xAI and Anthropic raise billions again

This is a monthly feature that showcases the top 10 funding rounds of the month in the United States. Check out October’s biggest cycles here.

While some things tend to slow down as the year comes to a close, fundraising for artificial intelligence is apparently not one of them. Last month, xAI And Anthropic raised a total of $9 billion as AI funding remained red hot. Other sectors, including IT management and robotics, have also seen great success. Let’s take a look.

1. xAI5 billion dollars, artificial intelligence: Generative AI startup xAI raised $5 billion in a funding round, valuing it at $50 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new funding round more than doubles its valuation compared to the $6 billion round the company raised in May. The latest agreement includes investments from Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz And Sequoia Capital. When Elon MuskxAI, led by xAI, officially announced its long-awaited fundraising this spring, becoming the second most valuable generative AI company in the world behind its only competitor. OpenAI.

2. Anthropic4 billion dollars, artificial intelligence: Amazon agreed to invest an additional $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, another ChatGPT rival with his 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 immediate investment was $1.25 billion, with the remaining $2.75 billion expected earlier this year. This agreement included the name Anthropic Amazon Web Services its main cloud provider, as well as using AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train and deploy its models. This new investment means that Amazon will have invested $8 billion in Anthropic, retaining its minority stake in the startup, according to Anthropic. blog.

3. Tricentis$1.3 billion, DevOps: Tricentis secured $1.3 billion investment from private equity firm GTCR valuing the software testing startup at $4.5 billion. It’s unclear from the reports whether this is new equity or existing stock, but for now it’s on the list. The Austin, Texas-based startup was founded in 2007 in Austria. Insight Partners took a majority stake in 2017. The company has now raised $1.5 billion in total.

4. Logic Monitor$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 shares, Golub Capital and others. The agreement is part of Vista Equity Partners selling a minority stake in the company, which is now valued at approximately $2.4 billion. The IT infrastructure company said it would use the fresh cash for M&A activities and to enter new markets globally. Vista purchased LogicMonitor in May 2018 for approximately $415 million.

5. Insider$500M, digital marketing: Marketing technology platform Insider raised a $500 million Series E round led by General Atlantic to finance its expansion in the United States and the development of AI products. The latest funding comes approximately 18 months later a round last year that valued it at $1.9 billion. The New York-based company declined to disclose its valuation in the latest funding round. Insider, co-founded in Istanbul in 2012, has now raised $772.1 million from investors, by Crunchbase. The company claims to be present in 28 countries around the world and has big names such as Nike, Samsung, L’Oreal, Unilever, Allianz And Disney among its customers.

6. Physical intelligence$400 million, robotics: Physical Intelligence, a startup developing brains for a wide range of robots, raised $400 million at a $2 billion valuation, led by Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital And Prosperous capitalization, by the New York Times. The San Francisco-based company had raised a $70 million seed round at a valuation of around $400 million in March. Physical Intelligence is just the latest startup looking to use AI to make robots work better and create core software that can be used on a variety of robot models instead of having to create separate operating software for each individual model. Investors – especially Bezos – have already placed big bets on the intersection of robotics and its fundamental AI-enhanced software. In February, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company Figurewhich is developing AI-enhanced robots that it hopes will be able to perform dangerous tasks and alleviate labor shortages, has raised a whopping $675 million for a pre-money valuation of approximately $2 billion. This round included investments of NvidiaBezos Explore investments and others. In July, based in Pittsburgh Competent AI — also developing brain models that can be used in a variety of robots and for different tasks — raised a $300 million Series A led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SoftBank Group and Bezos, through his Bezos Expeditions. The financing valued the company at $1.5 billion. Overall, it’s been a good year for robotics startups receiving funding.

7. Cyera$300 million, cybersecurity: After raising a $300 million Series C round led by Coatue With a valuation of $1.4 billion in April, data security startup Cyera closed an additional $300 million windfall last month, more than double its previous valuation. The New York-based company announced a $300 million Series D round led by Accelerate And Sapphire Companies at a valuation of $3 billion. Despite being a cybersecurity company, Cyera is certainly riding the AI ​​wave. The startup has an AI-powered data security platform that helps enterprise security teams understand what data they have and how it is used, as well as how to secure it in a complex digital landscape. Of course, the reliance on data has only grown stronger as companies pursue AI initiatives. Founded in 2021, Cyera has raised $760 million to date, according to the company.

8. Wonder$250 million, food delivery: Marc LoréWonder’s food delivery startup, Wonder, can’t stay out of this list. It was here in June 2022 and again last March. The company had another big success last month with the $650 million acquisition of Grubhubraising an additional $250 million in capital exclusively from new investors, who have not been named. The transaction price represented a significant drop for Grubhub, which was acquired by Just eat takeaway for $7.3 billion in 2021. Founded in 2018, Wonder has raised nearly $1.9 billion, by Crunchbase.

9. Metsera$215 million, biotechnology: It was only in April that the New York-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical startup emerged from stealth with $290 million in funding led by Arch Venture Partners. The company did it again last month, raising a $215 million Series B led by Partners Venrock Healthcare Capital And Wellington Management. The company is exploring drugs for obesity and metabolic diseases with a collection of incretins, nonincretins, and oral and injectable combination therapies.

10. Writer$200 million, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Writer has locked in a $200 million Series C round that values ​​the enterprise-focused generative AI platform at $1.9 billion. The new valuation represents a nice bump from the $500 million the company was valued at after a $100 million round led by Iconiq Growth last year. The new C series was co-led by Iconiq, Premji Invest And Radical companies. The Writer platform is designed to help businesses use large language models to improve workflows and delivers AI solutions capable of running complex business operations across systems and teams . The new funds will be used for the company’s fast-start AI applications and for agents for workflows in healthcare, retail and financial services. Writer continues to grow its clientele, which includes names like Accenture, L’Oreal And Uber.

Big global affairs

The largest transaction outside the United States came from Europe.

• Based in Spain SeQuraa payment solution for e-commerce, raised a $429 million funding round.

Methodology

We tracked in the Crunchbase database the largest rounds that were raised by US-based companies for the month of November 2024. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, it could There may be a slight lag as some rounds are reported at the end of the month. .

Illustration: Dom Guzman