These Are The AI Startups That Raised Over $1B

There was a time when raising over a billion dollars as an AI startup was enough to warrant a little name recognition.

Not anymore. Today, the list of heavily funded artificial intelligence companies is lengthy enough that it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Per Crunchbase data, there were at least 23 private, AI-focused startups* funded in the past couple years that have raised over $1 billion in equity financing to date. Of those, five have raised over $6 billion.

Below, we list all members of the billion-dollar-and-up funding club, ranked in order of total investment.

Four main categories for big AI fundraisers

Generative AI remains the buzziest space for startup funding, so it’s not surprising to see the largest fundraising recipients fall in this category. This naturally includes OpenAI, which this month raised $6.6 billion at a post-money valuation of $157 billion.

Next up in the gen AI category are Anthropic, with $8.4 billion in total equity funding, and xAI, with $6.4 billion.

Autonomy, vertical AI and tools

Beyond generative AI, the most heavily funded artificial intelligence companies fall in three other broad categories. These include autonomous driving, vertical AI, and tools for managing AI workloads and data.

Of those three groups, autonomous driving is the most heavily funded. And in this space, the frontrunner among private companies is Waymo, with $10.5 billion in equity funding to date, including a $5 billion infusion from parent company Alphabet in July.

General Motors’ Cruise comes in second, with $8.9 billion in equity funding to date. The San Francisco company picked up $850 million in a GM-backed financing round in June.

Providers of tools and platforms for managing AI workloads and data are also scaling up. Databricks is the largest funding recipient in this category, with around $4 billion in equity funding to date.

Vertical AI, or artificial intelligence targeted to specific industries has also produced some startups with $1 billion or more in equity funding.

In this area, New York-based AlphaSense has raised $1.4 billion to date for an AI-driven market intelligence platform, with a particular focus on financial services. Another example is San Francisco-based Xaira Therapeutics, which has raised $1 billion to harness AI for drug discovery and development.

Not done yet

There’s no indication that the flood of funding to already heavily capitalized AI startups is set to recede. If anything, it seems like we hear more buzz around pending rounds as well as announcements of new, gargantuan investments.

* Editor’s note: The list includes Inflection AI. This summer, Microsoft hired the generative AI startup’s co-founders, most of its 70-person staff, and licensed its technology, but maintained that the deal was not an acquisition.

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Illustration: Dom Guzman