The 10 Biggest Rounds Of August: Anduril And Groq Lead Hot Month

This is a monthly feature that runs down the month’s top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out the biggest rounds of last month here.

It was another big month for megadeals. You had to raise more than $150 million to make the top 10 list this month — as investors put money into everything from defense tech to semiconductors to biotech.

1. Anduril Industries, $1.5B, defense: Anduril Industries matched its own record for the largest defense tech round ever. The Costa Mesa, California-based startup locked up a $1.5 billion Series F that values the company at $14 billion — a 69% jump from the $8.5 billion valuation it received after its massive $1.5 billion Series E in late 2022. The round was co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital. The company will use some of the new proceeds for the development of Arsenal-1 — a more than 5 million-square-foot production space designed to produce tens of thousands of autonomous military systems annually. After a slow start to the year, funding to defense tech startups has picked up dramatically in the past few months. Just last month, Helsing, which develops artificial intelligence software for defense, raised approximately $489 million in funding led by General Catalyst that values the company at $5.4 billion. After Anduril’s huge round, defense tech startups now have raised $2.5 billion in 2024, per Crunchbase data. Last year, such startups collected only $2 billion total.

2. Groq, $640M, semiconductor: AI semiconductor and software startup Groq locked up a $640 million Series D round at a valuation of $2.8 billion. The round was led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. The Mountain View, California-based firm is helping develop ways to optimize AI and lessen the vast amount of computing power that is currently needed to do that. The new round almost triples the company’s valuation from its Series C in 2021. Founded in 2016, the company has raised $1 billion, per Crunchbase.

3. Kiteworks, $456M, cybersecurity: Investors seem to be digging cybersecurity yet again. Secure content company Kiteworks raised a $456 million round from Insight Partners and Sixth Street. The San Mateo, California-based company described the new round as “growth equity,” but also said it was a “partial liquidity event,” meaning some investors were able to cash out. While the company did not specify a valuation, it did state it was a minority investment, meaning its valuation is greater than $1 billion. Kiteworks’ platform allows customers to share sensitive data with other trusted parties via communication channels such as email and file sharing. In 2020 the company raised $120 million in a funding round led by Bregal Sagemount. Founded in 1999, Kiteworks has raised $592 million. The company was formerly known as Accellion and suffered a major data breach in 2021.

4. GondolaBio, $300M, biotech: BridgeBio Pharma spun off GondolaBio this month, a biotech focused on early-stage genetic disease treatments. The company was also formed with a nice tranche of cash — $300 million from a handful of well-known firms, including Viking Global Investors and Sequoia Capital. The new company will focus on research and development, manufacturing, and commercialization activities for early-stage clinical or preclinical programs across a handful of different areas.

5. Grafana Labs, $270M, analytics: It does seem like companies are raising extensions of rounds from longer and longer ago. This month, New York-based Grafana Labs raised $270 million in a mix of growth equity and a secondary offering — so some money went to the company and some to shareholders. The company described it as an extension of its $240 million Series D in 2022. The new round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and values the company at $6 billion. Grafana’s open-source software platform helps monitor and visualize data. Founded in 2014, the company has now raised more than $805 million, according to Crunchbase data.

6. Abnormal Security, $250M, cybersecurity: Abnormal Security closed a $250 million Series D that values the San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup at $5.1 billion. The new round was led by Wellington Management. The latest valuation is a more than 28% uptick from the $4 billion valuation Abnormal got when it raised a $210 million Series C led by Insight Partners back in May 2022. Founded in 2018, Abnormal looks to stop attacks and find compromised accounts across email and connected applications through leveraging machine learning and AI to understand human behavior. The startup has raised nearly $546 million total, per the company. Abnormal also says it recently surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue. After a down 2023, cybersecurity startups are once again seeing the cash. In the second quarter of 2024, cyber startups saw a robust $4.4 billion invested, according to Crunchbase data. The dollar figure represents a 63% increase from Q1, which saw $2.7 billion roll to startups in 173 deals. It was the best quarter for funding in the sector since Q1 2022 and a 144% increase from Q2 2023.

7. Flyr, $225M, travel: Travel startup Flyr raised $225 million in equity and $70 million in debt in a new funding round. The equity portion was led by WestCap and reportedly values the startup at $900 million. The San Francisco-based startup develops software for the travel industry, such as airlines. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $482 million, per Crunchbase.

8. Cribl, $200M, data: San Francisco-based Cribl raised a $319 million Series E led by new investor GV and valuing the data infrastructure company at $3.5 billion. The new round is actually a mix of $200 million in capital and a $119 million secondary offering, per Bloomberg. The raise represents a significant up-round for the company, which last raised a $150 million Series D led by Tiger Global Management at a valuation of nearly $2.6 billion in 2022. Cribl’s platform gives users observability into their data, allowing them to understand the health of the data and organize it for IT and security teams. Just last year, Cribl announced it had passed the $100 million mark in annual recurring revenue. The company has more than 700 employees worldwide. While the explosion of data has given companies the potential for deep understanding of their business, the process of actually collecting, verifying and organizing that data has proven to be difficult and time-consuming. It’s that problem that platforms such as Cribl’s tries to rectify. Founded in 2018, Cribl says it has raised more than $600 million.

9. (tied) Bilt Rewards, $150M, loyalty rewards: Wasn’t it just seven or so months ago Bilt was here? It was. Bilt Rewards raised a $200 million round led by General Catalyst at a $3.1 billion valuation just in January — more than doubling its value after its fundraising in 2022. Well, the loyalty startup is back, this time with an additional $150 million round led by Teachers’ Venture Growth. The New York-based startup allows consumers to earn rewards on the rent they pay. Bilt plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its network to include local dining, grocery stores, ridesharing and other retail purchases. Founded in 2021, the company has raised a total of $711 million, per Crunchbase.

9. (tied) Codeium, $150M, artificial intelligence: AI-powered coding assistant Codeium closed a $150 million Series C round led by General Catalyst that values the Mountain View, California-based startup at $1.25 billion. Codeium’s platform uses generative AI models trained on public code to give developers suggestions for building apps, and can support dozens of programming languages. Founded in 2021, the company has raised $243 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

All the biggest raises came from the U.S., but there was a large round that went to a grocery delivery startup in Asia.

• India-based e-grocery firm Zepto raised a $340 million Series G.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the month of August 2024. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the month.

Illustration: Dom Guzman