xAI And Anthropic Raise Billions Again

This is a monthly feature that runs down the month’s top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out October’s biggest rounds here.

While some things tend to slow as the year winds down, artificial intelligence fundraising apparently isn’t one of them. Last month, xAI and Anthropic raised a combined $9 billion as AI funding remained red-hot. Other sectors, including IT management and robotics, also saw big rounds. Let’s take a look.

1. xAI, $5B, artificial intelligence: Generative AI startup xAI raised $5 billion in a round valuing it at $50 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new round more than doubles its valuation from a $6 billion round the company raised in May. The latest deal includes investment from the Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. When Elon Musk-led xAI officially announced its long-awaited fundraise this spring, it became the second-most-valuable generative AI company in the world behind only competitor OpenAI.

2. Anthropic, $4B, artificial intelligence: Amazon has agreed to invest another $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, another 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 the company. 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 Anthropic, retaining its minority stake in the startup, per an Anthropic blog.

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

4. 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 said it will use the fresh cash for M&A activities and entering new markets globally. Vista bought LogicMonitor in May 2018 for about $415 million.

5. Insider, $500M, digital marketing: Marketing tech platform Insider raised a $500 million Series E led by General Atlantic to fund its expansion in the U.S. and AI product development. The latest funding comes about 18 months after a round last year that valued it at $1.9 billion. The New York-based company declined to disclose its valuation with the latest round. Insider, which was co-founded in Istanbul in 2012, has now raised $772.1 million from investors, per Crunchbase. The company says it operates in 28 countries around the world and counts big names such as Nike, Samsung, L’Oreal, Unilever, Allianz and Disney among its customers.

6. Physical Intelligence, $400M, robotics: Physical Intelligence, a startup developing brains for a wide array of robots, raised a $400 million round at a $2 billion valuation led by Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital and Thrive Capital, per The New York Times. The San Francisco-based company had raised a $70 million seed round at a valuation of about $400 million back in March. Physical Intelligence is just the latest startup looking to use AI to improve how robots operate and to create foundational software that could be used on a variety of robot models instead of having to create separate operating software for each individual model. Investors  — especially Bezos — already have placed big bets at the intersection of robotics and its AI-enhanced foundational software. In February, Sunnyvale, California-based Figure, which is developing AI-enhanced robots that it hopes will be able to perform dangerous jobs and alleviate labor shortages, raised a huge $675 million round at a pre-money valuation of roughly $2 billion. That round included investments from Nvidia, Bezos’ Explore Investments and others. In July, Pittsburgh-based Skild 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 funding valued the company at $1.5 billion. Overall, this has been a good year for robotics startups receiving funding.

7. 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 last month 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.

8. Wonder, $250M, food delivery: Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder can’t stay off this list. It was here in June 2022 and again this past March. It went big again last month as part of its $650 million acquisition of Grubhub, raising an additional $250 million in capital exclusively from new investors, which were not named. The deal price was a significant drop for Grubhub, which was bought by Just Eat Takeaway for $7.3 billion in 2021. Founded in 2018, Wonder has raised nearly $1.9 billion, per Crunchbase.

9. Metsera, $215M, biotech: It was just in April when 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 Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and Wellington Management. The company is exploring medicines for obesity and metabolic diseases with a collection of oral and injectable incretin, nonincretin and combination therapies.

10. Writer, $200M, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Writer locked up a $200 million Series C that values the enterprise-focused generative AI platform at $1.9 billion. The new valuation is a nice uptick from the $500 million the company was valued at after a $100 million round led by Iconiq Growth last year. The new Series C was co-led by Iconiq, Premji Invest and Radical Ventures. Writer’s platform is designed to help businesses use large language models to improve workflows and offers AI solutions that can execute complex enterprise operations across systems and teams. The new cash will be used for the company’s quick-start AI applications and agents for workflows in healthcare, retail and financial services. Writer continues to grow its customer base, which includes names like Accenture, L’Oreal and Uber.

Big global deals

The biggest deal outside the U.S. came from Europe.

• Spain-based SeQura, an e-commerce payment solution, raised a $429 million venture round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the month of November 2024. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the month.

Illustration: Dom Guzman