Unique Research · Company / Funding list · July 17, 2024
AI fatigue may be real for some — capital markets are not tired. Per Crunchbase, global AI startup investment exceeded $35.5B in H1 2024. Of six VC rounds above $1B, five went to AI companies. U.S. AI startups took about 64% of mega-round dollars. Below: U.S. AI companies that have raised $100M+ in 2024 YTD (as compiled in the Chinese source).
July
Hebbia — $130M (Jul 8) led by a16z; Peter Thiel, Index, GV; valuation $700M. GenAI search over large documents.
Skild AI — $300M Series A (Jul 9), Pittsburgh robotics AI; valuation $1.5B. Lightspeed, Coatue, Bezos Expeditions lead; Sequoia, Menlo, GC.
June
Bright Machines — $106M Series C (Jun 25) BlackRock lead; Nvidia, Microsoft, Eclipse. Smart robots + AI software; cumulative >$437M.
Etched.ai — $120M Series A (Jun 25) Primary + Positive Sum; Two Sigma, Thiel, Kyle Vogt. Chips faster/cheaper than GPUs for AI models.
EvolutionaryScale — $142M seed (Jun 25) Lux, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross. Bio AI for therapeutic design; founded 2023, NYC.
AKASA — $120M (Jun 18) healthcare RCM automation; cumulative $205M; prior a16z, Costanoa, Bond.
AlphaSense — $650M Series F (Jun 11) Viking Global + BDT & MSD; CapitalG, SoftBank Vision Fund, Goldman. Market intelligence (est. 2008); cumulative >$1.4B; valuation $4B.
May
xAI — $6B Series B (May 31) Sequoia, Valor, Fidelity et al.; valuation $24B. “Accelerate human scientific discovery.”
Scale AI — $1B (May) Accel lead; Tiger, Spark, Amazon; cumulative >$1.6B; valuation ~$14B. Data labeling for model training.
Suno — $125M Series B (May 21) valuation $500M (Cambridge, MA). Founder Collective, Lightspeed, Matrix; Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross.
Weka — $140M Series E (May 13) Valor lead; Qualcomm Ventures, Nvidia, Hitachi Ventures; valuation $1.6B. AI-native data platform.
CoreWeave — $1.1B Series C (May 1) Coatue; Fidelity, Altimeter, Magnetar. GPU infra (NJ); valuation $19B; founded 2017.
April
Blaize — $106M Series D (Apr 29) Temasek, Franklin Templeton, Bess Ventures; cumulative $242M (est. 2010). AI compute platform.
Augment — $227M Series B (Apr 24) Lightspeed, Index, Sutter Hill; valuation ~$1B. AI coding assistance (Palo Alto).
Cognition — $175M (Apr 24) Founders Fund; after $21M Series A (Mar) with Ramp/Stripe/DoorDash founders. Founded Nov 2023; valuation ~$2B.
Xaira Therapeutics — $1B Series A (Apr 23) Foresite + ARCH; Sequoia, NEA, Lux. AI drug discovery (SF).
Cyera — $300M Series C (Apr 9) Coatue; Sequoia, Redpoint, Accel; valuation $1.4B. AI data security (NYC).
March
Celestial AI — $175M Series C (Mar 27) Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology Fund; M Ventures, Temasek, Tyche; cumulative $338M. Optical interconnect for DCs/AI (est. 2020).
FundGuard — $100M Series C (Mar 25) Key1; Hamilton Lane, Blumberg, Team8; valuation $400M. AI investment accounting OS (NYC).
Together AI — $106M Series A Salesforce Ventures; valuation $1.2B. Infra + open-source GenAI; NEA, KP, Lux.
Zephyr AI — $111M Series A Revolution Growth, Lilly Foundation, EPIQ, Jeff Skoll. Drug discovery / precision medicine (Fairfax Station, VA; est. 2020); cumulative $129.5M.
February
Glean — $203M Series D (Feb 27) Lightspeed + KP; Sequoia, GC, Databricks Ventures; valuation $2.4B; cumulative >$350M. Enterprise AI search.
Figure — $675M Series B; valuation ~$2.7B. Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft; cumulative >$850M (est. 2022). Humanoid robotics.
Abridge — $150M Series C Redpoint + Lightspeed; USV, IVP, Spark; valuation $850M. AI medical-conversation transcription (Pittsburgh; 6 years).
Recogni — $102M Series C (Feb 20) GreatPoint + Celesta; Pledge, Mayfield, DNS. High-output low-power AI inference.
Lambda — $320M Series C (Feb 15) Tull fund; Gradient, Mercato, T. Rowe Price; cumulative >$900M; valuation $1.5B. Deep-learning infra (SF).
Magic — $117M Series B NFDG; CapitalG, Elad Gil; cumulative >$145M. AI coding (SF).
January
Kore.ai — $150M Series D (Jan 30) FTV Capital; Nvidia, Vistara Growth, NextEquity. Enterprise conversational AI (Orlando; est. 2013); cumulative >$223M.
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