The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Celestial AI Tops List Of Large Raises

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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.

This March certainly did not go out like a lamb, with seven rounds hitting $100 million or more in the final week. While there were no huge rounds like last week, money was again spread around from AI to biotech to marketing and more. Let’s see if April can continue the trend of a growing amount of large raises.

1. Celestial AI, $175M, semiconductors: Optical interconnectivity startup Celestial AI raised a massive $175 million Series C led by Thomas Tull’s US Innovative Technology Fund. With the explosion of generative AI, both compute power availability and memory capacity are becoming more and more crunched — and marriage between compute and memory causes both to increase simultaneously. However, Celestial’s photonic fabric platform helps separate compute and memory, making processing extensive AI faster and more energy-efficient computing. It was just last June when Santa Clara, California-based Celestial raised its $100 million Series B funding led by IAG Capital Partners, Koch Disruptive Technologies and Temasek’s Xora Innovation fund. Founded in 2020, the company has raised nearly $339 million, per Crunchbase. It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the semiconductor industry as investors have flocked to the sector knowing its importance in the rocketing AI industry. Earlier in March, shares of Astera Labs — a developer of data center connectivity technology with use cases in generative AI — soared after its initial public offering on the Nasdaq. Shares have since then remained well above their IPO price.

2. Avenzo Therapeutics, $150M, biotech: Oncology startup Avenzo Therapeutics locked up the biggest biotech raise of the week, closing a $150 million Series A-1 financing led by Deep Track Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Sands Capital Ventures and Sofinnova Investments. The San Diego-based firm has now raised $347 million since the company’s founding in August 2022, per the company. The startup plans to use the new proceeds to advance its emerging oncology pipeline, which includes a treatment for metastatic breast cancer and other advanced solid tumors.

3. (tied) The Brandtech Group, $115M, marketing: It seems like every week there is a big funding round involving the intersection of AI and some new sector. This week it’s marketing, as New York-based The Brandtech Group, an AI marketing company, has secured a $115 million Series C funding. No lead investor was named, but it was reported the money came from new investors — Fimalac Group and Nendo Labs — and existing investors Mousse Partners and Bansk Group. The company uses machine-generated content and AI to push marketing initiatives. Founded in 2015, the company has raised $725 million, per Crunchbase.

3. (tied) Observe, $115M, data integration: Every company wants to know about the data it has, and observability cloud solution Observe locked up a big round this week to help with that effort. The startup, which helps companies manage data by breaking down silos and making it useful, raised a $115 million Series B at a reported valuation of $400 million to $500 million this week. The round was led by Sutter Hill Ventures. Snowflake Ventures also invested with others. Founded in 2017, the San Mateo, California-based company has raised $277 million, per Crunchbase.

5. (tied) Coro, $100M, cybersecurity: Things have not been great fundingwise in cybersecurity the past year or so as investors have pulled back and IT budgets have been cut. However, some startups are still raising. Case in point, New York-based Coro, a cybersecurity platform purpose-built for small and medium-sized enterprises, announced a $100 million Series D led by One Peak. Founded in 2014, Coro has raised $255 million, per Crunchbase.

5. (tied) FundGuard, $100M, accounting: Artificial intelligence is disrupting most industries, and financial services certainly is no exemption. To that point, New York-based FundGuard, an AI-powered investment accounting platform for asset managers, raised a fresh $100 million round led by Key1 Capital and new investors including Euclidean Capital and funds managed by Hamilton Lane. The company did not disclose a valuation, but it has been reported the round was raised at a valuation of up to $400 million. Founded in 2018, FundGuard has raised more than $150 million, per the company. FundGuard is leveraging AI capabilities to help streamline investment accounting operations and workflows. The startup, which has offices in New York, Boston, London, Toronto and Tel Aviv, plans to use the new cash for ongoing investment in product innovation as well as customer acquisition.

5. (tied) Lightshift Energy, $100M, energy: Arlington, Virginia-based Lightshift Energy, formerly known as Delorean Power, locked up $100 million from Greenbacker Group. Lightshift is a utility-scale energy storage development company and plans to use the cash infusion for its projects across public power, investor-owned utilities and large corporate consumers in the U.S. Founded in 2019, the company has raised more than $121 million, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) Eliyan, $60M, semiconductor: Santa Clara, California-based Eliyan, a chiplet interconnect developer, raised a $60 million round co-led by Samsung Catalyst Fund and Tiger Global Management. Founded in 2021, this is the company’s first announced round, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) HeyGen, $60M, artificial intelligence: Los Angeles-based HeyGen, an AI video platform, reportedly raised a $60 million funding round led by Benchmark at a $500 million post-money valuation. Founded in 2020, the company has raised $69 million, per Crunchbase.

10. Pelago, $58M, health care: New York-based Pelago, a substance use management platform, announced a $58 million round led by Atomico. Founded in 2017, Pelago has raised $151 million, per the company.

Big global deals

Despite the number of big rounds domestically, the biggest came from across the Pacific.

• China-based Huakong Power, a provider of energy-saving and intelligent-control services, raised more than $692 million.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of March 23 to 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.

Illustration: Dom Guzman