Joanna Glasner, Author at Crunchbase News /author/joanna/ Data-driven reporting on private markets, startups, founders, and investors Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:32:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.5 /wp-content/uploads/cb_news_favicon-150x150.png Joanna Glasner, Author at Crunchbase News /author/joanna/ 32 32 Anthropic Files Confidentially For IPO /public/ai-unicorn-anthropic-files-confidentially-for-ipo/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:19:04 +0000 /?p=93634 Monday that it has submitted a confidential filing for a proposed IPO.

The statement was light on details and did not specify the planned offering size or where it will list. For its most recent funding round, a $65 billion Series H funding announced last week, the San Francisco company more than doubled its post-money valuation to a staggering $965 billion.

With that round, Anthropic also surpassed its closest rival, , in terms of last reported valuation. In February, OpenAI announced it had closed a $110 billion round at an $840 billion post-money valuation.

Anthropic has now raised roughly $125 billion from investors, per Crunchbase data.

The path to the public markets

The IPO filing marks an escalation in the race among generative AI behemoths to make it first to the public market. That said, it could still be while.

Before making its market debut, Anthropic must still receive a sign-off from securities regulators on its confidential filing. After that, it will need to submit its public filing, carry out its pre-IPO roadshow, and put the remaining pieces in place for an offering of this presumed magnitude.

How long could it take? It鈥檚 unclear, of course, but if we use as a proxy, things could proceed briskly. SpaceX, which is reportedly seeking a valuation of $1.8 trillion or more, submitted its confidential filing on April 1. The company is expected to begin trading this month, with multiple reports citing June 12 as the target date.

If Anthropic follows a similar timeline, we could potentially see a market debut in August. Before that, however, will be the public filing of its IPO prospectus, which will offer a long-awaited peek under the hood at Anthropic鈥檚 famously fast revenue growth and the scope of the capital expenditures it has taken to get there.

As someone who has used the word boring in IPO market headlines many times in the past, one thing that can assuredly be said is that word no longer applies.

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Boston Startup Fundraising Looks Strong Only By Pre-AI Parameters /venture/boston-startup-funding-gains-ai-biotech-healthcare-whoop/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:00:05 +0000 /?p=93622 Startup investment in the Boston metro area has been trending higher for the past couple years. Even so, the region鈥檚 funding gains haven鈥檛 kept pace with the massive AI-driven increases in overall U.S. venture investment.

So far this year, investors have put about $7.8 billion into Boston-area startups, per Crunchbase That puts the region on track for a moderate annual gain and the strongest tally in about four years, as charted below.

Invidious comparison

Under normal circumstances, such numbers might be celebrated as pretty strong. But many Bostonians don鈥檛 see it that way.

鈥淔or the first time, startups in Texas raised more VC money than those in Massachusetts,鈥 one headline this spring. Earlier this year, another correspondent concerns from local startup backers and builders that the tech startup scene is thinning out.

At root, the issue may not be that Bostonians are delivering so little investable startup talent, but rather that other places are swimming in unprecedented capital. This kind of invidious comparison is particularly stark in the AI realm.

Overall, North America venture funding hit a record high in the first quarter of this year, surging to $252 billion. Of that, more than 87% went to companies in Crunchbase AI-related categories.

Few of those AI mega-fundraisers were in Massachusetts. The biggest, most heavily funded names in generative AI, like , and others, are predominantly headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. That means Boston didn鈥檛 get a slice of history鈥檚 largest startup funding rounds.

By contrast, biotech, a traditional area of strength for the Boston area, hasn鈥檛 been on a funding tear. True, there鈥檚 no dramatic slump. But in a time when a single venture-backed AI company can snag $122 billion in a , biotech round sizes can鈥檛 compete for scale.

Standout rounds

Still, by pre-AI standards of venture funding, Boston has been scaling some heavy hitters.

Per Crunchbase , at least 12 companies in the greater metro area听1 raised rounds of $200 million or more this year, listed below.

The largest round went to , a provider of wearable fitness technology and a subscription platform that raised $575 million in Series G funding at a $10.1 billion valuation in March. The company says it is powered by more than 24 billion hours of physiological data and purpose-built AI models to provide predictive, personalized health insights.

, a provider of consumer privacy and security tools, came in second. It secured $375 million in Series B funding in March led by and .

Next on the list is , which provides healthcare plans to seniors on Medicare. The 9-year-old company disclosed in January that it had closed on $366 million across two Series F funding tranches.

Biotech startups, meanwhile, didn鈥檛 make the top 3 but were heavily represented on the list. Overall, more than half of funded startups in the list are focused on biotech or healthcare.

Why compare?

Boston isn鈥檛 the San Francisco Bay Area, and it certainly isn鈥檛 Texas. So it鈥檚 worth asking: What is the point of comparing startup ecosystems? Is a metro area flailing if it doesn鈥檛 keep up with a particular major innovation cycle, even if it maintains core areas of strength?

At risk of over-generalizing, we鈥檇 conclude that competitive rank still matters. A metro area can retain its crown as a startup innovation hub only if it continues to produce transformative companies.

For Boston, there鈥檚 no indication the region is losing its edge in biotech and other sectors where it鈥檚 long been an established powerhouse. However, in the generative AI era, it鈥檚 also evident that the region has not produced one of the most high-valuation players in the space, and that鈥檚 put some ding in the city鈥檚 reputation as a leading innovation hub.

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  1. We queried funding to all startups in the state of Massachusetts as the overwhelming majority are within the outer limits of what could be considered the Boston metro area. No major funding recipients that we saw were too far away to meet these parameters.

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The Week鈥檚 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Anthropic Dominates In An Otherwise Slower Week For Megarounds /ai/biggest-funding-rounds-ai-anthropic-65b-dominates/ Fri, 29 May 2026 19:15:09 +0000 /?p=93627 Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2026 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase 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.

Venture funding has always been a world of haves and have nots. And these days, the haves are having more than ever. Case in point this week was . The 5-year-old generative AI giant secured $65 billion in Series H funding this week, pushing its post-money valuation to a mind-blowing $965 billion.

After that, the next-biggest financing was a $1 billion round for AI software development tool maker , lifting its valuation to $26 billion. Companies in a range of other sectors also managed to secure sizable though smaller rounds, in areas including commerce logistics, developer AI, insurtech, fusion and more.

1. , $65B, foundational AI: Generative AI company Anthropic raised $65 billion in a Series H funding round, more than doubling its post-money valuation to a staggering $965 billion. San Francisco-based Anthropic said , , and led the financing, and that , , , , and co-led the investment.

2. , $1B, AI software development: Cognition, developer of AI software engineer Devin, has closed on over $1 billion at a $26 billion valuation. , , and 1听led the financing for the San Francisco-based company.

3. , $250M, logistics: Atlanta-based Stord, developer of a fulfillment network, software and AI tools for independent brands, secured $250 million in Series F funding. The round set a $3 billion valuation for the 11-year-old company.

4. , $113M, AI for developers: OpenRouter, a marketplace for AI models, secured $113 million in Series B funding. led the financing for the New York-based startup.

5. , $106M, insurtech: San Francisco-based Corgi Insurance, developer of an AI-native insurance platform for startups, picked up $106 million in Series B1 funding led by . The financing, which set a $2.6 billion valuation, comes just three weeks after Corgi $160 million in Series B funding at a $1.3 billion valuation.

6. (tied) , $100M, fusion energy: Kearny, New Jersey-based Thea Energy, a developer of technology for fusion energy systems, raised $100 million in Series B funding led by . Thea says the funding will go toward manufacturing infrastructure.

6. (tied) , $100M, healthcare data: Garner Health, a platform for finding healthcare providers, closed on $100 million in Series E funding led by . The financing set a $2.74 billion for the New York-based company.

8. , $90M, space tech: Observable Space, a space tech startup that develops and builds advanced optical systems, says it raised $90 million in Series A funding led by to scale manufacturing and develop its technology. The Santa Monica, California-based company also announced that it secured a $94 million contract with the.

9. , $59M, AI video: Reactor, a San Francisco-based developer platform for real-time generative video, emerged from stealth with $59 million in funding led by .

10. , $52M, cancer detection: San Diego-based ClearNote Health, a developer of early detection and monitoring tests for multiple forms of cancer, picked up $52 million in Series D financing. Founding investor led the round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of May 23-29. 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 Crunchbase. They have no say in our editorial process. For more, head here.

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The SpaceX IPO Filing Looks Nothing Like Those Of The Elite Group Of Tech Giants It’s Hoping To Join /public/spacex-ipo-filing-different-nvda-goog-appl-msft-amzn/ Thu, 21 May 2026 18:35:49 +0000 /?p=93583 filed its public IPO prospectus Wednesday, highlighting many amazing things that it has accomplished. Turning a profit is not one of them.

At least not these days. The space and AI pioneer posted a net loss of $4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up more than 700% from a year ago. Revenue, meanwhile, totaled $4.69 billion in Q1, up 15% from a year ago.

As a public company, SpaceX is reportedly seeking a valuation of around $1.5 trillion or more, . It鈥檚 aiming to raise up to $80 billion or more in the offering, which would make it the largest IPO in history.

At its target valuation, SpaceX would join a rarified club of just seven U.S. public technology companies with market caps of $1.5 trillion or more. Of those, just five have crossed the $2 trillion mark.

Of course, those companies took time to grow into their 13-digit valuations. But at some point, they too made their first public IPO filings. And they too had revenue.

The similarities end there. For a sense of how SpaceX compares at IPO time to other members of the trillion-plus-club, we took a look at their original S-1s from the 1980s and onward. Here鈥檚 what their numbers looked like just before their public market debuts:

: Today, the Silicon Valley chip designer is a $5.3 trillion market cap company. Anyone who invested in its 1999 IPO, needless to say, has done extraordinarily well.

At the time of its market debut, of course, such a trajectory was not obvious. Still, it looked like a solid bet. The company, which then focused on designing 3D graphics processors for the PC market, had $93 million in revenue for the three reported quarters prior to its IPO, growing severalfold year over year. Over the same period, it posted a modest $3.5 million loss.

: Google was already the dominant player in online search when it went public in 2004, with impressive financials to boot. Revenue for the first half of that year totaled $1.35 billion, more than doubling in a year, paired with a $326 million profit.

While that was impressive, so is Google鈥檚 ongoing growth. Currently, its market cap is $4.7 trillion and it posts more than $400 billion in annual revenue, with massive profits as well.

: The iconic smartphone and computing giant knows a thing or two about longevity. Apple turned 50 last month, and it went public over 45 years ago, in 1980.

It was an impressive and attention-getting offering for the time, with $118 million in sales and nearly $12 million in profit. It helped that Apple was already a prominent consumer brand at the time due to its popular home computers. These days, its market cap hovers around $4.5 trillion.

: Microsoft went public in 1986, so it鈥檚 had some 40 years to grow into its current $3.1 trillion valuation. But even back in the era of big hair and floppy disks, the software giant鈥檚 IPO prospectus showed clear signs this would be no ordinary market entrant.

In the year before its IPO, Microsoft had revenue of $140 million and net income of $24 million. That income figure, however, includes stepped-up spending on marketing and R&D. Without those expenses, profit margins looked astoundingly high for a time before software business models were status quo.

: At the time of its public offering in 1997, Amazon was known as an online bookseller, branding itself as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” All the other stuff came later.

Still, it was a compelling offering at the time, with Amazon growing annual sales from zilch to around $16 million in just two-and-half years after its inception. It pitched losses as part of its growth strategy, which called for investing heavily in marketing and promotion, site development and operating infrastructure.

Needless to say, things worked out well, with Amazon currently valued at more than $2.8 trillion.

SpaceX is not like the others

If we look at the most valuable public tech companies, a few commonalities about their earlier days stand out. All went public relatively early in their operating histories and debuted with sharply growing revenue and either profits or losses in the single-digit millions.

SpaceX, founded in 2002, looks by comparison like an oldster for a company on the cusp of a public market debut. It鈥檚 also worth pointing out that Google, founded in 1998, is only four years older than SpaceX. That means, it鈥檚 had 28 years to grow into becoming a company with over $400 billion in revenue over the past 12 months and $138 billion in operating income.

SpaceX, by contrast, has had 24 years to grow into becoming a company that loses $4.3 billion in a single quarter.

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Where Funded Founders Went To School: 2026 Edition /venture/top-universities-funded-founders-2026-stanford/ Thu, 21 May 2026 11:00:31 +0000 /?p=93578 Founding a successful startup requires a combination of ingenuity and mettle that one can鈥檛 easily learn in school. Nonetheless, attending a prestigious university certainly seems to help.

Those are once again the findings from our annual Crunchbase survey of where recently funded founders attended college or university. We found that alumni of the most selective U.S. schools secure a disproportionately high share of startup funding rounds.

There were no surprising names at the top of the list. The usual frontrunners 鈥 , , and 听 鈥 once again topped our ranking.

Several prestigious public research universities also scored high, along with a handful of private schools known for competitive admissions processes. Schools in or near metro areas that are startup funding hubs also showed an edge.

To illustrate, we ranked the top 37 schools for funded founders below. The ranking tracks the number of founders affiliated with each school whose startups raised seed through growth-stage funding this past year.

Let鈥檚 not understate the dominance of the leading schools

It might be nice to write a story about how choice of school need not affect one鈥檚 chances of venture-backed startup success. The data, however, indicates quite the opposite.

The dominance of alums from the top-ranked schools should not be understated. Over the past year, just over 4,400 rounds of $500,000 or more went to founders with U.S. university affiliations in Crunchbase. Of those rounds, roughly half went to companies with at least one founder who attended one of the top seven schools.

The top three are particularly heavy hitters, with startups with Stanford, Harvard and MIT alumni as founders drawing more than 30% of funding rounds we tracked to U.S. university-affiliated founders.

Moreover, alums of top-ranked schools also scored many of the largest funding rounds of the past year.

CEO and co-founder has degrees from Stanford and . And among recently founded heavy hitters, , co-founder of the behind AI coding tool Cursor, is an MIT grad.

is a weird one in that its founding leadership includes prestigious college dropouts. CEO and co-founder attended Stanford, while president and co-founder attended MIT and Harvard. Neither got a degree.

Flagship public universities underperform

In the realm of public universities, once again, data contradicts the preferred narrative.

Fans of flagship public universities know that these are venerable institutions when it comes to education, research and preparing graduates for successful careers. Yet despite the fact that a majority of American college students attend public institutions, these schools are not heavily represented at the top of our funded founder rankings.

UC Berkeley, of course, is the exception. As a highly selective university close to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, it鈥檚 reliably in the top four and is renowned in particular for its engineering talent. The only other public university in our top 10 is , which benefits from its large size, strong reputation and engineering talent, particularly with the growth in physical AI as a venture investment hot spot.

Now, we don鈥檛 want to sound too negative. While public universities don鈥檛 top the ranks, flagship schools nonetheless do churn out a lot of funded founders. Some that made our ranking include , , , , and , among others.

Ivies and other selective private schools

Every one of the eight universities in the made our ranking, indicating that these East Coast institutions founded in the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s are also pretty adept at launching students into the present-day startup ecosystem.

Other private universities that ranked high include , known for its robotics prowess, , which benefits from its Manhattan locale, and , which has become increasingly competitive for admissions in recent decades.

Business schools are heavy contributors

It鈥檚 also worth noting that for many universities, a high portion of funded founder alumni attended their business schools.

Among founders from University of Pennsylvania raising funds this past year, a whopping 60% went to its . For Harvard, 38% of funded founders in our 2026 analysis attended . And at , more than a quarter went to its .

While enrollment in U.S. MBA programs overall has been declining in recent years, among funded founder types, degrees from top-tier schools are clearly still opening doors.

No success without trying

The missing metric in all this analysis is something that Crunchbase data doesn鈥檛 capture: Who are the founders who tried unsuccessfully to build funded startups and where did they go to school?

Given this blank spot in the data, it鈥檚 hard to say if the preponderance of funded founders from prestige schools is the result of more of them attempting to build startups or having a higher success rate, or both.

My guess would be it鈥檚 a mix of both. We hear about the Harvard or Stanford dropouts who became billionaires. But surely there are many more would-be entrepreneurs we never hear about who took a leave of absence from school, tried something without success, and then returned to complete their degrees. Or those who launched dorm room startups that didn鈥檛 become the next .

Either way, it does seem to help one鈥檚 chances of being a funded founder to attend a school in a location like the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston or New York City. Networking comes easier when one is already geographically in the center of the action.

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Sector Snapshot: Quantum Computing Startup Investment Slows In 2026 While Public Markets Hold Strong /venture/quantum-computing-startup-investment-data-quantinuum-ipo/ Mon, 18 May 2026 11:00:57 +0000 /?p=93546 These are pretty good times to be a public quantum computing company. The leading pure-play names are collectively valued at over $36 billion, bolstered in recent quarters by investor enthusiasm around next-generation computing.

On the startup front, however, the scene has been slower to heat up this year. While deal counts remain robust, and big rounds are still getting done, overall funding is on track to decline some from last year鈥檚 peaks, despite some large rounds in recent weeks.听

The numbers: So far this year, companies in Crunchbase鈥檚 quantum computing category have pulled in $1.2 billion in seed- through growth-stage funding. That puts investment on track to come in below last year鈥檚 record-setting $4.1 billion haul, even with some large rounds announced in recent weeks.

Overall, however, it鈥檚 a strong showing relative to other recent years, for both deal count and total investment, as charted below.

Standout deals

This month has been the busiest of the year for large quantum financings, Crunchbase data shows.

The biggest round for 2026 鈥 a $200 million financing for Vancouver-based 鈥 closed just last week. The 9-year-old company, which develops commercial-scale quantum computers and quantum networks, secured a valuation of $2 billion.

Another large funding recipient this month was , a Dutch startup building what it says will be the world鈥檚 largest dedicated quantum open architecture fab. It secured $178 million in a Series B.

Around the same time, , a London-based startup focused on silicon transistor-based quantum computing, announced a $160 million Series C co-led by and . The startup says its technology can deliver utility-scale computing with a fraction of the cost, space and energy consumption of competing options.

For a broader picture of where capital is concentration, we used Crunchbase data to put together a list of the 10 largest quantum funding recipients of this year.

Public investors favor quantum

Quantum computing startups haven鈥檛 produced much in the way of profits yet. However, several higher-profile players have made it to public markets over the years, and lately investors seem to like what they see.

The four most prominent pure-play public quantum computing companies 鈥 , , 听补苍诲 鈥 are collectively valued around $36 billion by market cap today. That鈥檚 down from the peak late last year but still many multiples ahead of where these companies were a couple years ago.

Meanwhile, this spring another quantum newcomer made its debut. Toronto-based , developer of a photonic quantum computing platform, went public via a SPAC merger on and the . Its recent market cap was around $5 billion.

Public quantum computing companies have been acquiring private startups as well, often for big sums. The largest deal this past year was IonQ鈥檚 $1.08 billion purchase of , a startup known for its research prowess in quantum performance.听

D-Wave Quantum another sizable acquisition early this year, snapping up , a developer of quantum computing systems, for $550 million in stock and cash.

All eyes on Quantinuum

The most closely-watched exit in the quantum space, meanwhile, is expected in coming weeks. This month, , provider of a full-stack platform for quantum computing that is majority owned by , filed to go public on the Nasdaq.

Broomfield, Colorado-based Quantinuum a $10 billion pre-money valuation for its last private fundraise in September. While it鈥檚 not yet clear what valuation the company anticipates for its public offering, the expectation is that it will be substantially above that level.

Wherever it lands, one thing is clear: Quantum computing has a plenty of fans in the investor class who are increasingly convinced early movers can deliver in transforming technological breakthroughs into impressive earnings.

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The Week鈥檚 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Anduril Leads Varied Lineup Of Large Deals /venture/biggest-funding-rounds-anduril-voltagrid-mind-robotics/ Fri, 15 May 2026 19:50:02 +0000 /?p=93548 Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2026 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase 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.

Defense tech unicorn led the fundraising lineup in a week heavy with rounds for companies focused on applications in the physical world. Anduril鈥檚 $5 billion financing was by far the biggest. Other large rounds went to companies focused on supplying data power, robotics, space tech, biotech, and even strawberries.

1.听, $5B, defense tech: Defense tech unicorn Anduril Industries 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, .听听

2.听, $775M, energy: Houston-based VoltaGrid, a provider of mobile natural gas generators for data centers, microgrids and industrial applications, secured $1 billion in strategic investment from and . The investment includes $775 million in capital funding and a $225 million secondary purchase from existing investors.

3.听, $400M, robotics: Palo Alto, California-based Mind Robotics, developer of an AI-enabled industrial robotics platform, picked up $400 million in new financing led by . The round brings total funding to date to more than $1 billion for the startup, which launched in 2025 as a spinout of .

4.听, $275M, space tech: Cowboy Space, a developer of rockets and satellite infrastructure to power and run AI compute in space, closed on $275 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation. led the financing for the San Carlos, California-based startup, which was founded by co-founder .听

5.听, $150M, indoor farming: Oishii, operator of highly automated indoor farms for growing strawberries, raised $150 million in Series C funding led by . Founded in 2016, the Jersey City, New Jersey-headquartered startup has raised $370 million in total funding to date.

6.听, $125M, cybersecurity: San Jose-based Exaforce, developer of an AI-native security operations platform, secured $125 million in Series B funding from backers including , , , 听补苍诲听 .

7.听, $122M, biotech: Create Medicines, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup focused on in vivo immunotherapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer, closed on $122 million in Series B funding. , , and led the financing.

8.听, $100M, autonomy: Providence, Rhode Island-based HavocAI, a provider of tools for developing military and commercial-grade autonomous systems across sea, air and land, secured $100 million in Series A funding. The round brings total funding to date for the 2-year-old company to $200 million.

9.听, $65M, space tech: Star Catcher, a startup that says it is building the first power grid in space by beaming concentrated solar energy on demand to satellites, picked up $65 million in Series A funding. , and led the financing for the Jacksonville, Florida-based company, which was founded less than two years ago.

10.听, $64M, data center power: GridCare, developer of technology to more efficiently provide power to AI data centers, raised $64 million in Series A funding. led the financing for the Redwood City, California-based startup.听

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Cerebras Shares Soar In First Day On Nasdaq /ai/cerebras-ipo-cbrs/ Thu, 14 May 2026 17:21:02 +0000 /?p=93536 Shares of closed up 68% at $311.07 on Thursday, their first day of trading on the , valuing the company at an estimated $86 billion. Shares had opened at $350 in their public-market debut on Thursday after pricing at $185 a piece the day before.

Shares of the company, which develops AI computing chips and large-scale AI systems, now trade under the ticker symbol CBRS. Earlier, Cerebras had priced its shares听well above the projected range of $150 to $160, raising at least $5.55 billion for the company, according to a .听

The IPO has been a long time coming for Sunnyvale, California-based Cerebras, which initially filed publicly for an IPO in September 2024. It withdrew the planned offering a year later, opting to continue raising capital in private markets.

Cerebras was a prodigious fundraiser as a private company. It secured $2.85 billion in equity funding and $1.85 billion in debt financing over the years, per Crunchbase data, securing most of that total in the past year.

The company’s largest venture stakeholders include (11.3% of Class B common stock), (9.5%), (8.3%), (7.3%) and (6.5%). Benchmark, Foundation and Eclipse were lead investors in Cerebras鈥 $27 million Series A in 2016, so they appear poised to see the largest percentage gains on their holdings.

Investors in the Cerebras IPO, meanwhile, are banking on even more growth and valuation gains ahead. That said, growth of late has been impressive. Revenue increased to $510.0 million in 2025, representing year-over-year growth of 76%, and up more than sixfold over two years.

The company has an impressive list of partners and customers as well. Earlier this year, Cerebras signed a to partner with in integrating its technology into OpenAI鈥檚 compute systems. Other customers on its website include , and .

Looking ahead, Cerebras said in its IPO filing that it expects to invest more in research and development as well as sales and marketing. As for a marketing strategy, the company seems to have settled on speed, pitching itself as the builder of 鈥渢he fastest AI infrastructure in the world.鈥澨

In coming quarters, we鈥檒l see if it succeeds in delivering on that promise at scale.

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April鈥檚 Most Active US Investors Included Some Usual Suspects, And Some Unusual Ones /venture/most-active-us-investors-april-2026-a16z-khosla-y-combinator-google-amazon/ Thu, 14 May 2026 11:00:30 +0000 /?p=93533 These are strange times for startup investment. Standard seed and venture rounds in the millions or tens of millions are still happening at a steady clip. At the same time, AI leaders still young enough to qualify as startups are securing investments and valuations at exponentially higher sums.

The result is a funding scene that is drawing sustained high activity from top-name venture firms听 as well as big checks from relative newcomers and megacap strategic investors. That鈥檚 reflected in April鈥檚 tally of most active U.S. startup investors, with rankings topped by well-established VCs such as and , tech giants like and , and a few names that don鈥檛 commonly show up in the lists.

To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to aggregate most active investor rankings across multiple metrics, including venture deal count, lead rounds, and highest value lead rounds.

Most active venture investors

We鈥檒l start with most active venture investors, looking at those who participated in the largest number of startup funding rounds for $5 million or more at any stage.

By this metric, came out on top, with 11 rounds. The famed accelerator commonly tops this ranking as it participates as a non-lead investor in follow-on rounds for startups it incubated.

Khosla Ventures and tied for second, with nine rounds each, followed by and with seven rounds each. Below we rank the top X most active venture investors for the month:

Neo鈥檚 inclusion is noteworthy as it鈥檚 a newcomer to the top of the ranks. The San Francisco incubator has an investment model that shares similarities with Y Combinator, providing mentorship and seed funding to upstarts and securing participation rights for follow-on rounds.

Another standout high in the rankings with six deals was , an investor focused on diverse and inclusive teams that has strong ties to the LGBTQ+ community. Gaingels has long been a prolific seed investor and participant in follow-on rounds. But as average deal sizes overall rise, Gaingels鈥 follow-on rounds have been getting bigger too.

Most active and highest spending lead investors

Among lead investors, Khosla Ventures took the top slot, with a lead- or co-lead role in seven April rounds exceeding $5 million. Andreessen Horowitz was the next-busiest lead investor, with five deals.

For a bigger-picture view, below we list the top X most active lead investors for April:

When we turn to highest-spending lead investors, the ranks shift some. This list looks at investors who led or co-led rounds with the highest aggregate value in April.听

It鈥檚 not an exact tally of who put the most capital to work, given that syndicate rounds don鈥檛 break out each lead investors鈥 share. However, it does provide a general idea of the heaviest spenders.

For April, Google was the single largest lead investor, thanks to its reported $10 billion investment in , a deal that includes terms for another potential $30 billion to come. Amazon was next on the list, with a $5 billion Anthropic investment of its own, and up to $20 billion to come, as part of a for compute power.

Next on the list were two that don鈥檛 typically top our ranks: and . The two firms co-led a $1 billion April Series F for AI data and computing platform at a $30 billion valuation.

Overall, a bit slower

While the April active investor data doesn鈥檛 scream 鈥渟lowdown,鈥 the month was nonetheless somewhat less busy than March in terms of deal counts by top dealmakers. Given that AI enthusiasm has not dissipated and massive deals continue to get done, it鈥檚 not clear that is an indicator of changing investor appetites.听

For now, we鈥檒l avoid reading too much into month-to-month fluctuations and wait to see whether further tallies point to a broader change in the investment climate.

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The Week鈥檚 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Enterprise AI, Space Tech And Biotech Top The Ranks /venture/biggest-funding-rounds-sierra-astrani-anagram-therapeutics/ Fri, 08 May 2026 18:06:16 +0000 /?p=93522 Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2026 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase 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.

Another week, another infusion of big AI rounds. For this past week, the largest fundraiser by a long shot was , a developer of AI customer experience tools that picked up $950 million. Other big rounds went to companies in sectors including satellite development, biotech, and, yes, more vertical AI and AI infrastructure.

1. , $950M, customer experience AI: Sierra, a provider of AI-driven tools for customer experience management, raised $950 million in fresh funding at a $15 billion valuation. and led the financing for the three-year-old, San Francisco-based company.

2.听, $455M, space tech: Astranis, a developer of advanced satellites for high orbits, secured $450 million in equity and debt investment. The financing included a $300 million Series E equity round led by and and up to $155 million in credit through .听

3.听, $250M, biotech: Natick, Massachusetts-based Anagram Therapeutics, a developer of a pill for people living with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency due to cystic fibrosis, pancreatic cancer and related disorders, closed on $250 million in new funding from .听

4.听, $200M, AI software development: Blitzy, developer of an autonomous software development platform, picked up $200 million in fresh funding at a $1.4 billion valuation. Northzone led the financing for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company.听听

5. , $160M, insurance: Corgi Insurance, provider of an AI-native insurance platform for startups, secured $160 million in Series B funding. led the financing, which set a $1.3 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.听

6. , $140M, renewable energy: Portland, Oregon-based Panthalassa, which aims to perform AI inference computing at sea using power generated from ocean waves, raised $140 million in a Series B financing led by .

7. , $125M, insurance: Reserv, a provider of third-party administrator services to the insurance industry, closed on $125 million in a Series C funding round led by . Launched in 2022, New York-based Reserv has raised over $200 million in known funding to date, per Crunchbase data.

8.听, $107M, AI infrastructure: DeepInfra, a cloud platform for high-throughput AI inference, landed $107 million in Series B funding. and led the financing for the four-year-old, Palo Alto, California-based company.

9. , $60M, vertical AI: San Jose, California-based Tessera Labs, developer of an AI platform for enterprise ERP systems and data, secured $60 million in a funding round led by .听

10. , $56M, gaming: Astrocade, developer of an AI platform for creating, building and playing games, announced $56 million in new funding. The funding for the Los Altos, California-based company includes a Series B led by and a Series A led by , Astrocade said.听

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