 billion, driven by an $800 million Series C for defense tech company and a $300 million Series A for AI infrastructure startup .

Sequoia’s four led or co-led deals totaled $1.3 billion, including a $1 billion Series B for nuclear energy startup .

Busiest venture investors

When we widen the ranking to include both lead and non-lead participation in rounds of $5 million or more, Y Combinator once again takes the top spot.

The accelerator participated in at least 18 such deals in August, per ������Ƶ data. As we’ve noted in previous rankings, Y Combinator commonly invests as a non-lead backer in follow-on rounds for companies that previously went through its program.

Andreessen Horowitz ranked second with 13 deals, followed by General Catalyst with 10. and Nvidia tied for fourth with nine each.

Nvidia’s rise in the investor rankings is particularly notable. The Santa Clara, California-based chip giant participated in only four U.S. rounds of $5 million or more in July and one in August 2025. Seven of its nine qualifying investments last month went to companies categorized as AI-focused in ������Ƶ, including River AI, , , and .

The August burst extends a notable increase in Nvidia’s venture dealmaking pace this year. ������Ƶ data shows that by mid-August, it had participated in a record 59 known startup funding rounds in 2026, already surpassing its 53 investments in all of 2025. It had also led or co-led at least 11 private-company financings this year, underscoring its growing role as both a technology supplier to and financial backer of the AI startup ecosystem.

and Sequoia were next in our August rankings, each with seven U.S. startup investments of $5 million or more. RA Capital’s portfolio reflected its life sciences focus, with August deals including , , , and .

Highest-spending investors

The rankings change again when we look at lead investors associated with the highest aggregate deal values.

For August, was the apparent spendiest lead investor, thanks to its role leading ’ $5 billion deal. The round, the month’s largest, valued the data and AI company at $190 billion.

and followed, each leading or co-leading rounds with an aggregate value of $2.37 billion, as both were listed as lead investors in defense manufacturing startup’s $1.37 billion Series D and home battery provider’s $1 billion Series D.

Nvidia and Sequoia came next, each with $1.3 billion in led or co-led rounds. Nvidia’s total came from Poolside’s $1 billion financing and Volta’s $300 million Series A, while Sequoia led or co-led four rounds, topped by the Valar Atomics financing.

General Catalyst and Andreessen also crossed the $1 billion mark, with approximately $1.26 billion and $1.15 billion, respectively, in aggregate led round value.

As always, this is an approximation of spending rather than a tally of capital actually contributed. Investors rarely disclose how much each participant put into a round, although lead investors generally contribute a substantial share.

Seed dealmakers

At seed, Y Combinator was again the most prolific investor, backing at least 12 U.S.-headquartered companies in August.

ranked second with eight seed investments, all announced as part of the same August cohort. and followed with six seed deals each, while 1��recorded five. (It’s important to note that seed rankings are especially subject to change, since smaller financings often take longer to be reported and added to the ������Ƶ dataset.)

Big checks, familiar names

August’s rankings tell a now-familiar story: A relatively small group of large venture firms continues to dominate by deal count, while a handful of megadeals determines who tops the spending ranks. But Nvidia’s acceleration this year also illustrates how corporate investors — particularly those with a direct stake in the AI ecosystem — are becoming increasingly prominent alongside traditional venture firms.

Related reading:

• Global Venture Funding Jumps 122% In August As Streak Of Billion-Dollar Deals Continues
• No Summer Doldrums For Active Startup Investors In July

Methodology

This analysis covers reported investments in U.S.-headquartered companies and is based on ������Ƶ data pulled Sept. 10, 2026. Rankings for active venture and lead investors include rounds of $5 million or more. Seed rankings include angel, pre-seed, seed and equity crowdfunding rounds.

Funding data is subject to reporting lags, which are typically most pronounced at the seed stage.

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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.

It was a monster week for U.S. startup funding, with four companies each raising $1 billion or more. ’s tunnel-drilling company led with a $3 billion Series D, followed by AI coding startup at $2 billion. Joining them near the top was , which landed $1.3 billion for its AI platform for physical operations, while reusable rocket developer raised another $1 billion.

Big checks also flowed to U.S. solar manufacturing, defense tech, legal AI and companies building the chips and networking infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence.

1. , $3B, transportation and infrastructure: Musk’s Bastrop, Texas-based tunneling company raised a $3 billion Series D led by the, with participation from investors including, and. The company is developing underground tunnel networks designed to move passengers and vehicles while reducing surface traffic, and already operates its Vegas Loop system beneath Las Vegas. The latest deal values it at $23 billion and brings its total funding to nearly $3.9 billion, .

2. , $2B, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Cognition raised a $2 billion Series E led by,,, and. The company is best known for Devin, its autonomous software-engineering agent, and is part of a highly funded crop of startups betting AI agents will take over increasingly complex coding and development work. Cognition has raised nearly $3.9 billion to date and was valued at $48 billion in the latest round, our shows.

3. , $1.3B, AI for physical operations: San Francisco-based Motive raised $1.3 billion in private equity funding led by. The company, formerly known as KeepTruckin, has an AI-driven platform used by trucking, construction and other physical-economy businesses to manage fleets, monitor driver safety, and automate operations and spending. The latest deal brings Motive’s total funding to just over $2 billion, according to .

4. , $1B, aerospace: Kent, Washington-based Stoke Space raised a $1 billion Series E co-led by and, with among the additional investors. The company is developing fully reusable rockets, including its Nova launch vehicle, as it looks to lower the cost of transporting satellites and other payloads to orbit. The latest round values Stoke at $10 billion and brings total funding to . Its raise adds to the already record-setting sums for space tech startup investment this year.

5. , $835M, solar energy: Norcross, Georgia-based Suniva raised $835 million from investors including, and. The longtime U.S. solar manufacturer produces high-efficiency solar cells and plans to use new capital to expand domestic production, including a new South Carolina facility that would more than quadruple its manufacturing capacity. Suniva has raised nearly .

6. , $600M, defense tech: Huntington Beach, California-based Mach Industries raised a $600 million Series C from investors including and. Founded in 2022, the defense manufacturer develops unmanned aircraft, long-range weapons, propulsion technology and the infrastructure needed to produce defense systems at scale. Mach is part of a broader surge in venture investment into defense companies looking to bring Silicon Valley-style development and manufacturing speeds to military hardware. The latest round values the company at $3.7 billion and brings its total funding to .

7. , $550M, legal AI: San Francisco-based Harvey raised a $550 million Series H co-led by and, with investors including and also participating. Harvey builds generative AI tools for lawyers and other professional-services workers, with products for legal research, document analysis and contract work. The company was valued at $15.5 billion in the latest deal, which brings its total funding to date to nearly . That makes it one of the most well-funded players in the legal tech space, which has seen robust investment this year, though slightly lower than last year’s all-time high.

8. (tied) , $500M, semiconductors: Fab2 raised a $500 million Series A led by, with among the other investors. Formerly known as Atomic Semi, Fab2 is trying to rethink semiconductor manufacturing by designing its own fabrication tools, components and software with the goal of building smaller chip factories faster and more cheaply. The funding is the first disclosed round for the company, which maintains headquarters in California and Kentucky, and values it at $3.7 billion.

8. (tied) , $500M, AI infrastructure: Reno, Nevada-based Positron raised a $500 million Series C led by and, with among its other investors. The startup develops purpose-built hardware for AI inference, where models actually process queries after they have been trained, and is one of a growing crop of chip companies challenging GPUs in particular AI workloads. The latest financing values Positron at $5 billion and brings its total funding to nearly $1.2 billion, .

10. (tied) , $275M, AI networking infrastructure: Laguna Beach, California-based Celero Communications raised a $275 million Series C led by, and. Celero develops coherent digital signal processor technology that helps move enormous quantities of data between chips and data centers while using less power, an increasingly critical bottleneck as AI clusters grow. The round values the company at $3 billion and brings total funding to roughly , according to ������Ƶ.

10. (tied) , $275M, biotechnology: South San Francisco, California-based Encoded Therapeutics raised a $275 million Series F led by, with investors including, and also participating. The clinical-stage biotech develops precision genetic medicines for severe neurological disorders, with its lead therapy targeting Dravet syndrome, a rare genetic epilepsy. Encoded has raised $514.1 million to date, .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the ������Ƶ database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Sept. 5-11, 2026. Although most announced rounds are in the database, there may be a small time lag, as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Related reading:

• Sector Snapshot: Space Tech Startup Funding Orbits New Highs��
• Anduril Raises Another $5B As Defense Tech Startups Shatter Funding Records
• Sector Snapshot: Legal Tech Funding Down Slightly From All-Time High��
• Sector Snapshot: Semiconductor Startup Funding Still Running Hot

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