led the round, which included participation from , , , , and others.

Founded in 2020, New York-based Capchase initially made a name for itself by providing revenue-based financing for SaaS companies. However, by late 2022, the company began to evolve into its current iteration: a vendor-financing technology platform. Capchase embeds itself directly into the sales workflows of companies such as original equipment manufacturers, software vendors and cybersecurity providers.

It has entirely discontinued its revenue-based financing, and instead now focuses on B2B buy now, pay later tools that help software and hardware vendors offer flexible payment terms while getting paid upfront.

The concept addresses a longstanding friction point in enterprise sales: vendors want cash immediately, while buyers want to preserve capital. Rather than forcing a buyer to pay $1 million upfront in 30 days, Capchase allows a sales rep to offer more flexible terms — say, $15,000 per month for up to five years. When the deal is signed, Capchase pays the vendor the full amount upfront, net of a financing fee.

“We started to see that there was a very big pull in the market,” , co-founder and CEO of Capchase, said in an interview. “We saw that sales cycles were expanding, CAC was going up, and all of this was driven by the high interest rates. Buyers wanted to pay as late as possible and pay installments.”

He added: “We shipped a product quickly to solve that need, and we started to get very strong market pull to the point that that ended up eclipsing the other product lines, and we decided to focus everything there.”

Displacing a legacy market with AI

The pivot has unlocked impressive growth. Capchase says it has a 400% growth rate over the past 12 months and forecasts another 200% growth in the upcoming year. Its workforce has scaled alongside this momentum, expanding to 75 employees, up from 50 a year ago.

While legacy banks, independent financing firms and captive financing arms have dominated the $1.3 trillion equipment financing market for decades, Capchase says it differentiates itself by replacing 1980s-era workflows with real-time automation.

Traditional financing approvals often require an email-driven back-and-forth that can take four to 17 days, according to Fernandez. Capchase claims to compress that timeline into seconds.

Capchase uses artificial intelligence and machine learning agents across its platform. For example, an “order generation agent” parses uploaded quotes or purchase orders to create flexible payment links in under 60 seconds — down from a manual process that typically took eight hours — according to Fernandez. As another example, an AI email agent automatically handles multiparty coordination between vendors, resellers and buyers, all without human intervention.

“What makes us different is that we are both the lender and the technology. And AI is what makes the combination work at the speed enterprise tech sales demands,” Fernandez told Crunchbase News in an interview. “We built the credit decisioning engines that allow us to look at all the data these other players look at as well, but we were able to do it and infer it in just seconds.”

Moving upmarket and expanding globally

The new capital will primarily support Capchase’s rapid transition into the enterprise space.

“In the past 24 months, we went from serving vendors in the tens of millions of revenue to in the last 12 months in the hundreds of millions in revenue, and now in the multiple billions of revenue,” Fernandez said.

The startup’s platform now underwrites more stable, established borrowers. The average buyer utilizing Capchase has roughly $80 million in annual revenue, has been operating for over 20 years, and is profitable, he added. This profile has allowed Capchase to maintain a highly controlled risk environment and what he described as a “spectacular” default rate.

Capchase currently supports hundreds of tech vendors and tens of thousands of buyers. Its customer roster features enterprise tech giants, public cybersecurity firms and massive distributors, including , , , and .

Though Capchase keeps its specific financials, valuation and cumulative funding figures confidential, Fernandez confirmed that the latest capital injection represents a valuation step up from its 2021 $80 million Series B round. At the time of that raise, the company had raised more than $400 million in equity and debt.

Looking ahead, Capchase will use its fresh capital to scale beyond its core markets in North America — the U.S. and Canada — and Europe, including the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, the Nordics and Spain. Driven by direct demand from its enterprise partners, the company is officially entering the Australian market this year.

Reducing friction with flexible terms

, co-founder and managing partner of 01 Advisors, said he was drawn to Capchase primarily because of how AI has helped it disrupt traditional vendor financing.

Incumbents possessed plenty of capital but “have never been forced to build real technology because their customers had nowhere else to go,” he wrote via email.

AI fundamentally shifts this dynamic, allowing Capchase to “underwrite a buyer and create accurate docs in 30 seconds,” he said.

This solution hits close to home for Bain, who previously ran the sales team at and says he intimately understands the friction Capchase aims to eliminate. In traditional enterprise sales, momentum frequently stalls when a ready-to-buy customer hits a roadblock over payment terms, forcing sales leaders to either “discount to close, wait for the next budget cycle, or spend weeks negotiating.”

Those outcomes drain margin or time. Capchase completely removes that friction, Bain said, by offering instant approvals and flexible terms.

Fintech startups, particularly those that apply AI to traditionally manual or burdensome processes, have benefited from increased investment in recent quarters. Global funding to VC-backed financial technology startups totaled $53.8 billion in 2025, per Crunchbase . That’s a more than 29% increase from 2024’s total of $41.6 billion raised.

Related Crunchbase query:

Related reading:

• Fintech Startups Globally Raise More Money In Far Fewer Deals In Q1 2026
• Exclusive: Capchase Raises $80M Series B To Give Startups Alternatives To Venture

Illustration:

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’s 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’s 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’s 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’s 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’s 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’s also worth pointing out that Google, founded in 1998, is only four years older than SpaceX. That means, it’s 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.

Related Crunchbase query:

Related reading:

• SpaceX IPO At $1.5T Valuation Would Be 10x Larger Than Biggest VC-Backed Listing Of All Time
• The IPO Pipeline Finally Gets Interesting
• PwC’s US IPO Lead On The 2026 Outlook, IPO Timing And The Secondary Boom
• IPOs Are Holding Up In 2026, But SaaS Debuts Aren’t Happening

Illustration:

His company raised a few million in seed, and lifted the curtain, and … crickets. Nothing happened. Businesses didn’t sign up. My friend was confused while prospective clients hesitated. This simply didn’t sit well with them.

Then the founder decided to do something odd. He charged money on top of the original monetization plan. Same product, same value proposition, but now there is a monthly subscription. Almost overnight, new businesses began signing up.

Today, that startup is worth billions.

This highlights a counterintuitive truth in strategy: In real-world markets, free or lower prices don’t always drive demand. Frequently, they achieve the opposite.

Higher prices amplify perceived value

The price-quality heuristic is a cornerstone of behavioral economics. When buyers lack complete transparency, they use price as a shortcut for quality. This is why identical items, from fine wines to electronics, are rated higher when they cost more. In B2B, this effect is amplified: A cybersecurity solution priced far below the market doesn’t look like a bargain; it looks like a risk.

Pricing dictates customer behavior and expectations

Low entry points tend to attract price-sensitive users who optimize for cost over outcomes. These cohorts are often more prone to churn and demand excessive support. Conversely, premium pricing attracts partners who value reliability and performance. Opting for higher pricing means going after clients with a different mindset. Even in strategic advisory, I see premium pricing as a filter for commitment.

Your price defines your competitive landscape

Pricing at the bottom floor frames the company within a commoditized segment where differentiation is minimal. Pricing at a premium forces a higher standard of depth, service and trust. Price defines who you are competing against and how you will be compared to them.

is a strategic adviser to tech companies and investors, specializing in strategy, growth and M&A, a guest contributor to Crunchbase News, and a seasoned lecturer. Learn more about his advisory services, lectures and courses at . for further insights and discussions.

Illustration:

These in-between exits don’t generate a lot of buzz, but collectively they add up to a tidy sum. Last year, for instance, U.S. startup purchases under $300 million 1 brought in about $8.7 billion altogether, Crunchbase data shows.

These small and mid-sized deals are not a long-term growth area for M&A, by many measures. The total deal value of purchases between $100 million and $300 million last year was still below levels routinely reached nearly a decade ago, as charted below.

Moreover, the total value can add up to just a fraction of a single, larger exit. ’s $32 billion purchase of , for instance, is worth more than 4x all these sub-$300 million deals put together.

Even so, we’re up from prior lows. Startup purchases in this range hit a low point a couple years ago and have rebounded since, with this year off to a brisk start as well.

Smaller deals shrink more

Smaller disclosed-price acquisitions of under $100 million are also well below peak. The volume and value of these deals hit a low in 2024 and has made somewhat of a comeback since, as charted below.

These sub-$100 million purchases are a mixed bag for returns. Investors might recoup solid profits from companies that raised a few million in seed funding and sold for prices in the tens of millions.

In other cases, startups sold for considerably less than the sums they raised in venture investment. Using Crunchbase data, we aggregated a few examples of such deals from the past year. It includes companies with known struggles, such as , which filed for bankruptcy before selling to an acquirer this month.

No power buyers

Notably, there is no “power acquirer” for small and mid-sized startup purchases. Out of 181 sub-$300 million startup acquisitions since 2024 there was no buyer with more than two such deals, per Crunchbase data.

That said, there are companies with a larger number of funded startup purchases, just without reported prices for all or most. Examples include , , , , , and , among others.

When price isn’t disclosed, it’s hard to gauge how founders and investors fared on the deal. That said, most of the more active buyers can certainly afford to pay well. Whether they choose to do so is another matter.

*This is only disclosed-price purchases. Most startup acquisitions do not have a disclosed price.

Related Crunchbase queries:

Related reading:

• Biotech Startup M&A Is Reliably Delivering Some Big Exits
• Crunchbase Predicts: Why The Race For Talent And Tech Could Accelerate Startup M&A In 2026
• M&A The Highest On Record For Unicorn Exits In 2025

Illustration:

A total of 27 companies joined the Unicorn Board last month, including six robotics companies and four semiconductor-related startups. Healthcare minted three new unicorns, while foundation AI, cloud services, aerospace and financial services each accounted for two companies that joined.

The U.S. once again dominated, with 19 companies joining the board. China tallied four new unicorns, the U.K. contributed two, and India and Germany each added one new unicorn.

Soaring valuations

Overall unicorn values soared in February as raised $110 billion at a value of $840 billion, making it the most highly valued private company of all time. Its closest rival, , raised $30 billion at a valuation of $380 billion, making it the fourth-largest valued company on the list. , the autonomous driving technology company, was valued at $126 billion, positioning it among the top 10 most highly valued private companies.

February’s new unicorns

Here are February’s newly minted unicorns.

Robotics

• , a solution for automating building equipment for autonomous construction, raised a $270 million Series B led by and . The 1-year-old company, based in San Francisco, was valued at $1.8 billion.
• Beijing-based , a physical intelligence foundation model and humanoid robotics company, raised a $290 million Series A led by and . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• , a builder of intelligent robots for industrial and service industries, raised a $145 million Series B round. The 2-year-old Beijing-based company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• Humanoid robotics company raised a $145 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old China-based company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• , a testing and control software layer for aerospace, defense, robotics and industry, raised a $150 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old Los Angeles-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a company that transforms 5G and Wi-Fi into spatial awareness for connective devices, an underlying layer necessary for physical AI, raised a $100 million Series B from well-known investors , , , and . The 9-year-old Belmont, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Semiconductor

• China-based , developer of a chip for advanced autonomous driving, raised a $330 million Series A led by and . The company, which is less than a year old and spun out of automaker , was valued at $1.5 billion.
• London-based , a photonic chip company for more efficient AI inference, raised a $220 million Series A led by . The 2-year-old company, valued at $1 billion, has plans to ship its first product in 2027.
• Reno, Nevada-based , builder of memory chips for AI, raised a $230 million Series B led by , and . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a chip developer for AI training, raised a $500 million Series B led by and . The 3-year-old company, based in Mountain View, California, was valued at $1 billion. It plans to ship its first product in 2027.

Healthcare

• New York-based , a platform that helps employers and employees source the best doctors with improved costs, raised a $118 million Series D led by . The 7-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• Palo Alto, California-based , a women’s telehealth provider, raised a $100 million Series D led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a Redwood City, California-based digital platform that helps medicare customers connect with advocates to navigate healthcare, raised a $130 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Cloud services

• , a cloud platform for application development teams, raised a $100 million Series C led by . The 8-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Mumbai-based , a cloud service GPU provider, raised a $600 million round led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion.

Foundational AI

• , builder of an AI model to analyze large databases, raised a $225 million Series A led by . The company also says it has signed a partnership agreement with ‘s to offer the model to its customers. The 2-year-old, San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• , a model developer to debug and understand AI, raised a $150 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Aerospace

• , a space-based communications infrastructure player to support commercial satellite and government missions, raised a $100 million Series B led by and. The 4-year-old Livermore, California-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• , an aviation hardware and software company for automated flights, raised a $300 million Series C led by and . The 10-year-old El Segundo, California-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Financial services

• London-based , a U.K.-based digital bank for small and medium-sized businesses, raised a $155 million Series D led by , and . The 8-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• , an agentic platform for accountants, raised a $100 million Series B led by , and . The 3-year-old company, based in New York, was valued at $1.2 billion.

E-commerce

• Brooklyn-based , a marketplace for creators to sell digital products, raised a $200 million round led by . The 5-year-old company was valued at $1.6 billion.

Coding

• , a Boston-based code translation service for legacy code, raised a $125 million Series B led by 1. The round valued the 2-year-old company at $1.3 billion.

Defense

• Berlin-based , a developer of strike drones and autonomous defense systems, raised an undisclosed sum in a round led by that valued the 1-year-old company at $1.2 billion.

Forecasting

• Boston-based , an AI-native weather satellite constellation, raised a $175 million Series F led by and . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Sales & marketing

• New York-based , a brand marketing platform geared for AI search, raised a $96 million Series C led by that valued the 1-year-old company at $1 billion.

Web3

• , a blockchain intelligence platform to detect crime networks, raised a $70 million Series C led by . The raise valued the 8-year-old company, based in San Francisco, at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

• (1,703)
• (604)
• (65)
• (187)
• (115)
• (102)
• (878)
• (500)
• (228)
• (38)
• (471)

Related reading:

• Massive AI Deals Drive $189B Startup Funding Record In February While Public Software Stocks Reel
• Crunchbase Data: The AI Boom Has Drastically Changed Who’s Funding The Hottest Companies In 2025 Vs. 2021
• January Delivers Highest New Unicorn Count In More Than 3 Years

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase 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 — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — 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. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

In December alone, 23 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board, more than doubling the count from a year ago.

The value of the unicorn board also picked up significantly in the final month of the year, with the highest-ever value accorded to a private company. That was , which vaulted to the top of the list when it was valued at $800 billion in a secondary market transaction, double its valuation from just three months earlier.

And , the seventh-most highly valued private company at $134 billion, was also valued up from its $100 billion valuation months earlier.

New unicorns in December

Of the new unicorns last month, 15 were U.S.-based, two hail from China, and six are based in Europe, including two from the U.K. and one each from Germany, France, Finland and Belgium.

Financial services, aerospace and AI led with the highest count of new companies to join.

It is worth noting that a third of these companies were more than 10 years old, with some seeing a reacceleration in their business driven by AI.

On the other end of the spectrum, the fastest to reach unicorn status in December was , which raised its seed round at a $4.5 billion value.

Here are December’s 23 newly minted unicorns.

Fintech

• Crypto-focused digital bank , co-founded by , raised a $350 million funding led by . The company was granted conditional approval by the   in late 2025. The 1-year-old Columbus, Ohio-based company plans to support technology businesses in AI, crypto and defense, and was valued at $4.35 billion.
• , developer of AI-driven insurance for the trucking industry, raised a $100 million Series D led by . The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• , a loan provider for outdoor equipment, RVs and power sports raised a $100 million Series F led by . The funding was part equity and part secondary financing. The 11-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.3 billion and has generated over $7.5 billion in loans.
• , a provider of co-branded credit cards and payment plans for brands to build loyalty, raised a $150 million Series D led by . The 5-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Aerospace

• , a builder of powerful satellites, raised a $250 million Series C led by . The 3-year-old Torrance, California-based company was valued at $3 billion.
• Finland-based , which operates satellites for military and commercial intelligence, raised a $175 million Series E led by . The 12-year-old company was valued at $2.8 billion.
• , a provider of satellites detecting radio frequency emissions for the U.S. government and its partners, raised a $150 million Series E led by and at a value of $1 billion. As part of the deal, the 10-year-old Herndon, Virginia-based company acquired .

AI

• , a new startup from founder that was acquired by Databricks, plans to build an energy-efficient computer for AI. The company raised a $475 million seed round led by and . The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $4.5 billion.
• , a generative AI company for video and images, raised a $300 million Series B led by and 1. The 1-year-old Germany-based company was valued at $3.3 billion.
• , builder of AI models for molecule programming, raised a $130 million Series B led by General Catalyst and . The 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Energy

• Energy software provider , raised a $1 billion funding led by , with plans to separate from its parent, . The 6-year-old London-based company was valued at $8.7 billion.
• , a builder of nuclear microreactors, raised a $300 million Series D led by and . The 6-year-old El Segundo, California-based company was valued at $1.8 billion.

E-commerce

• B2B chemical and industrial materials supply chain company raised a $10 million Series B led by and . The 11-year-old Beijing-based company was valued at $2.3 billion.
• , a luxury automotive e-commerce platform, raised funding from collector from his family office . The 40-year-old Miami-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Marketing

• Customer relationship marketing service , which manages a CRM and communication across emails through to messaging and aided by AI, raised a $583 million private equity round led by and . The 18-year-old Paris-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• Synthetic AI marketing research company   raised a Series A led by reported to be above $50 million . The funding was raised at different valuations, giving investors access at a lower value for part of the funding. The 1-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

DevOps

• , an IT ticketing management platform reimagined with AI, raised a $75 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• Site reliability platform raised a Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.  The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion in a two-tiered round with investors getting access at a lower valuation for part of the funding.

Social media

• The social media giant TikTok spun out its , valued at $14 billion. The Bellevue, Washington-based company’s new owners Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each own 15% of the new entity, while retains an ownership stake of 20%.

Security

• Identity security company , which manages security for individuals through to AI agents, raised a $700 million Series B led by . The 16-year-old El Segundo, California-based company was valued at $3 billion.

Defense

• Counter drone defense technology deployer raised a $210 million Series B. Investors were not disclosed.  The 4-year-old London-based company was valued at $1.8 billion.

IoT

• , an IoT sensor technology for maintaining industrial machines, raised a $23 million funding from existing investors. The 22-year-old Belgium-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Healthcare

• , a medical device company targeting heart disease, raised a Series D led by and . The 6-year-old Shanghai-based company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

• (1,669)
• (186)
• (115)
• (102)
• (856)
• (493)
• (225)
• (38)
• (471)

Related reading:

• Exclusive: AI Insurance Startup Nirvana Nearly Doubles Valuation To $1.5B with $100M Series D
• Exclusive: Octane Lands $100M Series F At $1.3B Valuation To Help People Finance Large Lifestyle And Recreational Purchases

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase 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 — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — 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. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

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

The week’s largest funding rounds confirmed that we’re still very much in the AI era. This included the biggest deal, a $350 million Series C for AI hiring startup , along with good-sized financings for legal tech unicorn , shopping platform , and email security provider .

1. , $350M, AI hiring: San Francisco-based Mercor, a provider of AI-enabled tools for hiring, secured $350 million in Series C funding at a $10 billion valuation. 1 led the financing, which included participation by , and .

2. (tied) , $225M, fintech: SavvyMoney, which offers tools for financial services providers to embed features like credit scores and personalized offers into their consumer offerings, announced a $225 million investment co-led by and . Founded in 2009, the Dublin, California, company currently works with more than 1,500 financial institution customers.

2. (tied) , $225M, e-commerce: Whatnot, a live shopping platform and marketplace, has closed a $225 million Series F round, more than doubling its valuation to $11.5 billion in less than 10 months. and co-led the financing, which brings the Los Angeles-based company’s total raised to about $968 million since its 2019 inception.

4. (tied) , $150M, cybersecurity: Sublime Security, a developer of agentic AI tools for email security, raised $150 million in a Series C round led by . The financing brings total funding to date for the 6-year-old Washington, D.C.-based company to around $240 million, per .

4. (tied) , $150M, legal tech: Harvey, developer of an AI-enabled platform for legal professionals, closed on a fresh $150 million, bringing total reported funding to date to $1 billion. led the latest round, which reportedly set an $8 billion valuation for the 3-year-old, San Francisco-based company.

6. (tied) , $100M, finance: Human Interest, a San Francisco-based startup that helps small businesses offer 401(k) plans to their employees, raised more than $100 million at a $3 billion valuation, . That valuation is up from the $1.3 billion the company was last valued at in 2024. Previous investors , , , and again backed the company. 

6. (tied) , $100M, semiconductors: Substrate, a San Francisco-based startup seeking to build semiconductor factories with new laser-based technology, raised $100 million from , , and others.

8. , $80M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Zag Bio, a developer of thymus-targeted medicines, its public launch with $80 million in financing, including a recently closed Series A round. founded and incubated the startup and co-led the Series A financing with the .

9. , $79M, identity security: ConductorOne, an identity security startup building an AI platform geared for human, non-human and AI identities, landed $79 million in a Series B financing led by . The 4-year-old Portland, Oregon-based company says it saw 400% revenue growth last year.

10. , $60M, personal care: Blueprint, a Los Angeles-based brand that markets supplements, skin and hair care products, and foods geared to promote well-being and longevity, raised $60 million from a long list of venture and celebrity investors including , , and .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Oct. 25-31. 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.

Illustration:

and co-led the financing, which brings the Los Angeles-based company’s total raised to about $968 million since its 2019 inception. Whatnot had raised $265 million in a at a nearly $5 billion valuation in January.

New investors and participated in the Series F, alongside returning backers , , and . Other investors include, and.

As part of the latest financing, Whatnot says it will initiate a tender offer where select current investors will buy up to $126 million worth of shares.

Funding to e-commerce startups globally so far this year totals $7.1 billion, per Crunchbase . That compares to $11.3 billion raised by e-commerce startups globally in all of 2024. This year’s numbers are also down significantly from post-pandemic funding totals, which surged to $93 billion in 2021.

‘Retail’s new normal’

Live commerce is the combination of livestreaming and online shopping. , co-founder and CEO of Whatnot, said in an announcement that his startup is “proving that live shopping is retail’s new normal.”

The company says more than $6 billion worth of items have been sold on its platform in 2025 so far, more than twice its total for all of 2024. Its app facilitates the buying and selling of collectibles like trading cards and toys through live video auctions. It also offers items such as clothing and sneakers. It competes with the likes of , which also has a livestreaming option called eBay Live. It’s also a competitor to Shop.

“Whatnot brought the live shopping wave to the US, the UK, and Europe and has turned it into one of the fastest growing marketplaces of all time, , Whatnot board member and managing partner at , ’s independent growth fund, said in a release.

The company plans to use its new funds to invest in its platform, roll out new features and “evolve” its policies. It is also accelerating its international expansion, adding to its current 900-person workforce by hiring across multiple departments.

Related query:

Related Reading:

• TikTok Shop Rival Whatnot Bags $265M At $5B Valuation For Live Shopping Platform

Illustration:

The Stockholm-based company, which has evolved its model to offer more than just buy now, pay later plans, had set a price range for its IPO of $35 to $37 per share. Late Tuesday, it increased the price of its shares to $40 due to “better-than-expected demand.”

Shares opened at $52 and climbed as high as $57.20 before closing at $46.40 on Wednesday, trading on the under the ticker symbol KLAR.

Klarna raised $1.37 billion from the offering.

The company had filed a draft registration statement with the last November, and in March made its prospectus public. But by early April, Klarna seemed to be hitting an indefinite pause on its IPO plans after President announced sweeping tariffs.

At its peak as a private company, Klarna was valued at $45.6 billion. More recently, it was valued at $14.6 billion. Its market cap after its first day trading on the NYSE stood at $17.5 billion.

Since its 2005 inception, the company has in funding from investors including , and , with adding $1.63 billion to that total in a debt financing just last week. Unlike many other fintechs, Klarna is profitable and turned net income of $21 million in 2024.

The open IPO market

Its IPO follows a string of well-received venture-backed debuts, including the blockbuster market entry by design software provider , which saw shares triple in first-day trading (although they have come back down to earth since).

Klarna’s IPO also comes amid renewed interest in investment in fintech startups, with multiple rounds above $100 million closing this year.

Overall, the IPO dam in fintech finally seems to have broken in 2025.

Since the beginning of the year, several companies in the fintech space have either gone public or filed to do so.

• In early June, shares of closed up 168% at $83.29 in their first day of trading on the minting the stablecoin issuer with a market cap of around $16.7 billion and renewing hopes for an IPO market rebound. More recently, shares have traded in the $118 range.
• Digital bank went public on June 12, and came out swinging. Chime’s shares shot up 37% in first-day trading on , closing at $37. Shares have traded around $23 in recent days.

Meanwhile, digital wealth management startup filed confidentially for a U.S. initial public offering on June 23. And in early June, crypto exchange confidentially filed its own plans for a U.S. IPO. Expense management firm (formerly TripActions) also filed confidentially for a U.S. IPO in June. And, blockchain lender is set to make its public debut on Sept. 11.

Related Crunchbase query:

Related reading:

• The IPO Market Is Opening Up. These 14 Companies Could Be Next.
• Here Are The Fintech Companies That Could Go Public In 2025
• Tech IPO Darlings Give Up Some Gains
• These Are The Fintech IPOs That Could Follow Klarna’s Debut
• Circle Shares Soar 168% In First Day On NYSE, Potentially Unlocking IPO Market
• Chime Climbs In Market Debut
• The Longer IPOs Delay, The Less Likely Debuts Will Happen

Illustration:

An early investor in , and , Kranz went on to launch his own venture firm, , in August 2022 with the goal of “connecting visionary founders with real-world adopters.” In June, Kranz announced the close of the San Francisco-based firm’s , Sentinel Fund I, with committed capital totaling $213.5 million.

During his time at GIC, the most valuable lesson he learned, Kranz said,  “is how emerging markets evolved in innovation capability.”

“Twenty years ago, emerging markets were deficient in core innovation. Ten years ago, they became excellent fast followers,” he told Crunchbase News. “By the time COVID happened, emerging markets — mainly China — had become leaders in core innovation, particularly in AI.”

The Chinese, in Kranz’s view, commercialized AI “more effectively and far earlier” than Silicon Valley discovered its true promise.

With Sentinel, Kranz aims to take the lessons he learned during his time at GIC to invest globally in multistage enterprise technology companies.

Kranz describes Sentinel as a multistage venture fund that is thematic in nature. It focuses on three core themes: interoperable commerce; the financial internet, or the “Finternet;” and next-generation enterprise stacks.

In an email interview with Crunchbase News, Kranz shared his vision for Sentinel, why he doesn’t believe every development from should be breaking news, and why he thinks that one day IPOs could become nonevents.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What would you say are the most valuable lessons you learned from your time at GIC? What were some of the most notable investments you were involved in?

Besides how emerging markets evolved in innovation capability, I learned that it’s important to remain rational through market cycles. There are market cycles where you’re trying to be pragmatic and rational in environments that are fundamentally crazy — either so bullish that pricing defies belief, or so negative that no deals get done and innovation seems to have stopped. You have to maintain good grounding and interpret who’s operating from fear versus who brings clarity of purpose, underwriting and vision.

My most notable investments centered around what I call “the movement of people and packaging of food.” I’ve been passionate about food delivery since childhood and consider myself an expert in this space. Over my 25 years in VC, I followed this trend line from early losses with (a dot-com grocery delivery company) to investing in food delivery during a major down market — companies like DoorDash and in the U.S., in China, and , , , and in other emerging markets.

These evolved into platform companies, not just delivery companies, expanding into payments and other services. … Most companies I backed are now over 10 years old and have become the incumbents that the next generation is targeting.

Tell us more about Sentinel. What is your average check size? Who are your LPs?

We typically invest in Series A, B, and C rounds, writing checks ranging from single digits to mid- to high-double digits (in millions). Our LP base includes prominent sovereign wealth funds and family offices that are available to partner with us as co-investors on deals.

What we look for is the ability to leverage our network outside the U.S. to help companies go global. We call this “Sentinel Labs” — it’s the continuation of work I did at GIC with the I founded, which was a platform connecting enterprises outside the U.S. with startups in developed markets.

Why do you think China’s AI tech is ahead of the U.S.? How has that allowed China to infiltrate the U.S. economy? What are U.S. investors still missing?

The Chinese are exceptionally smart about commercializing technology. Years ago, pre-COVID, I visited ‘s R&D labs. After visiting labs at , and other great tech companies, I know what American Silicon Valley companies with infinite R&D budgets look like, often tinkering on quantum computing and other research without clear commercialization paths.

But at ByteDance, scientists are responsible for both inventing and commercializing. During my full-day visit, they showed me not just basic research, but demos of technologies they were actively commercializing. The pathway from R&D to commercialization was maintained tightly; they had to show results within a year.

This approach allowed companies to successfully infuse AI long before Silicon Valley popularized the idea of a new AI Industrial Revolution.

exemplifies this perfectly. TikTok’s success wasn’t due to better content or superior marketing to kids. It was simply smarter at using AI to make content more attractive, addictive and engaging. Its algorithm for curating user content is its unique value proposition, predicated on extremely effective AI that analyzes user signals to determine optimal daily content.

provides another compelling example. Many drone companies in Silicon Valley had substantial funding and talent, but couldn’t make drones fly long enough, carry sufficient weight, or avoid obstacles. DJI built what I consider the world’s greatest consumer drone by leveraging AI and recognizing that features like sonic collision avoidance required purpose-built semiconductors. DJI partnered with the Chinese government to develop semiconductor processes, enabling them to employ and commercialize AI in drones with unmatched results.

The contrast is striking: In the U.S., we found ourselves stuck in labs with clipboards and lab coats, essentially waiting for breakthroughs to happen.

Today, Americans are inventing and commercializing applications across various technologies, particularly LLMs, which appears to be effective catch-up. In some areas, we might be leaping forward.

However, I find it concerning that U.S. media has a celebrity-obsessed approach. Every development from OpenAI becomes breaking news, creating the impression that everything important happens in Silicon Valley. I absolutely disagree with this narrative.

I’m confident that at this very moment, the Chinese have invented and commercialized AI that is not only globally competitive but arguably more effective for specific applications. They will export these technologies. We must be careful not to let the loudest environment be viewed as the most successful.

While I’m proud of America’s AI leadership and expect continued leadership, we cannot be overly self-centered. We must remain deferential to the fact that China has a long history of inventing and commercializing AI before Silicon Valley. Given this track record, it’s hard to believe they’ve suddenly fallen behind.

The media hype around the Valley needs to be balanced with realistic understanding of the past 15 years in artificial intelligence development globally.

Where are the next great tech IPOs (really) coming from? Why does today’s AI boom hinge “on the ‘boring’ infrastructure layer no one’s covering?”

At Sentinel, we hold a controversial belief about the future of IPOs. We think the current administration is blazing a trail of tokenization across all asset classes. Right now, we’re seeing tokenization for cash — the most liquid asset in the world got more liquid. While it seems odd to make cash more liquid through tokenization, there are genuine benefits.

This began with the GENIUS (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins) Act. The next development will be the Clarity Act, which we expect will enable tokenization of public stocks, private companies and private credit. The experimental possibilities are extensive.

When this happens, IPOs will become one liquidity option among many, but may not be the highest priority for all companies. Today’s secondaries market is booming but restricted — you must be a registered securities buyer, and transactions are largely one-to-one. You can’t simply purchase company shares on a platform like eBay.

We envision a world where the Clarity Act and tokenization of real-world assets dramatically transform how private markets raise money and seek liquidity. I’d call this not one black swan event, but possibly 10 black swans. We’re entering an era where traditionally illiquid asset classes may become significantly more liquid.

This shift will fundamentally change the nature and importance of IPOs. For some companies, IPOs could become nonevents because public-market investors will have already accessed tokenized versions of those shares before the IPO. The IPO becomes a less significant milestone in a company’s lifecycle.

How do you believe the Trump administration is lowering friction in the capital markets, and what does that mean for the future of venture capital investing?

The capital market changes won’t necessarily impact venture investing first. The transformation will likely begin with digital cash, then extend to public stocks and private credit, with private companies coming later in the sequence.

The key development is tokenization of real-world assets, which features two particularly innovative elements for capital markets.

First, smart contracts can embed information and validation directly into transactions. KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements can be built into token transactions, significantly reducing friction and costs for market changes.

Second, and more controversially, is enabling yield-based transfers of cash or tokenized money market funds as payment methods. This concept is potentially transformative.

Currently, we deposit cash in banks that provide roughly 2.5% returns even when Treasuries yield 5%, because banks capture the difference while risking our deposits in other assets. With blockchain-based saving accounts tied to Treasuries, I should receive nearly the full 5% yield.

The revolutionary aspect: if I can use these tokenized treasury-linked assets for payments, every transaction transfers yield rights along with the principal. When I Venmo you $10, I’d transfer the rights to the yield on that $10. This would be both exciting and terrifying for global capital markets.

There’s a scenario where this experiment could be given life through innovation-friendly regulation. This represents a major debate point for the Clarity Act. While the GENIUS Act sidestepped this issue, the Clarity Act will address it directly.

Companies like Circle already provide rewards for USDC that could be perceived as yield, but it’s structured as token rewards rather than direct U.S. dollar yield. We’re just one step away from explicit dollar-based yield on cash that can be used for payments and transfers.

This is the major black swan event I believe is approaching.

Illustration: