Weekly Funding Radar — $3.7B Across 19 Companies
Every AI round announced this week, by category — who raised, who backed them, and the senior roles each one opens up.
Here's where the money went this week.
$3.7B across 19 companies in seven days.
One note before the tables: round labels below are what the company and its investors actually filed. Groq carries an early-stage label because of how the round was structured, not because it is an early-stage company. Read the dollar figure, not the label.
AI & Technology — $2.1B
| Company | Round | Raised | Led by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etched ($21B val) | Growth | $700M | Jane Street, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, a16z |
| Groq ($3.5B val) | Series A | $350M | Disruptive, Nvidia |
| Velaura AI ($1B+ val) | Series A | $110M | Seligman Ventures, Capricorn, Mayfield, Samsung Catalyst |
| Callosum | Seed | $100M | Atomico, Plural, DCVC, UK Sovereign AI Fund |
| Higgsfield ($5.4B val) | Series B | $400M | DST Global, Tribe Capital, Goldman Sachs Alternatives |
| Rillet ($1B val) | Series C | $100M | ICONIQ, Sequoia, a16z, Bain Capital Ventures |
| Wispr ($2B val) | Series B | $280M | Menlo Ventures, Notable Capital, NEA |
| Twin1 AI | Seed | $20M | Bessemer Venture Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners, Aramco Ventures |
Robotics & Physical AI — $200M
| Company | Round | Raised | Led by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gravis Robotics | Series A | $200M | SoftBank Group |
Life Sciences & Biotech — $37M
| Company | Round | Raised | Led by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leal Therapeutics | Series A ext. | $30M | Eli Lilly, OrbiMed, Newpath Partners |
| Computomics | Series B | €6.3M (~$6.8M) | Convent Capital Agri Food Fund, HTGF |
Health Tech & Digital Health — $118M
| Company | Round | Raised | Led by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Craif | Series D | ~$33–34M | Granite-Integral, Tauns Co Ltd |
| Hopscotch Primary Care | Series D | $53M | 8VC, Townhall Ventures, aMoon Fund |
| MaxQ Medical | Series A | $31.5M | Atlantic Blue Ventures, S3 Ventures, Olympus Innovation Ventures |
Defense Tech & Autonomous Systems — $1.3B
| Company | Round | Raised | Led by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terra Industries | Seed ext. | $18M | 8VC (Joe Lonsdale), Silent Ventures |
| Smack Technologies | Series B | $61M | Costanoa Ventures, First In, Point72 Ventures |
| Castelion ($13B val) | Series C | $1B | JPMorganChase SIG, a16z, Carlyle, T. Rowe Price |
| Muon Space ($1.5B val) | Series C | $250M | Eclipse Capital, Google, Salesforce Ventures |
| AlgoFET | Pre-Series A | ₹15 cr (~$1.8M) | Piper Serica |
Who this hires
Etched — (Growth, $700M, $21B val, AI inference chips) → VP Hardware Engineering, Head of Data-Center Infra, VP Manufacturing Ops as it scales chip production. Domain 4 (Silicon & Compute).
Gravis Robotics — (Series A, $200M, SoftBank-backed construction robotics) → VP Engineering, Head of Field Operations, Director of Manufacturing as it scales autonomous excavator deployments. Domain 9 (Edge & Physical AI).
Castelion — (Series C, $1B, $13B val, hypersonic missiles) → VP Program Management, Head of Manufacturing, VP Government Relations/BD as it races toward 2027 fielding. Domain 12 (Defense Tech).
Craif — (Series D, ~$34M, AI cancer diagnostics) → VP Regulatory Affairs, Head of Commercial (US launch), VP Clinical Operations as it brings its test to the US market. Domain 11 (Health Tech).
Terra Industries — (Seed ext., $18M, $52M total, African defense autonomy) → VP Engineering, Head of International Expansion (new London office), Director of Business Development. Domain 12 (Defense Tech).
What I'm seeing
The AI story has shifted from models to compute economics. Etched ($700M at $21B), Groq (pivoting from chips to a neocloud operator), Velaura AI (power-efficient AI silicon), and Callosum (workload-to-chip matching) all raised specifically around the inference/power bottleneck, not model training. Warm-lead signal: infra, data-center ops, and power engineering leadership — not just ML researchers.
"AI-native" is displacing legacy SaaS category by category. Rillet (AI-native ERP), Higgsfield (AI video), and Wispr (AI dictation) each raised at 2–4x valuation step-ups within months of their prior round, meaning aggressive GTM and platform-eng hiring right now.
Defense tech had its biggest week yet. Castelion's $1B/$13B hypersonic-missile mega-round anchored a week that also included Terra Industries, Smack Technologies, Muon Space, and AlgoFET — spanning drones, satellites, and tactical software. This domain still writes the largest checks and has the clearest government-contract-driven hiring signal (program management, BD, ops).
Physical AI/robotics is pulling in software-scale checks. Gravis Robotics' $200M SoftBank-backed Series A is the largest-ever Series A in construction robotics — industrial automation is now attracting rounds typically reserved for enterprise software.
I track 500+ funded AI-native companies and $430B in disclosed capital behind them — up $3.7B this week alone. See the full live index.
Written by
Bill Heilmann