While financings of a few million haven鈥檛 gone away, today most venture capital actually goes to rounds of a billion dollars or more. Moreover, it looks like a rising trend.

So far this year, 60% of global startup funding across stages听1 听鈥� around $320 billion 鈥� went to rounds of $1 billion or more, per SA国际传媒 data. Such rounds were instrumental in pushing global funding for the first half of the year to record levels.

The U.S. funding tallies are even more tilted to megadeals this year, with 73% of funding going to billion-dollar-plus rounds. Of the $290 billion invested in these deals, just two rounds for AI leaders and account for more than half the total.

As you can see, the notion of billion-dollar-plus rounds accounted for a minority of funding before this year. The lone exception was the first quarter of 2025, when OpenAI closed a $40 billion financing.

Not just bigger deals, more of them too

Giant rounds aren鈥檛 just getting more ginormous. They鈥檙e happening with greater frequency too.

So far this year, U.S. startups have closed 23 known rounds of $1 billion or more, per SA国际传媒 data. That puts 2026 already on par with 2025, a record-setting year, and we鈥檝e still got about five months left.

Not surprisingly, these megarounds are generally later-stage rounds or corporate financings. Only two of this year鈥檚 billion-dollar-plus rounds 鈥� and 鈥� were seed or early-stage rounds, per SA国际传媒 data.

Lessons from the first crop of billion-plus financings

In the history of startups, meanwhile, the billion-dollar-plus venture funding round is a fairly contemporary phenomenon.

The first American example, per SA国际传媒 data, was 鈥檚 $1.2 billion Series D, in 2014. Over the next three years, a handful of others pulled in 10-figure rounds as well, including , , , , , , , and .

Most of those companies went on to go public and reach valuations that well-exceeded levels set for prior megarounds. SpaceX ($1.6 trillion recent market cap), Uber ($148 billion) and Airbnb ($87 billion) were the standout success stories.

Two of the megafund recipients 鈥� Argo AI and WeWork 鈥� did not fare so well, while a third, cancer diagnostics provider Grail, has been up and down. Fanatics, meanwhile, remained private and is still thriving.

If these early billion-plus fundings taught investors anything, it was that pouring unusually large sums into well-regarded unicorns can be quite lucrative but is far from a sure bet.

Uncharted territory

In the current funding cycle, it鈥檚 not enough to ask whether billion-dollar rounds have potential for high returns. With Anthropic and OpenAI, the question now applies to rounds in the tens of billions or even over $100 billion. As both have already filed confidentially to go public, it may not take us long to find out.

Related SA国际传媒 query:

Related reading:

• SA国际传媒 Data: Global Startup Investment Hit Record $510B In H1 2026 As AI Boom Accelerates Funding And Exits
• SA国际传媒 Data: Q2 Brought The Most Billion-Dollar Startup Exits Since 2021
• The $100M+ Round Is Now Just Your Typical Late-Stage Financing

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Ten of those companies were AI labs, collectively valued at $65 billion. The most well-known was Beijing-based open source model developer 鈥� at $50 billion, the highest valued new unicorn to join the Unicorn Board this year.

The new unicorn frontier labs are focused on new architectures in AI model development in robotics, physics and self-learning, as well as on open source development, and in the case of one India-based startup, sovereign AI.

Other leading sectors with multiple companies were in robotics and AI infrastructure, with four companies in each.

Of the new unicorns, 16 are U.S-based, while eight are from China. Two new unicorns joined the board from India, Germany and the United Kingdom and one each from Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Big exits remove a trillion

Despite the influx of newcomers, the total value of The SA国际传媒 Unicorn Board dropped by more than $1 trillion in June as , its most valuable company, went public.

Other notable exits from the board last month were , the maker of AI coding tool Cursor, which was acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion after last being valued at $29.3 billion. , an AI infrastructure company that operates as a layer on top of GPUs, was acquired by , and customer experience agent was purchased by 1, both for well above their last private valuations.

New unicorns in June

Here are June’s new unicorn companies:

AI labs

• Hangzhou-based raised a $7.4 billion Series A, its first external financing, in a deal led by CEO . The 2-year-old company was valued at $50 billion and is said to be planning to list in as early as Q2 2027.
• is building a new AI architecture based on neuroscience called Cortex AI that promises lower power use. It raised a $500 million Series A from , , and . The less than 1-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2.5 billion.
• London-based , an AI for physical product design in aerospace, defense, energy, automotive and semiconductors, raised a $300 million Series C led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $2.4 billion.
• , a model developer for robotics trained on gaming videos from its sister company , raised a $320 million Series A led by . The 1-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2.3 billion.
• , an embodied robotics intelligence company, raised a $400 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old San Mateo, California-based company with researchers from and was valued at $2 billion.
• Shanghai-based , a听 robotics intelligence company, raised a $220 million seed round led by and . The less than 1-year-old company founded by an researcher was valued at $2 billion.
• , a builder of world models to simulate the real world impacting robotics, science, healthcare and defense, raised a $310 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old Menlo Park, California-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Bengaluru-based , an Indian sovereign AI developer, raised a $234 million Series B first close led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• , an AI lab seeking to automate AI research for scientific use cases, raised a $200 million seed funding led by and . The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• Hangzhou-based , a 3D model developer used in gaming, entertainment and product design, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Robotics

• Germany-based , a physical AI company building intelligent machines to to work alongside humans, raised a $1.4 billion Series C led by stablecoin issuer among other strategic and growth investors. The 7-year-old company, with $1 billion in its order pipeline and strategic deployments, was said to be valued at $7 billion.
• Shenzhen-based , a builder of humanoid robots, raised a $148 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Guangdong-based , a humanoid robotics company, raised a $147 million Series B. The 5-year-old company, which projects 1,000 shipments in 2026, was valued at $1.5 billion.
• , a builder of industrial arm robotics for manufacturing that said its technology learns through demonstration, raised a $200 million Series C led by and . The 9-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

AI infrastructure

• , which pivoted from crypto mining to data center build out for AI, raised a $400 million funding led by , and . The 2-year-old Coral Gables, Florida-based company was valued at $2.4 billion. The company has filed for a direct listing on .
• Las Vegas-based , a cloud operator that offers customer AMD chips, raised a $350 million Series B led by and . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.6 billion.
• Beijing-based , an inference solution offering customers API access to hundreds of models, raised a $296 million Series B. The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• , an AI developer cloud to train, fine-tune and deploy AI, raised a $100 million Series A led by . The 4-year-old New Jersey-based company valued at $1 billion has 1 million developers using the platform.

Defense

• , a precision weapons company enabling existing weaponry to defend against unmanned drones, raised a $200 million Series B led by . The 4-year-old Austin-based company was valued at $2.2 billion.
• , a manufacturer of unmanned aerospace and defense systems, raised a $300 million Series C led by and . The 3-year-old Huntington Beach, California-based company was valued at $1.8 billion.
• , a cyber intelligence company building products for the U.S. military, raised a $100 million Series B led by , and . The 1-year-old Arlington, Virginia-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Proptech

• Montreal-based , a mortgage financing platform, raised a $217 million Series E round. The 8-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion.
• India-based ,听 a property brokerage that also owns a mortgage marketplace, a property management platform, and a home interior brand raised a $95 million private equity and debt financing led by . The 13-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Data analytics

• Belgium-based , an intelligence platform for global physical trade, raised a $1 billion secondary market funding led by . The 12-year-old company was valued at $3.7 billion.

Biotechnology

• , a biotech company focused on reverse cellular aging, raised a $435 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old San Francisco-based company with plans for clinical trials next year for human liver cells, was valued at $3.1 billion.

Materials

• Cambridge, U.K.-based听 , building a network of labs using AI for new material discovery, raised a $450 million funding led by and . The 2-year-old company was valued at $2.6 billion.

Cryptocurrency

• , a blockchain and smart contract solution for global financial institutions, raised a $355 million Series F led by . The 12-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2 billion.

Image generation

• Beijing-based , a video generation company, raised a $300 million Series B led by , and . The 3-year-old company was valued at $2 billion and says it has built a creator community of more than 30 million users. As of May 2026 the company has $300 million in annual recurring revenue.

Financial services

• Saudi Arabia-based , a mobile banking company, raised a $400 million Series A. The 6-year-old company was valued at $1.6 billion.

Semiconductor

• Rotterdam-based , a 3D metrology inspection tool for semiconductor manufacturing, raised a $380 million Series D led by . The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.6 billion.

Aerospace

• Beijing-based , a space infrastructure and satellite company, raised a $207 million Series D. The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

E-commerce

• , an e-commerce provider that supports customer interactions post purchase, raised an $81 million Series B led by . The 4-year-old Utah-based company supporting 4,100 brands and 1,750 merchants was valued at $1.3 billion.

AI healthcare

• , an AI agent built for a patient’s healthcare journey and used by healthcare providers, raised a $120 million Series C led by . The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Transportation

• Munich-based , a car subscription platform operating in Germany and partnering with 25 brands, raised a $113 million Series D led by . The 7-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Related SA国际传媒 unicorn lists:

• (1,822)
• (637)
• (213)
• (190)
• (118)
• (102)
• (935)
• (539)
• (248)
• (39)
• (488)

Related reading:

• SA国际传媒 Data: Global Startup Investment Hit Record $510B In H1 2026 As AI Boom Accelerates Funding And Exits
• AI Services And Robotics Lead Diverse Crop Of 29 New May Unicorns As SpaceX, Anthropic And OpenAI Line Up Blockbuster Exits

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.

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I have spent more than 40 years in financial services, and I have learned to be skeptical of people heralding the word “revolution.” Branchless banking was going to end the branch. The blockchain was going to disintermediate the whole system. Big Tech was going to extinguish the bank altogether.

However, consider the most meaningful waves of financial services innovation this generation. The information-based strategy we pioneered at turned data into the engine of a consumer bank, reimagining it from the inside.

Then the internet dissolved the branch as the unit of distribution, putting the bank on a screen. Then digitization moved that screen into the customer’s pocket, unlocking all banking services with a mere touch stroke. Then the cloud collapsed the cost of computing and let a handful of engineers do what once took a data center and an army. AI will be bigger than all of these waves.

The change is here

AI will become the operating system which global finance runs on, rewriting the value chain end to end until the industry that emerges looks nothing like the one it replaced.

You can already see it happening, one layer at a time. Wealth management is being rebuilt around tools like 1, which turns the messy reality of client conversations into structured, actionable intelligence.

Investment banking is being rewired by the likes of and , compressing analytical work that once consumed floors of junior bankers. Filing taxes is being reenvisioned by companies like . AI neobanks like and are automating more pieces of the consumer banking relationship. The call center is being reimagined by companies such as and , resolving the complex, regulated queries that first-generation chatbots could never touch.

The plumbing of the financial system itself is under siege. is building the clearing bank for the AI age, and and are becoming the back-office stack that businesses run on, folding cards, expenses, procurement and accounting into a single semi-autonomous system. Companies like and are rebuilding risk and compliance, identity verification, AML and KYC, for an AI world where the counterparty on a transaction may not be a person at all.

Further out sits the largest prize, an agentic commerce layer where software transacts on our behalf or quietly arbitrages idle deposits away from inert institutions. Layer by layer, the financial system will be systematically uprooted by AI, each piece first made faster and cheaper, then reinvented from the ground up.

Zero marginal costs

The first thing AI does is brutal and simple. It takes the marginal cost to underwrite a loan, clear a compliance review, serve a customer at 2 a.m., and drive it toward zero.

We have spent decades treating those functions as fixed operating costs. Capital One’s insurgency 30 years ago proved that a one-size-fits-all model breaks the moment marginal economics lets you price and serve customers individually. AI applies that logic to the whole stack ruthlessly and simultaneously, remaking business models and org charts all at once.

The second order effect is that AI unlocks products that could not exist before. At Capital One we sought to deliver the right product to the right customer at the right price at the right time, which was always something of an exaggeration, because all we really had was direct mail and statistical inference.

Now it can genuinely be done: products tailored to a customer’s specific needs, credit that moves with daily cash flows, insurance priced to the individual rather than the actuarial average. The frontier of the buildable has moved further in three years than in the prior 20 and founders catching this wave are turning that capability loose. AI is a kind of alchemy, turning lead into gold. We are watching it happen across our own portfolio, expanding the frontier of what鈥檚 possible for many companies.

Upstart fintechs have historically had the most to gain with rising technological waves. Fintech鈥檚 nimbleness, compressed decision timelines, and sheer force of will give them a commanding head start in adopting and implementing AI.

But incumbent financial institutions shouldn鈥檛 be discounted. They sit on the richest proprietary datasets in the economy, decades of transactions, balances, defaults and recoveries that no fintech can buy. If data is the fuel of the AI age, the big banks and insurance companies own the refineries.

And yet I have spent a career watching these institutions confuse consumer loyalty with inertia and watching the advantage that should have been decisive die quietly in committee. Earned-wage access, buy now, paylater, C2C remittances, digital brokerage: whole categories the incumbents never bothered to enter, and where fintechs now sit firmly in command.

That ceded ground has helped mint fintech centicorns like , , and 2. Owning customer data and being capable and willing to act on it are different things, and most of it sits trapped in legacy cores, inside organizations built to protect and defend the existing model, not break it.

Every link in the value chain

The hardest thing for an incumbent is summoning the will to pivot or self-cannibalize. Those treating this as an existential mandate, rebuilding their technology and their talent around AI, will stand alongside leading fintechs in remaking the future of finance over the coming decade. The rest will come to understand what has changed only as they watch their market share erode and the sector consolidate.

If there is one thing I have learned in 40 years, it is that technology rarely rewards whoever owns the asset; it rewards whoever is willing to rebuild around it. AI will rewire every link in the value chain, from the way consumers transact to the way money moves and businesses run, and what emerges on the other side of this technological tidal wave will only vaguely resemble the system we know today.

I have watched four waves reshape this industry, and no word I used for them feels strong enough for this one. The question that matters now is who will summon the conviction to dismantle what works today to build what wins tomorrow.

is the co-founder and managing partner of , a fintech venture capital platform focused on disruptive, high-growth financial services companies. QED has made numerous unicorn investments, including , , , , , and . Morris is also the chairman of and , serves on the boards of , and , and is a board observer for and . Prior to QED, he co-founded in 1994. Under his leadership as president and chief operating officer, Capital One pioneered an information-based strategy that transformed the consumer lending industry. He holds an MBA with distinction from London Business School, where he is also a Fellow.

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Mexico鈥檚 startups led the LatAm pack in Q2 鈥� by a wide margin. The country鈥檚 startups raised $944 million in the second quarter, up 131% compared to $409 million in last year鈥檚 Q2, and up 136% from the $401 million raised in this year鈥檚 first quarter, per SA国际传媒 data. For comparison鈥檚 sake, that鈥檚 almost as much as Latin American startups as a whole raised in the second quarter of 2025.

Notably, Mexico-based companies accounted for the region鈥檚 three largest fundraising deals in the quarter ended June 30.

Meanwhile, Brazil-headquartered startups raised $350 million in Q2 2026, down 11% from the $363 million raised in Q2 2025, but up 20% from the $270 million raised in Q1 2026.

In general, a continued boom in late-stage and growth funding helped buoy the region for the period, SA国际传媒 data shows. Startups in Latin America raised a combined $1.36 billion across seed- and growth-stage deals in the second quarter, up 47% year over year and 22% from the first quarter.

For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 10 quarters below.

Of that total, $991 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 84% year over year and 30% compared to the first quarter of 2026.

Round counts declined sequentially and year-over-year across angel, seed and early stages. (We expect the Q2 deal count to rise somewhat over time, however, as seed rounds in particular are commonly reported weeks or months after they close.)

Table of contents

• Late-stage boom
• Investor POV
• The US-LatAm connection
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Late-stage boom

There were five nine-figure raises in Latin America in the second quarter, and as mentioned earlier, three of those were by Mexico City-based companies. Interestingly, several of the deals were led by U.S.-based firms.

• In June, payments startup raised $500 million at a valuation exceeding $2.5 billion in a private-equity deal with undisclosed investors.
• In April, digital bank raised $405 million in a Series C round led by Miami-based at a $5 billion valuation.
• And in February, , a startup that operates a pre-owned car marketplace, raised $300 million in a Series F financing co-led by Laguna Beach, California-based and Menlo Park-based . Notably, the round was reported to be a16z鈥檚 largest investment in Latin America and the first in the region for its growth fund.

Other large deals in Latin America in the same period included a $195 million round for Argentinian digital bank in March, led by Germany鈥檚 at a $3.2 billion valuation. And, Sao Paulo-based legaltech startup raised a $100 million Series B led by San Francisco-based

Investor POV

Several investors who spoke with SA国际传媒 News described a somewhat slower pace in the region. , co-founder and general partner of New York-based , said the firm remains active, although its investments so far this year have been in U.S. and European companies. It has seen less early-stage fintech activity in Latin America but expects to make new investments in the region, given its current pipeline.

The region鈥檚 underlying fundamentals remain intact and fintech adoption continues to grow, he said.

, principal at Alexandria, Virginia-based , said her firm鈥檚 pace in Latin America has also slowed, largely because it is increasingly investing around global themes rather than individual geographies. As QED focuses more heavily on stablecoins and artificial intelligence, many of the most compelling startups it encounters operate globally, with Latin America representing one of several important markets, she said.

Within Latin America, QED generally invests at the later Series B stage.

, managing partner at Mexico City-based , said the firm鈥檚 investment pace has remained consistent.

Brazil and Mexico continue to attract the bulk of all three firms鈥� activity, but the investors noted that promising companies are also emerging elsewhere in the region.

Armaza cited portfolio successes including Uruguay-based , which was acquired this year by U.S. public company ; Argentina鈥檚 , which raised a $55 million Series C in January; and Venezuela鈥檚 , which serves CFOs and corporate treasury teams.

鈥淚 think this is an underrated LatAm story right now: The periphery is also producing big successes,鈥� he said.

The US-LatAm connection

The investors are also tracking an increasingly fluid relationship between Latin America and U.S. technology hubs.

Hi Ventures, which is now focused almost exclusively on AI applications, has expanded its strategy to include Latin American founders building companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. About half of its portfolio is based in San Francisco, including companies led by founders originally from Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

鈥淲e increasingly think of the ecosystem as one connected innovation network rather than separate geographies,鈥� Antoni said.

Armaza has observed a similar trend among both repeat and first-time entrepreneurs who are relocating to San Francisco or New York to build U.S. or global companies from the outset.

鈥淭he talent is still LatAm talent, but the company formation is increasingly happening here,鈥� he said.

The New York-based firm鈥檚 sector focus remains on early-stage companies developing financial and commercial infrastructure.

At QED, meanwhile, stablecoins, tokenization and digital assets have become a substantially larger part of the investment strategy than they were several years ago, particularly at the infrastructure layer. The firm is also interested in the intersection of AI and fintech, including applications that improve financial operations and customer experiences or broaden access to financial services.

Overall investment in Latin America remains far below its 2021 peak and has returned to roughly 2019 levels in both capital deployed and deal volume.

But today鈥檚 market differs from 2019 in one significant respect, Antoni noted: AI allows founders to build companies and reach meaningful milestones with considerably less capital. That shift may particularly benefit Latin American entrepreneurs accustomed to operating with limited resources.

鈥淭he region has always produced resourceful founders, and today鈥檚 environment rewards capital efficiency rather than aggressive spending,鈥� he said.

The threshold for securing funding, particularly at the Series A stage and beyond, has nevertheless risen considerably. Investors are still deploying capital, Antoni said, but more selectively.

Armaza noted that global investors have historically cycled in and out of Latin America, particularly firms without dedicated regional teams or local roots. But the region鈥檚 largest rounds in 2026 have attracted firms including , Andreessen Horowitz, , Allianz X and .

鈥淭his tells you that the best capital in the world finds great companies, regardless of macro sentiment,鈥� Armaza said.

Recent public-market activity by Brazilian fintech companies could further boost the funding prospects for later-stage startups. Gadala-Maria said the fact that two of fintech鈥檚 three IPOs have come from Brazil serves as an important signal that Latin America can produce durable, high-quality fintech companies capable of reaching sufficient scale to enter the public markets.

The newly public companies also provide comparables that investors can use to evaluate the next generation of later-stage Latin American fintech companies, potentially giving them greater confidence in underwriting those businesses. QED has several Latin American portfolio companies that could pursue public listings if market conditions and timing were favorable, Gadala-Maria said.

Related reading:

• Where Argentina And Spain Are Scoring Startup Goals

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 July 9, 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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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.

It was not a holiday week on the funding front, as a raft of largely AI-focused companies closed big rounds. The largest of these was a $1.5 billion financing to enterprise AI startup and a Series D for meal and delivery provider . The week also included some big financings for enterprise tech, food delivery, drones and construction automation.

1. , $1.5B, enterprise AI tools: Fireworks AI, a developer of tools for enterprises to turn 鈥済eneral-purpose models into specialized intelligence trained on their own data,鈥� raised $1.505 billion in Series D funding. , and led the financing, which set a $17.5 billion valuation for the San Mateo, California-based company.

2. , $650M, meals and delivery: Wonder, an operator of kitchens and meal delivery services, closed on $650 million in Series D funding at a $9 billion pre-money valuation. Capital will go in part toward expanding operations for the New York-based company, which currently has 140 locations.

3. , $400M, life sciences AI: AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery secured $400 million in Series C funding at a $3.8 billion valuation. led the financing, investing alongside , , and others.

4. , $300M, robots: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Walden Robotics, a startup building general-purpose robots for work in manufacturing and logistics, launched out of stealth with $300 million in funding. and led the round, which values the company at $1.1 billion.

5. , $125M, drones: Seattle-based Brinc, a developer of drones for use in public safety and emergency operations, raised $125 million in fresh funding. led the financing, with participation from , and founder and CEO .

6. (tied) , $100M, construction automation: Austin-based TerraFirma, a developer of AI-enabled software and autonomous robotics technology for the construction industry, landed $100 million in new funding, bringing total investment to date to $115 million.

6. (tied) , $100M, enterprise AI: Spectro Cloud, a provider of AI infrastructure management software, said it raised more than $100 million in a Series D round led by . The financing brings total capital raised by San Jose-based Spectro Cloud to $260 million.

8. , $80M, defense tech: Singularity, a startup focused on developing air defense technology, emerged from stealth with $80 million in Series A funding. and 1听led the financing, which set a $400 million valuation for the Los Angeles-based company.

9. (tied) , $70M, fintech: San-Francisco-based fintech startup Flex, a private banking platform for high-net-worth business owners, raised $70 million in a Series B1 financing led by . The round follows the company’s $60 million Series B in December.

9. (tied) , $70M, AI and policy: State Affairs, an AI platform for policy and regulation, secured $70 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures 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 July 11-17. 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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For this matchup, 鈥溌ooooooooool!鈥� is really the only acceptable way to announce a new score. And if you can make that a good 21 seconds in one breath, all the better.

Here at SA国际传媒 News, meanwhile, we鈥檝e been prepping for the final in a less vocally demanding but much more data-intense manner. Since both contenders are far more famous for soccer than accomplishments in the startup realm, we figured a small step to rectify that was in order.

To do this, we put together a snapshot of recent startup funding tallies and trends for both Spain and Argentina. As you鈥檒l see, neither accounts for a particularly large share of global or even regional investment. Both however, have an intriguing pipeline of recently funded companies.

Argentina

We鈥檒l start with our second World Cup-related profile of Argentina. After it won the final in 2022, we wrote a venture funding-themed story calling the country鈥檚 startup scene 鈥渟mall, scrappy and sometimes very successful.鈥�

Four years later, that description still holds. Argentinian startups typically pull in a few hundred million dollars in venture funding annually. Investment is, however, lower than for Brazil and Mexico, the two most populous Latin American nations, which commonly lead in funding.

Argentina鈥檚 startup ecosystem has also delivered some big hits over the years. The most famous Argentine-founded internet company 鈥� online marketplace 听 鈥� commands a market cap around $94 billion on . (It鈥檚 currently headquartered in Uruguay but traces its roots to a Buenos Aires garage.)

More recently, Buenos Aires-based fintech has been making waves in the regional startup scene. It鈥檚 raised $1.1 billion in known funding to date, including a $195 million March financing.

Others that have raised good-sized rounds this year are also in the fintech space, including:

• , a payments infrastructure startup, closed on a $55 million Series C round co-led by and .
• , a provider of payments and collections infrastructure, secured $27 million in Series B funding in February.

So far, 2026 is shaping up as a strong year for funding, with investment already ahead of last year鈥檚 total. Funding tends to fluctuate quite a bit from year to year as the presence or absence of a single large round or two can heavily skew the totals.

Spain

Oddsmakers say Spain is the favorite going into the final. However, it鈥檚 well known that often the underdog also prevails. That was the lesson from Spain鈥檚 2:0 defeat of favorite France this week.

But while it may have prevailed over France in soccer, Spain continues to lag in venture funding. So far in 2026, Spanish startups have raised less than $2 billion in funding across stages, which is roughly one-third France鈥檚 total for the same period.

While not large, Spain鈥檚 funded startup pipeline is not lacking in pizazz. Take this year鈥檚 largest funding recipient 鈥� 鈥� which closed a $206 million Series C in March. Its anything-but-modest mission is to be a 鈥済lobal space transportation service provider to support cargo and human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars.鈥�

Other standouts among the bigger rounds this year include:

• , an AI-enabled HR and payroll platform, scooped up $150 million in Series D funding at a $2.5 billion valuation in June. To date, the Barcelona-based company has raised over $350 million in equity funding.
• 听, a Madrid startup focused on infrastructure for near space, space tourism and aerospace data, closed on $140 million in Series D funding in May.
• , a Madrid-based developer of AI tools for analyzing geospatial data, picked up $130 million in Series B funding in April.

Overall funding to Spanish startups is also trending higher, with 2026 on track for a year-over-year gain. For the past few years, annual Spanish startup funding has ranged between $1.8 billion and $2.8 billion, as charted below.

Rooting for the underdog

While both Spain and Argentina have a long track record of soccer success, a case could be made that both are underdogs in the startup space. It鈥檚 a familiar situation for secondary hubs in the current AI-driven investment cycle. Capital has been concentrating even more heavily in Silicon Valley and other leading venture hubs.

Given all the follow-on effects a successful startup can have on its region, it鈥檇 be encouraging to see investors spreading their bets more broadly across a wider geography. Spain and Argentina have already proven they have what it takes to prevail in one very competitive arena. Given the capital and opportunity, there鈥檚 no reason to doubt their abilities in the venture-backed startup game either.

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The purported deal, which has been rumored for months, is notable not just for its scale 鈥� it would be one of the largest acquisitions of a technology company in recent years 鈥� but also for its highly unusual nature. Privately held startups typically lack the cash, publicly traded shares and debt capacity to acquire their publicly listed brethren.

Of course, Stripe is not just any privately held company. The fintech startup was, until just a few short years ago, the highest valued startup based in the U.S., before being eclipsed on that metric by AI labs and . In February, the company announced it had inked deals with investors to provide liquidity to current and former employees through a tender offer at a $159 billion valuation, which still ranks it as the fourth most valuable startup in the world.

With substantial private capital 鈥� it has raised some $10.4 billion since inception, 鈥斕齋tripe has long been one of the most acquisitive venture-backed startups. It has made since its 2010 inception, according to SA国际传媒 data. Only three have disclosed prices: stablecoin platform at $1.1 billion (2025), usage-based billing software startup at $1 billion (2026), and Nigerian payments startup at $200 million (2020).

Stripe鈥檚 M&A pace has also accelerated sharply since 2020, SA国际传媒 data shows, with 13 of its 21 acquisitions announced since then.

Its recent strategy appears to be focused on stablecoins and crypto infrastructure 鈥� Bridge, , and 鈥斕齛s well as on billing and money movement through Metronome, payment processing startup and .

If the plan to buy PayPal does go through, it will most certainly make Stripe an even more formidable player in the crowded payments space.

It would also rank as one of the largest acquisitions of a U.S. tech company, public or private, of the past five years, according to SA国际传媒 data, trailing only a handful of larger deals including $61 billion purchase of in 2022 and 鈥檚 acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor and its parent, , for $60 billion last month.

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All told, fintech startups raised $28.6 billion globally in the first half of 2026, a 22.7% increase from the first half of 2025, but down 17.3% compared to the $34.6 billion raised in the second half of last year. (It鈥檚 important to note that H2 2025 marked the strongest six-month funding period for fintech startups since the second half of 2022.)

Fintech funding in the first half of 2026 also topped the sector鈥檚 investment totals in 2020 and the pre-pandemic year of 2019, though they remain lower than the peak funding year of 2021 as well as 2018.

Historically, the United States has led the globe when it comes to fintech funding, and the first half of this year was no exception. More than 52% 鈥� $15 billion 鈥� of the global fintech funding in H1 flowed into companies based in the U.S. The United Kingdom was the second-largest recipient of capital, with companies there raising a collective $2.7 billion. India came in third, with a total of $1.9 billion raised, SA国际传媒 data shows.

Deal count drops

Even as dollar volume climbed, deal flow into venture-backed fintech startups fell fairly significantly in H1 2026, SA国际传媒 data shows. The first half of the year saw 1,605 funding deals announced in the sector, a 25.7% decline from the more than 2,161 completed in H1 2025 and down 40% from H1 2024.

Where investors are placing their bets

Active fintech investors who spoke with SA国际传媒 News said they see a split market emerging.

In general, the startup investment market has been cleaved into two extremes, with funding either pouring into brand-new companies or concentrating into a tiny handful of larger, established giants, according to , a partner at (Google Ventures).

The fintech sector is following the same pattern, Sakach told SA国际传媒 News via email, but its biggest players are using their size in an unusual way. 鈥�2026 marks the definitive ‘lab-i-fication’ of the modern corporation,” she noted, with some fintech platforms using their scale and steady profits to fund experimental new divisions.

Because these companies have significant data and distribution advantages, they are becoming magnets for top-tier workers, according to Sakach. For instance, she said, is now competing directly with top AI research labs for engineering talent, while is using its dominant position to build out new products in enterprise billing and blockchain.

For early-stage startups inside the U.S., the focus is shifting away from copying legacy financial services toward creating entirely new categories.

Wealth management is seeing a massive surge, driven by an influx of assets from a younger generation demanding AI tools, Sakach pointed out.

Fintech startups are also targeting massive, hidden corporate headaches.

鈥淎 50% reduction in global chargebacks is a ~$60 billion opportunity when accounting for both the merchant and banking overhead,鈥� she said.

The biggest shift, however, is happening around artificial intelligence and financial services. 鈥淐oding was AI’s first killer use case; financial markets could be the second, given its extraordinarily broad corpus of data,鈥� said Sakach, pointing to new concepts such as automated hedge funds and prediction markets.

, partner at , said the firm鈥檚 investments into the fintech sector have surged this year, as areas such as money movement infrastructure, stablecoins and tracking of real-world assets on the blockchain draw attention.

鈥淲e’ve never been busier: The quality of founders, the size of the markets they’re going after, and the maturity of the technology being built has never been more impressive,鈥� he said.

Those trends showed up among fintech鈥檚 largest fundraisers last quarter, with companies such as New York-based , which is building an agentic decision platform for banks and insurers, and , an African payments infrastructure startup, clinching some of the period鈥檚 largest funding deals. Both raises took place in June, with Taktile raising a $110 million Series C funding round led by and Flutterwave landing a Series E round of an undisclosed amount that valued the company at $3.2 billion.

Risks and opportunities

Even with a wealth of new opportunities in the sector, investors are also wary of the risks introduced by AI and hype around businesses that don鈥檛 have a clear path toward growth or profitability.

Sakach was particularly skeptical of new stablecoin networks that lack a clear way to get users, personal credit card startups with tough profit margins, and traditional banking software.

The problem with selling software to legacy banks is that their slow buying cycles 鈥渆ffectively break the hypervelocity speed needed for AI-level product evolution,鈥� she said. Instead, Sakach believes that AI tools will likely succeed by embedding highly specialized engineering teams directly into specific business units.

The era of the generic digital bank or basic payment app is largely over, in Overdorff鈥檚 view: 鈥淲ithout a real wedge or distribution advantage, it’s hard to build a durable business there.”

The real value of AI right now is its ability to act as the central engine for financial products rather than just a side feature, Overdorff believes. Startups are using the technology to compress complex underwriting, fraud detection and advisory workflows 鈥渢hat used to take teams of analysts weeks into tasks that happen in minutes.鈥�

As a result, traditional industries such as tax and audit are being completely upended, he said.

Traditional financial institutions, which are usually the slowest to adopt new tech, are finally bringing AI into their core operations, though Overdorff cautioned 鈥渢hat shift is opening up as much risk as opportunity.鈥�

He also flagged the cybersecurity risks associated with the rapid adoption of new technologies and AI into the financial system. 鈥淭he compliance and governance layer becomes just as important as the AI itself,鈥� he wrote.

Mega-valuations keep top fintechs private

While the fintech IPO market was robust in 2025, it has been markedly quieter in the U.S. so far this year. Three fintech companies went public in the first half of 2026, and they were all foreign companies opting to list in New York: Brazil鈥檚 and and Japan鈥檚 . That鈥檚 the same number of finance-related startups that went public in the first half of 2025, when , and made their debuts.

Many of the fintech companies expected to list in 2026 have remained private, often at escalating valuations. That includes fintech giants such as Stripe, , Ramp, , and others that have opted for more private financing, secondary sales or simply waiting out the public markets.

For example, in February, payments infrastructure giant Stripe announced it had inked deals with investors to provide liquidity to current and former employees through a tender offer at a $159 billion valuation. That valuation represented an impressive 49% increase from the $106.7 billion Stripe was valued at in September, when it completed .

In early June, expense management startup Ramp announced a $750 million funding round at a $44 billion valuation, just a few months after raising $300 million at a $32 billion valuation.

The H2 outlook

The trend of capital concentration seen in the first half of the year will continue into H2, Overdorff predicted, with 鈥渕ega-rounds for a small set of category leaders, and a tougher fundraising environment for everyone else.鈥�

And while AI adoption will continue to deepen rather than flatten out, the industry will also be watching the stock market closely. The conversation around IPOs is heating up for mature fintech companies, though Overdorff notes that 鈥渢he timing may hinge on how other high-profile tech IPOs perform this year.鈥�

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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.

AI once again dominated venture funding this week, claiming five of the 10 largest announced rounds, including a pair of billion-dollar financings for AI infrastructure and cybersecurity that led the pack. Investors also continued to back quantum computing, geothermal energy, crypto infrastructure and aerospace startups with large checks. Let鈥檚 take a look.

1. (tied) , $1B, cybersecurity: Keyfactor raised a $1 billion private equity round led by. Other investors in the private equity round for the Independence, Ohio-based company included and . Keyfactor provides digital identity and machine identity management software that helps enterprises secure certificates, encryption keys and connected devices. It has now raised $1.21 billion to date, .

1. (tied) , $1B, AI infrastructure: Palo Alto, California-based SambaNova officially announced a long-awaited $1 billion Series F deal at an $11 billion post-money valuation led by. A of other investors joined the round, including ,,,,, and. SambaNova develops AI chips and enterprise AI infrastructure for training and inference workloads. The company has raised nearly $2.5 billion to date, .

3. , $300M, quantum computing: , and co-led a sizable $300 million Series A for South Pasadena, California-based quantum startup Oratomic. A of 16听 investors participated in the round, including , , , co-founder , and computer scientist . Oratomic is developing neutral-atom quantum hardware and fault-tolerant architectures designed to accelerate the commercialization of quantum computing, an area that has seen robust venture investment in recent years.

4. , $134M, clean energy: Houston-based Quaise Energy raised a $134 million Series B led by . Additional investors included , and. Quaise is developing millimeter-wave drilling technology to unlock deep geothermal energy, an emerging source of carbon-free power. To date, the company has raised $225 million.

5. , $130M, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Prime Intellect raised a $130 million Series A led by . A of investors 鈥� many of them prominent Silicon Valley figures 鈥斕齤oined, including CEO , CEO听 , co-founder , CEO and co-CEO . Corporate investors , and also backed the round. Prime is building an open platform for training and deploying AI models across distributed compute networks. It has now raised $200.4 million total, .

6. , $125M, crypto infrastructure: New York-based Gauntlet raised a $125 million Series B, with Japan鈥檚 as the sole investor. The company develops simulation, risk management and optimization software for decentralized finance protocols.

7. , $120M, artificial intelligence: New York-based Norm AI secured a $120 million Series C led by at a reported $1.2 billion valuation to expand its AI-powered regulatory compliance platform. The company develops AI systems that translate complex laws and regulations into software to help enterprises automate their compliance workflows. The latest funding included a long list of other venture, corporate and individual backers including , , , and , the chairman of and former president of , which also participated in Norm AI鈥檚 deal. The startup has now raised just over $256 million, .

8. , $91M, aerospace and defense: Aerospace continues to draw substantial investor attention, as was the case this week with Houston-based Venus Aerospace鈥檚 $91 million Series B. backed the round, which will be used to advance development of Venus鈥� hypersonic propulsion technology. The company is building engines and aircraft designed to dramatically reduce long-distance flight times while supporting future defense applications. It has now raised $197 million total. An of investors joined in its Series B, including , , , and .

9. , $76M, fintech: Digital asset exchange EDX Markets raised $76 million as institutional interest in crypto trading infrastructure continues to grow. The deal was backed by sole investor , marking the second large crypto funding deal for the Japanese firm this week, along with Gauntlet鈥檚 aforementioned round. EDX operates a marketplace designed specifically for institutional investors. It鈥檚 not clear how much it raised in previous rounds.

10. , $67.4M, biotechnology: Philadelphia-based Fore Biotherapeutics (previously known as NovellusDx) raised $67.4 million in Series D funding to advance its precision oncology therapies targeting rare cancer mutations. The company is developing targeted treatments for patients whose tumors are driven by specific genetic alterations. led the latest round, which brings its total to date to just over $274 million. , , , and other investors also joined.

Large non-US deals:

Several startups based outside the U.S. also raised notable fundings this week. They include:

• , 鈧�411M, fusion energy: Munich-based Proxima Fusion raised a 鈧�411 million (about $468 million) Series B funding round to develop what鈥檚 poised to become Europe鈥檚 first commercial fusion energy power plant. Lead investors in the round include , , and .
• , 鈧�200M, workplace tech: led the 鈧�200 million ($229 million) private-equity round for Paris-based Skello, which makes HR software for employers to handle tasks such as payroll, scheduling, compliance and employee communications.

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 July 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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Our inboxes overflowed with interesting deals in the past month, but we managed to sift through them all to find the five most intriguing ones.

They include a startup that鈥檚 simultaneously developing AI models for biology and trying to prevent the threats that stem from those types of advances, a company that says it wants to prevent modern day private markets from the kind of paperwork crisis that shut down Wall Street in the ’60s, and AI agents that can dispatch plumbers and electricians to your door.

$50M for ‘general biological intelligence’

AI has conquered text, images and code. Now one startup wants to do the same for DNA.

San Francisco-based last month emerged from stealth with a hefty $50 million seed round led by , with participation from , , and . The startup said it also received pre-seed backing from co-founder .

Radical Numerics was founded by the team behind , one of the first AI models capable of reading and generating DNA sequences at scale. The startup鈥檚 mission is even more ambitious: building what it calls 鈥済eneral biological intelligence,鈥� or multimodal AI models that can reason across DNA, RNA, proteins and other biological data to accelerate drug discovery, cancer diagnostics and biosecurity.

Alongside the funding, the company previewed Omnii, its next-generation genome language model.

The company’s dual focus on human health and biodefense reflects a growing theme in frontier AI investing. SA国际传媒 data shows that as models become increasingly capable of designing biological systems, investors have poured tens of millions of dollars into startups that promise not only to accelerate scientific discovery, but also help detect and defend against AI-generated biological threats.

鈥淓vo showed that AI can generate DNA and whole genomes, the next generation of models will go further with the ability to control function, and eventually, create entirely new forms of life,鈥� Radical Numerics CEO said in a statement. 鈥淥ur multimodal models are already far more capable, and we understand the responsibility that comes with that. The same models that can help cure disease may also lower the barrier to designing harmful biology. These forces are inseparable. Biology will be the most consequential application of AI.鈥�

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$40M for AI that dispatches the plumber

The AI gold rush has reached an unlikely destination: your local plumber and HVAC company. New York-based said last month that it has raised $40 million in new funding: a $34 million Series A led by and a $6 million seed round led by , with Sequoia also participating in the Series A.

The startup is building what it calls an AI operating system for home service businesses, from plumbers and electricians to HVAC contractors. Rather than adding yet another AI chatbot or voice agent, Probook says it aims to replace the patchwork of software many contractors use with a single platform centered on dispatch, arguably the most critical function in the business.

Its software ties together customer intake, scheduling, messaging and outbound communications so technicians spend less time waiting for jobs and office staff spend less time coordinating them.

“I started Probook to solve a problem in my own business,” Probook CEO and co-founder said in a statement. “I grew up pressure washing in upstate New York with my dad. Six summers in the truck. I spent two to three hours of my day driving between jobs. I’d be up on a ladder washing a house and miss calls because I couldn’t hear my phone ringing.”

The company is tapping into a growing trend of vertical AI startups targeting industries that have historically lagged in software adoption, and they鈥檙e seeing keen enthusiasm from investors betting that trades such as plumbing, electrical and HVAC represent a massive opportunity to automate workflows and potentially boost profit margins for businesses that still run much of their operations by phone, clipboard and spreadsheet.

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$25M for subterranean warfare

Defense investors have poured billions into startups developing drones and missiles for the sky, tanks and other vehicles for land warfare, and autonomous military vessels for the water.

But a newly funded startup, , is betting the next battlefield is below the ground. The Austin-based startup emerged from stealth last month with a $25 million seed round led by , with participation from a long list of other investors including , , , and , and strategic angels including and founders from and .

Traysar calls itself the world’s first “subterra” defense tech company. Rather than building systems for the skies or seas, it’s developing autonomous platforms that can tunnel underground, map subterranean networks, breach hardened infrastructure and deliver payloads beneath the Earth’s surface. It鈥檚 there that it says modern warfare is increasingly being conducted in places like Iran, with its underground nuclear bunkers; Gaza, which has a vast Hamas-built subterranean tunnel network; and Ukraine, which has moved more of its military infrastructure beneath the surface to protect it from aerial drone threats.

The startup, whose founding team includes former engineers from and , is developing two autonomous underground systems. The first is an excavator-type robot designed to navigate, map and breach tunnels from within, giving military operators a way to explore or disable underground networks without sending in troops.

The second is a high-speed burrowing platform that drills new underground access points and can carry payloads 鈥� from explosives to sensing equipment 鈥� beneath the surface, bringing tunnel-boring technology to the battlefield.

Through the first half of 2026, defense-tech startups globally raised nearly $15.8 billion, by far the largest funding half-year for the sector on record, per SA国际传媒 data. Of course, the vast majority of that has gone toward above-ground or marine technologies.

鈥淭he global defense industry has a vertical bias: hundreds of billions flow skyward into missiles, missile defense, drones, and counter-drone systems, while adversaries dig in building deeply buried facilities the U.S. cannot reliably strike, and cannot affordably keep disabled,鈥� Traysar in its funding announcement.

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$23.7M for AI growth tools for small businesses

Most AI startups chase large enterprise customers. is betting the neighborhood coffee shop and corner restaurant are the bigger opportunity.

The New York-based startup last month emerged from stealth with $23.7 million in funding, including a $19.5 million Series A led by . , ‘s , , , , and also participated.

Pie says it鈥檚 creating an AI-powered growth platform that helps local merchants get discovered听 across AI search platforms like ChatGPT and Claude where customers increasingly begin their searches, as well as more traditional marketing channels like Maps, and .

The company also unveiled Front Desk, an AI agent that it says can answer calls around the clock, book appointments and handle customer inquiries when business owners can’t get to the phone.

Founded by former and executives, Pie says it has already reached thousands of businesses through partnerships with industry software providers while operating in stealth.

鈥淧ie is bringing AI to Main Street by starting with one of the biggest pain points for small business owners: finding new customers,鈥� , partner at Lightspeed, said in a statement. 鈥淐ustomer acquisition is a powerful entry point, but the broader vision is to build an AI platform that can support small businesses across more of their daily operations over time.鈥�

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$2M to tackle the private market paperwork crisis

Wall Street once got so buried in paperwork that the shut down every Wednesday . Six decades later, Berlin-based thinks private markets are headed toward a similar reckoning and just raised $2 million to stop it.

The company鈥檚 pre-seed round was led by , with participation from and individuals from firms including and .

Founded by two early employees of fund administration startup , Nomerra is building AI agents for the operational work that keeps private capital markets running behind the scenes.

While public markets rely on standardized infrastructure, private markets still depend heavily on emails, PDFs, spreadsheets and disconnected software, the company said. Its software plugs into existing ERP systems, banking platforms and document repositories, then uses AI agents to read documents, reconcile information across systems and complete workflows such as fund accounting, treasury operations and transfer agency work.

At the same time, private markets are expected to swell from roughly $13 trillion today to more than $30 trillion over the coming years, according to Nomerra, even as the industry faces a shortage of qualified accounting and operations professionals.

Rather than replacing existing software, the company says it aims to automate the manual tasks that have traditionally required growing back-office teams.

鈥淭hink of how telephone operators used to connect one caller to another by plugging cables into a switchboard,鈥� , Nomerra co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. 鈥淭oday, the idea that humans once routed every phone call manually seems absurd. Private market operations are at the same turning point. In a few years, people will look back and wonder how any of this was ever done by hand.鈥�

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