Quick Buzz Feed
The biggest financing of the week went to Castelion, a defense tech startup developing a hypersonic missile. Other sizable rounds went to companies developing AI inference technology, a video-creation platform, data centers and voice-to-text tools.
Castelion, a defense tech startup developing a hypersonic strike missile, raised new Series C funding consisting of $800 million in equity capital along with $250 million in debt financing. JPMorgan Chase, Andreessen Horowitz and Carlyle led the equity financing, which set a $13 billion valuation for the Torrance, California-based company.
San Jose, California-based Etched, a developer of inference clusters to accelerate AI computing, secured $700 million in a new funding round led by Jane Street and joined by a long list of prominent investors. The financing set a $21 billion valuation for the 4-year-old company.
AI video- and image-creation platform Higgsfield closed on $400 million in Series B financing at a $5.4 billion valuation. DST Global led the round for the San Francisco-based company, with the financing drawing at least 18 investors.
Groq, an operator of 13 data centers across the globe, pulled in $350 million in a new fundraise led by Disruptive, with planned participation from Nvidia.The fundraise, which values the San Francisco-based company at $3.5 billion, comes on the heels of a $650 million round in June.
Wispr Flow, a provider of an AI-powered voice-to-text tool called Flow, picked up $280 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation. Menlo Ventures led the financing, joined by a long list of new and existing investors.
Muon Space, a designer, builder and operator of satellite constellations, closed on $250 million in Series C funding led by Eclipse. The Mountain View, California-based company also recently opened a manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, designed to produce up to 500 satellites annually by 2027.
Also, a Rivian spinout that makes electric bikes and small four-wheeled micromobility vehicles, secured $150 million in Series D funding led by Prysm Capital. The Palo Alto, California-based startup said the financing will go in part toward accelerating development of its autonomous vehicle platform.
Velaura AI, a developer of AI compute infrastructure focused on ultra-low-power silicon and software technologies, picked up $110 million in Series A funding. Seligman Ventures led the financing, which set a valuation of over $1 billion for the Silicon Valley-based startup.
Rillet, a developer of AI-powered enterprise resource planning tools, landed $100 million in Series C funding led by Iconiq Capital. The round, which sets a $1 billion valuation for the San Francisco company, is Rillet’s third financing in the past year.
Happy Health, and Austin-based developer of a ring device for diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea, raised $75 million from Arch Venture Partners and OpenLoop.
We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Aug. 15-21. Although most announced rounds are in the database, there may be a small time lag, as some rounds are reported late in the week.