Defense tech Archives - SA国际传媒 News /sections/defense-tech/ Data-driven reporting on private markets, startups, founders, and investors Wed, 13 May 2026 18:22:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.5 /wp-content/uploads/cb_news_favicon-150x150.png Defense tech Archives - SA国际传媒 News /sections/defense-tech/ 32 32 Anduril Raises Another $5B As Defense Tech Startups Shatter Funding Records /defense-tech/anduril-5b-valuation-vc-funding-record-data/ Wed, 13 May 2026 18:22:49 +0000 /?p=93535 Defense tech startup said Wednesday that it has raised another $5 billion in funding at a $61 billion valuation 鈥 double the valuation of $30.5 billion it received less than a year ago.

The Series H round, led by and , brings the Costa Mesa, California-based company鈥檚 total raised to date to $11.4 billion, per SA国际传媒. The funding comes amid record venture investment into startups developing defense, wartime and national security technologies and a administration push to modernize the U.S. military.

Just through mid-May, defense-related startups 鈥 defined by SA国际传媒 as the industries of military, national security and law enforcement 鈥 have raised nearly $13.6 billion this year, per SA国际传媒 . That puts them on track to more than double the already record-breaking total of $8.8 billion raised in 2025, when Anduril was by far the sector’s largest venture capital recipient.

鈥淲hen we founded Anduril in 2017, defense was not a category that attracted significant venture investment,鈥 company CEO and co-founder said in a . 鈥淭hat has changed meaningfully over the last several years. Investors have increasingly recognized the scale of the technological and industrial challenges facing the United States and its allies. They are also observing an environment in which the most agile, adaptive, and ambitious companies are the ones most capable of solving these challenges.

In March, Anduril signed a $20 billion, 10-year contract with the to supply software and weapons. It also announced that it was part of a group of companies building the $185 billion missile defense system for the U.S. government.

After Anduril, several other defense-tech startups, all based in the U.S., have received sizable investments this year:

  • : In March, San Diego-based Shield AI secured $2 billion in fresh funding led by and. The startup develops AI pilots and autonomous aircraft systems for military applications and has raised more than $3.5 billion overall, per SA国际传媒 data.
  • : Austin, Texas-based Saronic said in March that it has raised $1.75 billion in a Series D led by. The startup builds unmanned surface vessels for naval and defense use and has now brought in nearly $2.6 billion in total funding.听
  • : Centennial, Colorado-based True Anomaly said last month that it has raised $600 million led by and as investors continue pouring capital into space-security infrastructure. The company develops spacecraft and orbital defense systems and has raised more than $1 billion to date, per SA国际传媒.
  • : Commercial space company Sierra Space said in March that it had raised $550 million in funding led by . The startup develops commercial space stations, satellite systems and the reusable Dream Chaser spaceplane for cargo and defense-related missions. The company, based in Louisville, Colorado, has now raised roughly $2.2 billion overall, according to SA国际传媒.

Related SA国际传媒 query:

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Illustration:

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Frontier Labs And Robotics Companies Again Top List Of New Unicorns In April听 /venture/new-ai-unicorn-startups-april-2026-frontier-labs-ineffable-intelligence-recursive-superintelligence/ Wed, 06 May 2026 11:00:30 +0000 /?p=93508 A total of 28 companies joined The SA国际传媒 Unicorn Board in April, SA国际传媒 data shows, with robotics startups and frontier labs leading by number of entrants for the second consecutive month.

Two newly founded AI labs, both based in London and both with researchers from , raised large rounds out of the gate and made their Unicorn Board debuts. The two companies, and , both raised large initial fundings out of the gate, though take very different approaches to training AI.听 They were joined by another new unicorn in the foundation AI sector: , an open-source model company from China with on-device smaller models.听

Six companies working on humanoid robotics 鈥斕齠ive from China and one from Japan 鈥 also received billion-dollar-plus valuations last month. Quite a few of these companies are building models for robotic intelligence using simulated data.听

The financial services, defense, developer tools, energy and healthcare sectors each added two or three new unicorns in April.听

Of the 28 companies, 12 are U.S.-based and eight are from China. The UK counted two new unicorns last month, while Germany, Spain, Switzerland, India and Japan each added one.听

April鈥檚 new unicorns

Here are April鈥檚 new unicorn companies. Of the 28 companies, 26 are AI-related.听

Foundational AI听

  • , a London-based AI lab using reinforcement learning rather than human-generated data, raised a $1.1 billion seed round led by and . The less than 1-year-old company was founded by of AlphaGo and . It was valued at $5.1 billion in its first funding.听
  • London-based , a new AI intelligence lab with the goal of continuous learning improvement, raised a $500 million Series A led by and . Founded by DeepMind researchers and 鈥檚 1 previous AI lead, the less than 1-year-old company was valued at $4.5 billion.听
  • Beijing-based , an on-device foundation model developer, raised funding led by and . Its open source MiniCPM is deployed in automotives, smartphones, PCs and home devices. The 3-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.听

搁辞产辞迟颈肠蝉听

  • Shanghai-based is a robotics AI company building a foundational model as well as hardware. It uses simulated training to create a model for grasping and spatial awareness. The 1-year-old company raised a Series A round and was valued at $2 billion.
  • Shanghai-based humanoid robotics company raised a $513 million seed round led by and HSG. The 1-year-old company was valued at $1.9 billion.听
  • Beijing-based , a hardware and software developer of models for robotics using simulated data, raised a $220 million Series B. The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.听
  • Shenzhen-based , a builder of humanoid and quadruped robots, raised a $200 million Series B led by and . The 2-year-old company robots will be deployed for traffic, security and retail. It was valued at $1.5 billion.听
  • Shenzhen-based , a commercial robotics company for delivery and commercial cleaning, raised a $146 million funding led by and . The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.听
  • Tokyo-based , a humanoid robotics company to address public safety and urban maintenance, raised a Series A led round. The 1-year-old company co-founded by was valued at $1 billion.

Financial services听

  • , which automates research for investment banks, raised a $160 million Series D led by . The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2 billion.
  • Bangalore-based , a consumer and small business lending service, raised a $220 million Series E led by , , and . The 8-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.听
  • , a banking and expense management service targeting small businesses and solopreneurs, raised a $100 million Series C led by , and . The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company, founded by college dropouts at the time, was valued at $1.4 billion.听

顿别蹿别苍蝉别听

  • Space defense company raised a $600 million Series D led by and . The company has built software for space operations and an autonomous orbital vehicle called Jackal. The 4-year-old, Colorado-based company was valued at $2.2 billion.听
  • Defense aviation company raised a $200 million Series C led by Khosla Ventures. The 7-year-old El Segundo, California-based builder of autonomous aircraft was valued at $1 billion.听

Developer tools听

  • , a web search provider for AI agents used by and , raised a $100 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital. The 2-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $2 billion.听
  • , an agentic software coding tool for enterprises, raised a $150 million Series C led by . The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.听

贰苍别谤驳测听

  • , developer of small nuclear reactors to provide direct power for AI data centers, raised a $340 million Series B funding. The 2-year-old El Segundo, California-based company was valued at $2 billion.听
  • , a long duration energy storage battery provider, raised a $58 million Series C led by . The 12-year-old Bayern, Germany-based company that supports energy needs for grids, data centers and industry, was valued at $1.2 billion.听

Health care听

  • Shanghai-based , a developer of a model for healthcare that includes computer vision and large language models, raised a $73 million Series A round. The 12-year-old company has built an assistant for doctors for screening, diagnosis and patient care, and was valued at $1 billion.听
  • Switzerland-based , a developer of a peptide product to address enamel repair without needing surgery, raised a private equity funding led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.听

Data platform

  • has built a semantic layer between data and agents necessary to interpret data and provide guardrails for AI. The 4-year-old San Francisco-based company raised a $120 million Series C led by and was valued at $1.5 billion.听

Manufacturing

  • Shanghai-based , a collaboration tool to make factories more efficient, raised a $146 million Series D funding. The 10-year-old Shanghai-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Agentic AI

  • , which builds agents trained on company data, raised a $80 million funding led by . The 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.听

础别谤辞蝉辫补肠别听

  • Madrid-based , which is building data from satellites tracking changes in the earth for various commercial needs, raised a $130 million Series B led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.听

Marketing & sales听

  • , a provider of booking and customer service for the services industry using AI, has raised a Series B funding led by and . The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion. The company has raised $125 million in funding from seed through its Series B.听

叠颈辞迟别肠丑苍辞濒辞驳测听

  • , an AI biotechnology infrastructure platform speeding up drug discovery, raised a $40 million Series E. The 8-year-old Waltham, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1 billion.听

Waste management听

  • converts unused food products into energy. It raised a Series C funding led by strategic partner . The 19-year-old Concord, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1 billion.听

Related SA国际传媒 unicorn lists:听

  • (1,756)
  • (611)
  • (128)
  • (187)
  • (118)
  • (102)
  • (896)
  • (516)
  • (239)
  • (38)
  • (477)

Related reading:

Methodology

The SA国际传媒 Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on SA国际传媒 data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.听

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations 鈥 such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options 鈥 as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.听

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .听

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.听

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. SA国际传媒 converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to SA国际传媒 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:


  1. Salesforce Ventures is an investor in SA国际传媒. They have no say in our editorial process. For more, head here.

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Why Japan’s Most Durable Asset May Not Be Made In A Factory /media-entertainment/most-durable-asset-japan-anime-growth-shirato-techstars/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:00:30 +0000 /?p=93478 By

When I was a child growing up in Japan, Dragon Ball was 鈥渃ontraband.鈥 My parents were unhappy about me reading manga for hours every day. Teachers confiscated manga magazines at school. But I was fascinated by a universe created from the pure imagination of a single person that went on to shape the aesthetic consciousness of more humans than almost any artist of the twentieth century.

Japan didn’t build Dragon Ball. Akira Toriyama did.

Yuki Shirato, managing director of Techstars Japan.
Yuki Shirato

From One Piece, Slam Dunk and Hello Kitty characters to , and , each traces back to a singular, obsessive individual who looked, by Japanese social standards, like a weird outcast.

The country globally perceived as the ultimate collectivist society made its greatest contributions to the world through lone visionaries building what no committee would have approved.

What makes this pattern remarkable is what accumulates underneath it. Each obsessive builder, over decades, pulled behind them layers of precision craft, knowledge and discipline that no bureaucracy could have planned.

Japan’s extraordinary concentration of underleveraged assets, from precision manufacturing expertise, materials science technology, longevity and gastronomical research to a generational cultural content library, is the sediment left by people society once called misfits.

The vault is opening

The global anime market was only 30 years ago and to hit around $88.5 billion by 2033, growing annually at more than 9%. Overseas anime revenue and accounting for 56% of total sales 鈥 confirming that international markets now outweigh Japan’s domestic earnings.

Global anime industry frowth, 1995-2025 - From Yuki ShiratoSources: AJA Industry Reports, Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights.

has disclosed that more than 50% of its 300 million global members watch anime. Viewership on the platform has tripled over five years, with anime content watched more than 1 billion times in 2024 alone. Naruto, a manga serialization that began in 1999, logged 330 million hours watched on Netflix in the second half of 2024 alone. Out of the top 10 global franchises, five are Japan-originated.

That is critical social infrastructure.

Top 10 global franchises by total gross merchandise sales - From Yuki ShiratoNote: Some other rankings instead have Mario, Harry Potter and/or Sh艒nen Jump, but generally Japan-originated IP accounts for half.

The convergence nobody is pricing

At the same time, there is a louder conversation happening in Japan.

The nation is rearming. Its defense budget has nearly doubled in three years, exceeding for the first time the symbolic 2% of GDP threshold. Under a five-year Defense Buildup Program through 2027, Japan has committed 楼43 trillion (~$275 billion) to defense-related spending.

Globally, VC investment in defense-related startups totaled $7.7 billion in 2025, SA国际传媒 data shows, a record high.

Most observers treat this as a separate story. To me, it is not.

Japan’s manufacturing edge in silicon wafers, photoresists, specialty ceramics, industrial robots, optics and sensors is the same precision culture that made watches accurate to the second and frames hand-painted with obsessive fidelity. The outcast engineers who spent careers perfecting micron-level tolerances for consumer electronics built capabilities that now happen to matter enormously in a world consuming autonomous, high-precision munitions at industrial scale.

The creative and the industrial share the same genealogy: a Japanese individual, largely ignored, building something to an extreme that no one asked for.

This convergence of Japan鈥檚 technological prowess and cultural impact is what makes the country鈥檚 opportunity genuinely unusual. IP that a teenager in Jakarta, Riyadh, Paris or Lagos carries emotionally,听 and precision hardware that only a handful of countries on earth can actually produce, originate from the same national psychology.

One crosses geopolitical lines. The other determines them. Japan鈥檚 soft infrastructure and hard capability are rooted in the same stubborn, misfit tradition.

Manufacturing advantage is learnable. The history of industrial development is a history of production methods moving across geographies, in the past over decades, increasingly over months. Competitors can close the gap.

What is harder to replicate is the cultural depth. A franchise relationship formed in childhood does not transfer by policy or investment. , built by a man who spent years mapping insects on foot and wanted to share that obsession with other children, now lives inside the emotional architecture of an entire global generation.

The window is real, and it will not stay open for long

Wars are hard and exhausting. People do not stop wanting to be moved, amused and alive. If anything, that appetite sharpens during geopolitical turmoil. The world increasingly demands the safety that precision manufacturing enables and the meaning that great storytelling provides.

Japan offers both, not by strategic design, but because its most consequential builders were, for a long time, left alone to be strange.

The assets exist. The global demand is accelerating. What Japan is missing is the cross-border fluency 鈥 legal, cultural and financial 鈥 needed to connect them at the speed the moment requires in the age of AI.

The world is finally ready to pay for what remarkable, overlooked individuals in Japan have quietly been building for decades. The question is whether Japan will be ready to let them and if so, how it can capitalize on its valuable assets quickly enough.


is a seasoned investor, serial entrepreneur and attorney with 25 years of experience bridging law and global business. He currently serves as the inaugural managing director of Japan, where he leads one of the world鈥檚 most active startup accelerator programs. He also serves as a senior adviser at , a U.S. and Canada-based hardtech venture capital firm, and as a venture partner at , an innovation advisory firm. An active angel investor, he has backed more than 50 startups, including several unicorns, and founded , an international angel network connecting investors across Japan, the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His track record also includes co-founding three venture-backed startups. Previously, Shirato spent a decade at global law firms across New York, Toronto, Abu Dhabi/Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo, and before that, held strategic roles as a management consultant at and as a trade negotiator at . He holds a law degree from the , an MBA from the and , and a bachelor鈥檚 degree in international law and economics from the .

Photo by听听on听

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The New Unicorn Count Reached A 4-Year High In March, Led By Robotics, Frontier Labs And AI Infrastructure听 /venture/unicorn-count-4-year-high-robotics-ai-march-2026/ Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:00:24 +0000 /?p=93443 A total of 37 companies joined The SA国际传媒 Unicorn Board in March, the highest monthly count in close to four years, SA国际传媒 data shows. The robotics sector led unicorn creation last month, with six new billion-dollar startups, including three from China. Frontier labs added four new unicorns, including two that are building models for robotics.

AI infrastructure also added four new unicorn companies focused on data center technology and provisioning. Fintech, including startups in wealth management, payment and digital assets, added four companies, while developer tools and defense each added three.

Twenty of March鈥檚 new unicorns are U.S.-based, including 11 from the San Francisco Bay Area. China added six companies in sectors ranging from robotics to AI and quantum computing.

From Europe, four new March unicorns are U.K.-based, while France, the Netherlands and Belgium each minted one. The UAE, Seychelles, India and Australia also each added one new unicorn to the board.

The most valuable unicorn newcomer last month was Seychelles-based crypto exchange , valued at $25 billion. The largest funding was a $1 billion round raised by AI pioneer 鈥檚 new frontier lab startup, Paris-based .

The board also saw a sizable cohort of very young companies earning their unicorn horns: 18 of the companies that joined the board last month were less than 3 years old. Five were not even a year old.

March鈥檚 new unicorns

AI-centric sectors by far led unicorn creation in March, with 14 of the 36 newcomers hailing from the robotics, foundational AI or AI infrastructure industries:

Robotics

  • , a robotics for manufacturing company spun out by , raised a $500 million Series A led by and . The 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $2 billion.
  • Shenzhen-based , an intelligent sensor technology for robotics, raised a $145 million Series B led by , and . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
  • Beijing-based , a humanoid robotics company, raised $145 million in funding. The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
  • , a humanoid robotics company for household tasks, raised a $165 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old Mountain View, California-based company was valued at $1.2 billion. The company plans to deploy robots to homes this year.
  • Pudong, China-based , an intelligent layer for robotics in manufacturing, raised an $87 million Series D round. The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
  • , a provider of simulated data for robotic intelligence, raised a $146 million Series A. The 3-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Foundational AI

  • Paris-based raised a $1 billion seed round led by , ,, and . The less than 1-year-old company was founded by LeCun, 鈥檚 former AI lead, and is working to develop models for physical AI. It was valued at $4.5 billion in the round, which is Europe鈥檚 largest seed round on record.
  • , a robot foundation model developer trained on internet scale video, raised a $450 million Series A led by . The 2-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1.7 billion.
  • , a math foundation model developer for verified AI useful for coding and other applications, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
  • Beijing-based , a text-to-video startup with its own AI model, raised a $300 million Series C led by . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

AI infrastructure

  • , a provider of networking hardware and software for data centers, raised a $500 million Series B led by and . The 2-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $4.2 billion.
  • , a chip cooling technology, raised a $143 million Series D led by . The 8-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
  • , which offers GPU rentals for startups, raised a Series A funding led by . The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
  • Redmond, Washington-based , a company building data centers in space, raised a $170 million Series A led by and . The 2-year-old company听 was valued at $1.1 billion.听 It launched its first satellite with a H100 in November 2025.

Financial services

  • London-based , an AI-native platform for debt providers including banks, asset managers and advisory firms, raised a $170 million Series C led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.3 billion.
  • Mumbai-based , a wealth asset advisory firm for high-net-worth individuals and family offices, raised a $53 million private equity funding led by . The 4-year old, venture-backed asset manager was valued at $1.1 billion.
  • Brussels-based , an investment group for digital assets, raised a Series C led by . The 8-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion.
  • Abu Dhabi-based , a payments infrastructure provider for regulated gaming markets, raised a $250 million funding led by . The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Developer tools

  • , which promises to make your app enterprise ready with authentication and other features, raised a $100 million Series C led by and. The 8-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2 billion.
  • , an observability platform for agentic AI, raised a $110 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.
  • , a software developer for hardware testing and development, raised an $80 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old Austin-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense

  • , a drone technology company built for defense, raised a $110 million Series B led by . The 7-year-old Huntsville, Alabama-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.
  • Sydney-based , provider of advanced navigation beyond GPS for military and industrial capabilities, raised a $112 million Series C led by . The 13-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.
  • London-based , a builder of unmanned systems used in the Ukrainian war, raised a $50 million seed听 funding led by and . The 1-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Biotechnology

  • Austin-based , a biological AI research company spun out of听 , raised a $10 million seed extension. The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
  • , a neurotech company focused on brain computer interfaces, raised a $230 million Series C led by and听 Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 5-year-old Alameda, California-based company, whose primary product, an implant to restore vision for those who suffer retinal disease, was valued at $1.5 billion.

Sales and marketing

  • Amsterdam-based , a builder of agents for companies to deploy in customer service and business operations, raised a $150 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
  • , an agentic layer that monitors customers and researches prospects, raised a Series B led by . The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Security

  • , native AI security with its own human triage for customers, raised a $250 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old Sarasota, Florida-based company was valued at $1 billion.
  • , which uses AI for offensive security, raised a $120 million Series C led by and . The 2-year-old Seattle-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Cryptocurrency

  • Seychelles-based , a global cryptocurrency exchange platform, raised a $200 million corporate round led by , the parent company of the . The 12-year-old company was valued at $25 billion.

Telehealth

  • Miami-based , ‘s telehealth provider for GLP-1 medications through employers, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 5-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.

Professional services

  • London-based , an AI notetaking startup, raised a $125 million Series C led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Consumer goods

  • , a company with a mattress, thermal blanket and pillow designed to monitor and improve sleep, raised a $50 million Series D led by . The 11-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Accelerator

  • London-based , an accelerator that sources founders from top schools, raised a $200 million Series D. The 11-year-old company, which hosts its latest cohorts in Silicon Valley, was valued at $1.3 billion.

Quantum computing

  • Sichuan, China-based , a quantum computer and chip-production company, raised a $145 million Series B. The 5-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Autonomous driving

  • Hangzhou-based , an intelligent driving platform, raised a Series A led by , and . The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Related SA国际传媒 unicorn lists:

  • (1,739)
  • (609)
  • (101)
  • (188)
  • (117)
  • (102)
  • (896)
  • (510)
  • (236)
  • (38)
  • (472)

Related reading:

Methodology

The SA国际传媒 Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on SA国际传媒 data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations 鈥 such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options 鈥 as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. SA国际传媒 converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to SA国际传媒 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

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The Week鈥檚 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: SiFive Leads With $400M For Custom Chip Designs As Aviation, Biotech And Defense Startups Also Raise Big /venture/biggest-funding-rounds-chips-aviation-biotech-sifive/ Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:23:22 +0000 /?p=93411 Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The SA国际传媒 Megadeals Board.

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

While no billion-dollar rounds led this week鈥檚 list, we nonetheless saw a variety of startups in industries ranging from semiconductors to aerospace to biotech raise sizable rounds. The week鈥檚 biggest deal was $400 million for SiFive, a semiconductor startup challenging incumbent with chip designs built on an open rather than proprietary standard.

1. , $400M, semiconductors: San Mateo, California-based semiconductor startup SiFive raised a $400 million Series G round led by . SiFive makes the blueprints used by companies such as to develop their own internal chip designs, on an open standard called RISC-V. CEO Reuters he expects the raise to be SiFive鈥檚 last funding round before an IPO, though didn鈥檛 say when an offering would take place.

2. , $200M, aviation: Hermeus, an El Segundo, California-based startup developing autonomous military aircraft, raised $200 million in equity in a -led round. The company, which is developing what it says will be the fastest unmanned defense aircraft, also raised $150 million in debt as part of the round, which pushes its valuation to $1 billion. Other investors in the deal include , and

3. $137M, biotechnology: San Diego-based Sidewinder, a biotech startup developing cancer drugs to target difficult-to-treat tumors, raised a $137 million Series B led by and . The company is developing听next-generation cancer drugs called antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, which are designed to act like 鈥済uided missiles鈥 by using engineered antibodies to deliver toxic payloads directly into tumor cells. The company said its new funding will be used to push its lead drug candidates into clinical trials.

4. , $125M, AI infrastructure: Palo Alto, California-based Aria Networks raised $125 million in a -led Series A funding round. The company develops an AI-driven networking platform that monitors, analyzes and optimizes data center performance.

5. , $111.7M, aerospace: Starfish Space, a Seattle-based startup developing and manufacturing autonomous space vehicles that perform in-orbit, satellite servicing missions, raised $111.7 million. The Series B round was led by , and . Starfish鈥檚 spacecraft dock to satellites already in orbit to service and reposition them. They can also remove defunct satellites and debris from space.

6. (tied) , $100M, biotechnology: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Stipple Bio raised a $100 million Series A round to advance its precision cancer therapies. The round was led by , and . Stipple aims to develop highly targeted cancer treatments that selectively attack cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

6. (tied) , $100M, health insurance: led the $100 million Series E for Chapter, a New York-based startup offering a Medicare navigation platform that provides advisory services for seniors seeking health coverage. Other investors include 鈥嬧, and 1.

8. , $85M, fintech: Modus, a Philadelphia-based startup, raised $85 million in a -led seed and Series A round. The startup describes itself as a tech鈥慹nabled audit platform that acquires CPA firms and equips them with AI鈥慸riven audit tools to deliver higher鈥憅uality audits. and also participated in the deal.

9. , $80M, medical devices: and led the $80 million Series C for Menlo Park, California-based Endovascular Engineering, also called E2, which has developed a device called H膿lo for the treatment of venous thromboembolism, or VTE. The company secured clearance for H膿lo in December.

10. , $80M, biotechnology: Boston-based Life Sciences, which aims to develop drugs to promote longevity and find treatments for age-related diseases, says it raised $80 million in Series D funding. The company says it will use the funding to advance human trials of its cellular rejuvenation therapy, called ER-100, which aims to make older, damaged cells act younger again. Investors in the round were not disclosed. The company has previously been backed by , , , and.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the SA国际传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of April 4-10. 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.

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  1. 8VC is an investor in SA国际传媒. They have no say in our editorial process. For more, head here.

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The Week鈥檚 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Largest Financings Went To Defense, Wearables, Energy And Security /venture/biggest-funding-rounds-ai-defense-wearables-energy-saronic/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:26:11 +0000 /?p=93391 Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The SA国际传媒 Megadeals Board.

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

Startup investors kept up the busy dealmaking pace this week with a number of big rounds. Top among them was a $1.75 billion Series D for , developer of autonomous vessels. Other big funding recipients hailed from sectors including fitness wearables, energy tech, cybersecurity and AI infrastructure, among others.

1. , $1.75B, autonomous ships: Austin-based Saronic, a defense tech startup focused on autonomous sea vessels, raised $1.75 billion in Series D funding, bringing total funding to around $2.6 billion. led the round, which set a $9.25 billion valuation for the听 company, more than double its Series C level in 2025.

2. , $575M, fitness wearables: Whoop, a provider of wearable fitness technology and a subscription platform that tracks physiological data, secured $575 million in Series G funding. led the financing,which set a $10.1 billion valuation for the Boston-based company.

3. , $450M, nuclear energy: El Segundo, California-based nuclear energy startup Valar Atomics, raised fresh capital at a valuation of $2 billion, according to a citing unnamed sources. The financing reportedly included $340 million in equity funding and $110 million in debt.

4. , $300M, battery technology: EnerVenue, a developer of grid-scale energy storage technology, says it closed on a $300 million extension of its Series B preferred round led by . The Fremont, California-based company also appointed a new chief executive officer, Henning Rath.

5. , $250M, cybersecurity: Sarasota, Florida-based AI-enabled cybersecurity startup Tenex picked up $250 million in Series B funding led by . The company said it plans to use the funds to hire more than 250 people and supplying them with AI technology that makes them 鈥渢en times more efficient.鈥

6. , $200M, micromobility: Also, an electric mobility company spun out of , raised $200 million in a Series C round 鈥媌acked by , , and . The Palo Alto, California-based startup鈥檚 product lineup includes bikes, small autonomous EVs for deliveries, and associated gear.

7. , $170M, space tech: Starcloud, a space infrastructure startup focused on building orbital data centers, secured $170 million in Series A funding led by and . The financing sets a $1.1 billion valuation for the Redmond, Washington-based company, making it the fastest alum to achieve unicorn status after demo day, which was 17 months ago.

8. , $130M, cloud infrastructure: New York-based cloud and AI infrastructure startup ScaleOps landed $130 million in Series C funding. led the financing, which set听 a valuation of over $800 million for the 4-year-old company.

9. , $100M, biotech: Boulder, Colorado-based Ambrosia Biosciences, a developer of next-generation oral therapeutics for obesity and related cardiometabolic diseases, picked up $100 million in Series B funding led by , and .

10. , $94M, money transfer: OpenFX, provider of a platform to move money across borders, secured $94 million in Series A funding from backers including , , , and .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the SA国际传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of March 28-April 3. 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.

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This Is A Momentous Year For Early-Stage Unicorns /venture/data-early-stage-unicorns-seed-ai-defense-tech/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:00:39 +0000 /?p=93389 As global venture funding kicks off this year at record-setting levels, startup investors are also minting new early-stage unicorns at an unprecedented clip.

A total of 47 seed- and early-stage companies joined the unicorn ranks in the first quarter of this year, per SA国际传媒 data. Barring a major slowdown, that puts 2026 on track to deliver the听 largest cohort of young unicorns to date.

This year鈥檚 newcomers follow a good-sized 2025 cohort of early-stage companies that secured valuations of $1 billion or more as well. Per SA国际传媒 data, 59 hit this valuation milestone last year, up about 50% from 2024.

Over the past 10-plus years, meanwhile, the number of new early-stage unicorns has fluctuated widely, from a couple dozen to more than 100, as charted below.

Recent early unicorns are all about AI

Virtually all of the early-stage unicorns minted in the past couple quarters are AI-focused.

This includes several of the most heavily funded newcomers. Examples include , the physical AI startup launched by , , the foundational AI company co-founded by former CTO , and , a London-based AI infrastructure unicorn that has raised over $5 billion.

All this represents the opposite of a surprising development, given that 80% of global venture funding this past quarter went to AI. Additionally, later-stage AI companies are famously securing unheard-of private market valuations, with and recently valued at $852 billion and $380 billion, respectively.

While we鈥檙e not seeing those kinds of numbers for more recently minted early-stage unicorns, several are hitting post-money valuations previously unheard of for such young companies. Thinking Machines Lab, valued at $12 billion for its first funding, is reportedly looking to secure a $50 billion valuation for its next round. And 2-year-old , which secured an $8 billion valuation late last year, is reportedly fresh funding at a $25 billion value.

Fastest climbers

In addition to their high valuations, many newcomers to the early-stage unicorn club are also noteworthy for the speed of their ascents.

Quite a few unicorns minted in the last 15 months were founded in 2025. And one 鈥 鈥 was apparently founded just this year. For a broader view, we used SA国际传媒 data to aggregate some prominent examples of recently founded early-stage unicorns.

By now, some of our early-stage unicorns have also already moved on to later stage. Nscale, for instance, closed a Series C this month. And residential backup power provider closed on $1 billion in Series C funding in October, just eight months after its Series B. Others are already close to securing new funding at Series C and beyond.

Was this the peak?

Given the new funding records set last quarter, and the blistering pace of early-stage unicorn creation, it鈥檚 worth considering whether this could be the peak for the ultra-high AI newcomer funding rounds and valuations. After all, public markets haven鈥檛 done well in recent weeks, and private markets have a history of following suit.

For those of us who鈥檝e followed startup funding ebbs and peaks for some time, it鈥檚 clear the current environment shares characteristics of a market top. By the same token, top performing tech startups have long demonstrated that doubters are often wrong.

Related reading:

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Q1 2026 Shatters Venture Funding Records As AI Boom Pushes Startup Investment To $300B听 /venture/record-breaking-funding-ai-global-q1-2026/ Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:06 +0000 /?p=93307 Update: The data and charts in this report were updated at 11:30 a.m. PT on April 1, 2026, to reflect the latest data in SA国际传媒 for Q1 2026.

The first quarter of 2026 was unlike any other for venture investment, driven by unprecedented spending on AI compute and frontier labs. SA国际传媒 data shows investors poured $300 billion into 6,000 startups globally in the quarter, up over 150% quarter over quarter and year over year.

That marks an all-time high for global venture investment not approached by any other quarter on record. In fact, startup investment in the first quarter of 2026 alone totaled close to 70% of all venture capital spending in 2025. The quarterly sum also tops all full-year investment totals prior to 2018.

Q1’s startup investment largely went to AI startups and disproportionately to a handful of U.S.-based companies in record-setting deals. Four of the five largest venture rounds ever recorded were closed in Q1 2026, with frontier labs ($122 billion), ($30 billion), ($20 billion) and self-driving company ($16 billion) collectively raising $188 billion, or 65% of global venture investment in the quarter.

Overall, AI shattered records last quarter, with $242 billion 鈥 80% of total global venture funding in Q1鈥 going to companies in the sector. The previous record was set in Q1 2025, when AI accounted for 55% of global venture funding.

Table of Contents

Valuation surge, capital concentration

Along with the three major frontier labs and Waymo, another 10 companies raised funding rounds of $1 billion or more in Q1, in sectors spanning generative and physical AI, autonomous vehicles, semiconductors, data centers, robotics, defense and prediction markets.

Those outsized rounds pushed overall startup valuations higher in Q1. The SA国际传媒 Unicorn Board added $900 billion in value during the quarter, marking the largest valuation bump in a single quarter.

US above 80%

U.S.-based companies raised $250 billion, or 83% of global venture capital in Q1, SA国际传媒 data shows. That鈥檚 up significantly from 71% in Q1 2025, which was already well above historical averages in the decade before 2024.

The second-largest market globally for venture funding in Q1 was China, with $16.1 billion invested. The U.K. followed, with $7.4 billion invested. Both countries were up quarter over quarter and even more significantly year over year.

Late-stage hike

The Q1 funding surge was concentrated in late-stage funding, which reached $246.6 billion 鈥 up 205% year over year 鈥 across 584 deals. A total of $235 billion was invested in 158 late-stage companies that raised rounds of $100 million and more.

Early stage up over 40%

Early-stage funding totaled $41.3 billion across 1,800 deals, SA国际传媒 data shows.

Funding was up marginally quarter over quarter but up 41% year over year from $29.4 billion. Much of that increase went to Series A rounds, SA国际传媒 data shows. Series B deals were down quarter over quarter but still up year over year.

Seed funding up over 30%

Seed funding totaled $12 billion, up 31% year over year, though the increase was entirely due to larger rounds, with deal counts falling 30% year over year to 3,800.

IPO slowdown, M&A pick up

Record venture investment in U.S. companies did not translate into a stronger IPO market in Q1.

In fact, the U.S. market for new listings slowed in Q1 amid a broader stock market selloff in software, although China鈥檚 IPO market picked up.

A total of 21 venture-backed companies exited globally above $1 billion in Q1. Thirteen of those were from China, four more from elsewhere in Asia, and four from the U.S.

The largest IPO in Q1 was Japan-based , a fintech for mobile payments valued at $10 billion upon listing.听 Two foundation lab companies from China 鈥 and 鈥 debuted on the , each valued at more than $6 billion.

While the IPO market was somewhat lackluster, startup M&A was strong in Q1 with exits cumulatively valued north of $56.6 billion, SA国际传媒 data shows. That marked the third-highest startup M&A quarter since the downturn of 2022.

The largest M&A deals in Q1 were 鈥檚 $6 billion planned acquisition of 鈥檚 gaming platform , and 鈥檚 planned $5.15 billion acquisition of fintech startup .

Public pressure

While frontier lab megarounds defined Q1 2026, a closer look at the data shows every startup funding stage grew last quarter, as did round sizes across the board.

And unlike the cloud and mobile era, this cycle is also being built in the physical world, with massive capital flowing not just into software, but infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, robotics and manufacturing.

Now, with startup valuations surging and a backlog of companies with unprecedented sums of private capital behind them, pressure is intensifying on the IPO markets to reopen in 2026.

Related SA国际传媒 queries:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from SA国际传媒, and is based on reported data. Data is as of March 31, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. SA国际传媒 converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to SA国际传媒 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. SA国际传媒 also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. SA国际传媒 includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the 鈥淪eries [Letter]鈥 naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a 鈥渧enture鈥 round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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The Week鈥檚 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: A Varied Week For Big Deals, Led By AI And Defense /venture/biggest-funding-rounds-ai-defense-openai-shield/ Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:15:30 +0000 /?p=93354 Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The SA国际传媒 Megadeals Board.

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

The pace of large-scale dealmaking picked up some this week, led by 鈥檚 disclosure that it raised another $10 billion to add to its record-setting megaround announced last month. Other big financings went to startups and growth-stage companies in sectors including defense tech, enterprise AI, autonomy and even laundry.

1. , $10B, foundational AI: OpenAI $10 billion in additional funding for its record-setting megaround announced in late February, reportedly bringing the total fundraise to the San Francisco-based company to over $120 billion. Backers in this latest financing include , , , and .

2. , $2B, defense tech: San Diego-based defense tech unicorn Shield AI said it secured $2 billion at a $12.7 billion valuation. The round consists of $1.5 billion in Series G funding led by and along with $500 million in preferred equity financing backed by . Part of the proceeds will help pay for the planned acquisition of , a defense software company whose technology is used to train pilots and test advanced aircraft and autonomous systems.

3. , $350M, transportation safety: Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a telematics and AI company focused on enabling safer mobility, picked up $350 million in a new financing听 led by and . Founded in 2010, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has raised over $850 million to date, per SA国际传媒 .

4. (tied) , $200M, legal tech: Harvey, the fast-growing provider of AI-enabled tools for law firms and in-house legal teams, closed on $200 million in fresh financing at an $11 billion valuation. and led the round, which brings total funding to 4-year-old San Francisco-based Harvey to around $1.2 billion.

4. (tied) , $200M, healthcare: eMed, a provider of GLP-1 programs for employers that counts as chief wellness officer and backer, said it raised $200 million in new funding. led the round, which set a $2 billion plus valuation for the Miami-based company.

6. , $170M, satellite tech: Xona secured a $170 million Series C round led by . The funds will go to scaling satellite production for a planned constellation of next-generation navigation satellites. Founded in 2019, Burlingame, California-based Xona has raised over $320 million to date.

7. , $140M, laundry tech: Cents, a provider of software and payments technology for the laundry industry, secured $140 million in Series C funding led by . The New York-based company said the round represents 鈥渢he largest single software investment in the laundry vertical to date.鈥

8. , $125M, AI health tools: Palo Alto, California-based Qualified Health, developer of an enterprise AI platform for health systems, locked up $125 million in Series B financing led by .

9. (tied) , $110M, data observability: Dash0, an agentic observability platform, announced it closed on $110 million in Series B funding led by . Founded in 2023, the New York-based company has raised over $154 million to date.

9 (tied) , $110M, drones: Huntsville, Alabama-based Performance Drone Works, a startup that designs, engineers and manufactures drones for defense and law enforcement, secured over $110 million in Series B funding led by .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the SA国际传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of March 21-27. 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.

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Austin’s Star Is Still Shining Bright: Venture Funding To City’s Startups Hits All-Time High /venture/all-time-high-funding-to-austin-startups-2025-ai-robotics-manufacturing/ Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:00:26 +0000 /?p=93352 At the height of the pandemic and the global shift to remote work, tech founders and investors alike flocked to Austin, Texas, drawn to a more business-friendly environment, relatively lower housing costs, and the city鈥檚 hip reputation.

Venture firms that set up shop in the Texas capital city included , , and 1, among others. famously moved 鈥檚 headquarters to Austin in 2021, while also purchasing a house and establishing a residence there.

But as more employees returned to in-office work, Austin slowly seemed to fall out of favor with the tech community, some of whom said it had been overhyped as a startup hub.

There were reports of tech workers who had moved to the city during the pandemic and , saying they were going back to places like the Bay Area. Musk back to California in 2023.

Funding tops pandemic peak

Undeterred by the 鈥渢ourists,鈥 the startup and venture community in Austin kept plugging away. And those efforts are reflected in a surge in funding to startups headquartered there last year, with 2025 posting an all-time high for Austin venture investment, SA国际传媒 data shows.

Investment into Austin-based startups spiked 64.8% to $7.19 billion in 2025 as more investors poured money into companies based in the region, according to SA国际传媒 . That鈥檚 compared with the $4.37 billion raised by Austin-area startups in 2024 and tops even the $6.1 billion raised in 2021, at the height of the venture funding frenzy.

Notably, deal counts actually decreased from 312 in 2024 to 272 year over year, signaling an increase in later-stage deals. Indeed, the data corroborates that with $4 billion of the total raised in 2025 classified as late-stage rounds.

Last year鈥檚 totals were also more than double 鈥 130% higher 鈥 than the $3.1 billion raised in 2023. That money was raised across 403 deals, signaling much smaller round sizes at the time and a more mature market.

A tech scene decades in the making

, managing partner of , doesn鈥檛 believe that the Austin funding performance in 2025 was anomalous.

Rather, he calls it 鈥渢he payoff from decades of compounding.鈥

鈥淭alent density in venture categories such as software, fintech, health tech, defense and听 robotics has reached a critical mass, driven by waves of Bay Area relocations, both full HQ moves and satellite offices, that brought technical, product and operational talent into the market,鈥 Flager said.

That talent eventually left to build new companies, he said, and the cycle repeated.

鈥淥n the capital side, the stack has matured across all stages, from pre-seed through growth, with local firms that have now cycled through multiple funds and understand the market deeply,鈥 Flager said. 鈥淟ayer in a business-friendly regulatory environment, a relatively lower cost of living, as well as a lower effective tax rate, and Austin becomes an attractive place to start and scale a company.鈥

Former Austin Mayor saw so much potential in the city鈥檚 startup scene that he began a career in venture investing after his tenure ended in early 2023. (He now works for New York-based ).

Part of the city’s success as a startup hub stems from its reputation as a haven for mavericks and risk-takers, Adler has said.

鈥淢ost cities in the world, you try something, you fail; it’s hard to have access to the capital the second time,” he told co-founder in a in 2022. “In Austin, the civic folk heroes are the people that tried something and it didn’t quite work out and they worked on it until it did.鈥

, founder of , a solo GP venture firm based in nearby San Antonio, said that it feels like Texas and the Austin metro area specifically are becoming more attractive to manufacturing- and engineering-heavy businesses.

鈥淪ome of that may be thanks to Tesla, and some of it may simply reflect the physical advantages of the state,鈥 he told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淓ither way, this [surge in financing] feels less like hype returning and more like capital concentrating around a narrower set of serious, technically differentiated companies.鈥

Deal sizes grow

That diversity among funded startups is reflected in last year鈥檚 investment totals for Austin, which were boosted by several large, late-stage deals across a broad range of industries.

The largest was a $1 billion Series C round for energy provider in October. New York-based led that financing, which valued the 2-year-old company at $4 billion.

Looking back, February in particular was a busy month for venture funding. That month alone saw the second-, third- and fourth-largest rounds in Austin for the year. They included:

  • A February Series C round in which autonomous surface vessels maker raised $600 million at a $4 billion valuation. led the round for the defense tech startup.
  • Also in February, , which provides endpoint management, security and monitoring, raised $500 million in Series C extensions at a $5 billion valuation 鈥 more than doubling its value from just 12 months prior. The funding came in separate tranches led by and 鈥檚 , with participation from other investors.
  • Robotics company in February raised $415 million in Series A financing led by听 and accelerator (A $520 million extension to that Series A was raised in February 2026, taking the total round to over $935 million.)

The findings correspond with Flager鈥檚 observations.

鈥淎 good chunk of the capital raised in Austin was driven by several large deals. Similar to what we saw across the U.S. in 2025, venture funding in Austin was more concentrated than it has been in the past,鈥 he told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淩oughly 38% of the capital deployed went to the top five venture financings in Austin. I believe the top 10 deals nationally accounted for more than 40% of the capital raised last year. We’ll see if this trend continues into 2026 and beyond. The start of the year suggests it will.鈥

, founding partner of , agrees, noting that from a dollars perspective, the surge in financings was driven by a handful of outsized capital-intensive deals in newer categories such as defense and deep tech.

鈥淭hese companies require a combination of technology, land for manufacturing facilities, and talent for manufacturing tasks. Austin has unique skillsets for that,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t has a density of three things: talent in deep tech with , and many others moving to Texas in light of favorable business conditions with expertise in these industries; expansive land around Central Texas that is inexpensive, especially compared to California; and lower cost manufacturing-related labor especially given the surge in manufacturing jobs such as at Tesla in recent times.鈥

Burgeoning industries

Once upon a time, Austin was better known as home to software and CPG companies. And while those types of companies certainly still exist, a number of other industries are growing increasingly robust, as the local investors have pointed out.

As with many top tech markets, Flager said Austin has long been strong for application and infrastructure software, which is currently being challenged by AI. In his view, that talent has migrated to building 鈥渜uality鈥 vertical agentic software and AI-native businesses.

鈥淲e are seeing these companies grow quickly and build scale, while using less capital 鈥 which is exciting,鈥 he added. 鈥淭he domain experts who built and scaled application software companies here over the last two decades are spinning out to build the next generation of native AI businesses.鈥

The market overall is also broadening in interesting ways. Defense and autonomy have emerged as breakout categories, with Austin becoming one of the stronger markets in the country for dual-use and autonomous systems companies, noted Flager.

鈥淭he combination of software and hardware skills now in Texas, along with a business-friendly regulatory environment, has allowed Austin to take a leadership position in these important and developing markets,鈥 he said. 鈥淓nergy tech is also a natural fit given Texas’ grid scale and the surging power demands of AI infrastructure.鈥

Finally, robotics and advanced manufacturing are also gaining momentum, driven by deep engineering talent and the ability to scale manufacturing near Austin cost-effectively, allowing engineers, executives and other factory employees to coexist and collaborate in close proximity.

Srinivasan noted that his firm is seeing strong activity in vertical AI companies, or companies that serve vertical markets with AI that is tuned on specialized proprietary vertical data, often targeting the services and labor expenditures by their customers.

鈥淭hese companies deliver 鈥楽ervices as Software鈥 with close to software gross margins and pricing models that are based more on usage and outcomes as opposed to the traditional seat-based models,鈥 he said.

Srinivasan also expects the city to continue to see large funding deals in defense and deep tech, given the combination of local strengths and robust global demand for such products.

Continued momentum

Investors and companies continue to be drawn to Austin. In late December, San Francisco-based venture firm in the city. One of the firm鈥檚 founders, , also announced that he had personally moved to Austin. The firm鈥檚 other founder, , had lived and worked in the city since 2022.

In late March of this year, Musk to build two semiconductor factories totaling 100 million square feet in Austin to supply advanced chips for and Tesla. The venture, known as Terafab, aims to manufacture 1 trillion watts of computing power per year, he said. Media outlets valued the initiative at nearly

Also this week, Barcelona-based AI health tech startup announced it will open an office and hire in Austin.

CEO told SA国际传媒 News that with the company鈥檚 New York office already established, the next step was not just expansion, 鈥渂ut choosing the right place to build.鈥

鈥淎nd we chose Austin for one reason above all: talent,鈥 he said. 鈥淎s an AI health tech company, our success depends on attracting exceptional people across engineering, data and life sciences. Austin has rapidly become one of the most competitive talent markets. The city is one of the fastest-growing in the United States. This brings together deep tech expertise, entrepreneurial energy and a growing concentration of healthcare innovation. Ideal for our goal of building an R&D hub. 鈥

Coelho also points out that Biorce has witnessed a 鈥渢rend鈥 of people moving from the Bay Area to Austin, noting that 鈥渢he quality of life has gained notoriety.鈥

鈥淏ut for us, this isn鈥檛 about following a trend,鈥 he added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about building where the best people are 鈥 and where they want to be.鈥

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