NeuralStackTechCrunch counted 55 U.S. AI startups that raised funding rounds of $100 million or more in 2025, a pace that topped its 2024 tally of 49 such companies. The publication also noted that three companies in 2024 raised more than one mega-round, while seven rounds reached $1 billion or more. In 2025, the number of companies raising multiple rounds rose further, with eight doing so.
The year’s largest deal in the source text was OpenAI’s $40 billion round, which valued the company at $300 billion. Anthropic also appeared more than once in the broader reporting on 2025 AI funding, while Cursor, Luma AI, and Genspark were among the startups that drew especially large checks. The list spans AI infrastructure, model development, coding tools, healthcare, voice AI, and enterprise software.
Among the December deals highlighted by TechCrunch were Mythic’s $125 million round, Chai Discovery’s $130 million Series B, Fal’s $140 million Series D, Unconventional AI’s $475 million seed round, and 7AI’s $130 million Series A. November included Genspark’s $275 million Series B, Luma AI’s $900 million Series C, Cursor’s $2.3 billion round, Parallel’s $100 million Series A, and Hippocratic AI’s $126 million Series C.
October brought another cluster of large financings, including Fireworks AI’s $250 million Series C, Uniphore’s $260 million Series F, Sesame’s $250 million Series B, OpenEvidence’s $200 million Series C, Lila Sciences’ $350 million Series A, Reflection AI’s $2 billion Series B, and EvenUp’s $150 million Series E. September also produced several major rounds, including Periodic Labs’ $300 million seed, Cerebras Systems’ $1.1 billion Series G, and Modular’s $250 million round.
Why this matters
The numbers show that capital kept flowing into AI at a scale that still separates it from most other startup categories. Just as important, the money was spread across a wide set of use cases rather than concentrated in one narrow segment, suggesting investors are still betting on multiple layers of the AI stack. That breadth can help explain why the market continued to support both infrastructure-heavy plays and application companies with highly specific workflows.
TechCrunch also pointed to early signs that 2026 could remain active, citing xAI’s announced $20 billion Series E and Merge Labs’ $250 million seed round in the first few weeks of the year. The publication stopped short of predicting the future, but its framing suggests the AI funding boom is still being measured less by whether capital is available and more by which companies can absorb it at ever larger valuations. If that pattern continues, 2026 could challenge 2025 not just on volume, but on the size of the checks themselves.