Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2024 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Megadeals Board. You can also check out the top AI rounds of 2023 here.
Artificial intelligence dominated the venture landscape last year. That’s especially clear when you consider how many startups in the industry raised nine- or even 10-figure funding rounds in 2024. In fact, to even have a chance at cracking this list of the largest AI startup funding rounds of the year, a company had to raise more than a billion dollars in a single shot. Let’s take a look.
1. , $10B: Databricks raised $10 billion at a $62 billion valuation, marking the largest venture capital raise of 2024 and one of the largest on record. Its new valuation marks a 44% increase from its 2023 valuation of $43 billion. The San Francisco-based company — which helps businesses process, analyze, and manage large amounts of data quickly and efficiently using tools like AI and machine learning — is now the fourth most highly valued U.S.-based startup, after OpenAI,ÌýÌý²¹²Ô»åÌý.  led Databricks’ new funding. ,Ìý,Ìý,ÌýÌý²¹²Ô»åÌý co-led the round. Databricks said other significant investors included existing investor  and new investors  Growth,Ìý,ÌýÌý²¹²Ô»åÌý. The company says it plans to use the new funds on developing new AI products, acquisitions, international expansion, and providing liquidity for current and former employees.
2. , $6.6B: OpenAI locked up the second-biggest round of the year — a $6.6 billion raise at a post-money valuation of $157 billion led by . The round made the creator one of the most valuable private companies in the world and also included investment from the likes of , , , , , and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. It also was ³§´Ç´Ú³Ùµþ²¹²Ô°ì’s would invest $500 million in the round. The funding in October came just as the company was facing myriad issues, including an exodus of higher-up employees and a restructuring change to switch it from a nonprofit to a for-profit benefit corporation, and to give co-founder equity in the company. The funding structure seems to take those factors into account, as it came in the form of convertible notes and allows for investors to ask for their money back if the change is not completed within two years and removes the cap on returns for investors.
3. (tied) , $6B: In May, xAI raised a $6 billion round that included investment from the likes of , , and , among others. The funding valued the company at $24 billion post money. This deal also isn’t the only time we’ll see ’s generative AI startup on this list. The company was created in the summer of 2023 and released its ChatGPT competitor, Grok, in November 2023. Grok is trained off data from another Musk-owned company, .
3. (tied) , $6B: It didn’t take long for xAI to pop back up on this list. In November, xAI raised another $6 billion in a funding round valuing it at $50 billion, reported. The new round includes investment from the , , and .
5. , $5.6B: Autonomous vehicle company , which was spun out of ’s labs, took in a big round from its former parent, as invested $5.6 billion into the firm in a deal announced in October. The new round valued the company at more than $45 billion and was the startup’s first raise since a $2.5 billion round in 2021.
6. , $4B: Also in November, agreed to invest another $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, a ChatGPT rival with an AI assistant called Claude. In the fall of 2023, 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 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 .
7. (tied) , $1.5B: matched its own record for the largest defense tech round ever. In August, The Costa Mesa, California-based startup locked up a $1.5 billion Series F that valued the company at $14 billion — a 69% jump from the $8.5 billion valuation it received after its massive $1.5 billion Series E in late 2022. The round was co-led by and . The company will use some of the new proceeds for the development of Arsenal-1 — a more than 5 million-square-foot production space designed to produce tens of thousands of autonomous military systems annually.
7. (tied) , $1.5B: In April, made a $1.5 billion strategic investment in United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence firm G42. While Microsoft investing big in AI is nothing new — see — the deal with G42, an AI holding company, comes with other entanglements that likely needed to be cleared before the announcement of the deal. It was also the deal followed negotiations between the U.S. and G42 to divest from China technology and lessen its presence there. Earlier this year, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a urging the to investigate G42.
9. (tied) , $1.1B: In May, AI cloud infrastructure startup CoreWeave locked up a $1.1 billion round led by that valued the company at $19 billion, The valuation represented an almost threefold increase from the company’s valuation in December 2023, when it was valued at $7 billion following a secondary sale. It’s also a huge jump from its $2 billion valuation in a Series B extension in May 2023.
9. (tied) , $1.1B: Also in May, London-based self-driving car startup raised funds worth approximately $1.1 billion in a -led round, marking one of the largest funding deals on record for a British startup and signaling continued investor fervor for all things artificial intelligence. and existing investor also joined in the Series C funding. Wayve has now raised $1.3 billion, . It did not disclose a valuation for the latest funding. Its self-driving car technology works through , or a system in which a real-world object such as a robot — or, in this case, a vehicle — powered by artificial intelligence software interacts with and continuously learns about the world as it travels through that environment.
Finally, four AI startups raised $1 billion rounds this year: ,Ìý,ÌýÌý²¹²Ô»åÌý.
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