xAI And Anthropic Headline Big Week For AI (Again)

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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 rounds here.

Just as the holiday season begins, a sleighful of companies unveiled large funding rounds. Of course, it was led by two well-known AI startups — including xAI, which had its second massive haul of cash in just six months.

1. xAI, $5B, 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 round includes investment from the Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. It was just in May Elon Musk’s startup officially announced its long-awaited fundraise — making it the second-most-valuable generative AI company in the world behind only competitor OpenAI. The $6 billion round valued the company at $24 billion post money.

2. Anthropic, $4B, artificial intelligence: Amazon has agreed to invest another $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic — a 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 titan a minority stake in Anthropic. The immediate investment was  $1.25 billion, with the remaining $2.75 billion in funding coming earlier this year. That deal included Anthropic naming Amazon Web Services its primary cloud provider, as well as using AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train and deploy its models. This new investment means Amazon will have invested $8 billion into Antropic, retaining its minority stake in the startup, per an Anthropic blog.

3. LogicMonitor, $800M, IT management: LogicMonitor, which provides IT observability and monitoring, took in $800 million in new equity and debt from an investor consortium that includes PSG Equity, Golub Capital and others. The deal is part of Vista Equity Partners selling a minority stake in the company, which is now valued at about $2.4 billion. The IT infrastructure company will use the fresh cash for M&A activities and entering new markets globally. Vista bought LogicMonitor in May 2018 for about $415 million.

4. Cyera, $300M, cybersecurity: After raising a $300 million Series C led by Coatue at a $1.4 billion valuation in April, data security startup Cyera closed another $300 million windfall at more than twice its previous valuation. The New York-based company announced a $300 million Series D led by Accel and Sapphire Ventures at a $3 billion valuation. While a cybersecurity company, Cyera is certainly riding the AI wave. The startup has an AI-powered data security platform that helps security teams at companies understand what data they have and how it’s used, as well as how to secure it across a complex digital landscape. Of course, the reliance on data has only become stronger as companies drive AI initiatives. Founded in 2021, Cyera has raised $760 million to date, per the company.

5. Kong, $175M, enterprise software: Kong, a developer of cloud API technologies, closed $175 million in an up-round Series E led by Tiger Global and Balderton Capital that valued the company at $2 billion. The round was a mix of primary and secondary transactions, with no exact amount given for the primary investment. The funding comes as companies are being overwhelmed with more APIs as AI business applications grow. Founded in 2009, Kong has raised $345 million, per the San Francisco-based company.

6. Enveda Biosciences, $130M, biotech: It was just in June that Enveda Biosciences first landed on this list, after raising a $55 million round that included Microsoft as an investor. The Boulder, Colorado-based startup is back this week after raising a $130 million Series C funding round led by FPV Ventures and Kinnevik. The company uses AI-powered tools to identify a wide range of molecules produced by living organisms to create medicines. Founded in 2019, Enveda has raised $360 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Cresta, $125M, customer service: AI for contact centers is big right now and Palo Alto, California-based Cresta is the latest startup to raise massive money. The company locked up a $125 million Series D led by new investors Qatar Investment Authority and World Innovation Lab. The Cresta platform gives customers real-time insights and behavioral best practices to help human agents, while also automating mundane tasks using virtual agents. Founded in 2017, Cresta says it has raised more than $270 million.

8. Enfabrica, $115M, semiconductor: AI networking chip startup Enfabrica raised a $115 million Series C led by Spark Capital as it inches closer to its newest chip release early next year. The round comes just about 14 months after the Mountain View, California-based firm closed a $125 million Series B led by Atreides Management that also included investment from Nvidia. The new Series C investors include some of the biggest names in the chip world: Arm Holdings and Cisco Investments. Enfabrica also announced its new “groundbreaking” ACF SuperNIC chip. The startup’s networking infrastructure helps tie AI chips together — allowing for the consistent flow of data needed for modern AI workloads.

9. League One Volleyball, $100M, sports: Los Angeles-based League One Volleyball, which is set to start a pro volleyball league early next year, raised $100 million in a deal led by Atwater Capital. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $160 million, per Crunchbase.

10. Spectro Cloud, $75M, enterprise software: San Jose, California-based Spectro Cloud, which allows customers to deploy and manage Kubernetes in production, completed a $75 million Series C funding led by the growth equity arm at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $143 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

The biggest round outside the states came from across the pond.

• London-based Lighthouse, a commercial platform for the travel and hospitality industry, raised a $370 million Series C.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Nov. 16 to Nov. 22. 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