And underlining the pace at which some startups are now sprinting to billion-dollar-plus valuations, four of the new unicorns are less than a year old.

In exit news, 9-year-old fintech unicorn was acquired by for $5.2 billion. That’s well below its January 2022 valuation of $12.3 billion but still marks a win for earlier investors seeking liquidity.

Of the 31 companies that joined the board, 23 are U.S.-based and two hail from Canada. Germany, France, Belgium, Israel, Japan and India each added one new unicorn to the board last month.

Among sectors, AI and AI infrastructure contributed the most new unicorns, totaling nine from those two areas. The next-leading sectors, with three new unicorns each, were manufacturing and security propelled by AI. AI was also a major contributor to new unicorns in the semiconductor, defense and autonomous driving sectors.

The largest funding last month for a unicorn company was $20 billion to ’s at an . Within a month of that funding, xAI in early February announced a merger with another Musk-led company, rocketmaker .

11 exits

Brex’s acquisition by Capital One was the largest of the four M&A deals for unicorn-valued companies in January.

On the IPO side, seven companies went public, the most high-profile of which were and , both foundation AI model companies based in China.

Here are January’s newly minted unicorns.

AI

• , an AI research lab focused on human collaboration, raised a $480 million seed funding led by and 1. The less than 1-year-old Redwood City, California-based company was valued at $4.5 billion.
• , an AI scientific research lab, raised a $180 million seed round led by , and . The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• AI evaluation platform raised a $150 million Series A led by 2�����Ի� . The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.7 billion.
• Voice AI startup raised a $143 million Series C led by France-based . The 10-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion. As part of its announcement, Deepgram disclosed the acquisition of , a voice AI startup for restaurants and drive-thru ordering.
• , an infrastructure company for voice AI, raised a $100 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

AI infrastructure

• , an AI networking company, raised a $200 million Series A led by , and . The 1-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• GPU marketplace raised a $150 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , for secure AI run locally on devices, raised a Series A extension funding of an undisclosed sum. The 6-year-old Austin-based company was valued at $2.5 billion.
• , which manages a GPU marketplace, raised a Series C led by . The 6-year-old company was founded in Lithuania and is now headquartered in Miami. It was valued at $1 billion.

Manufacturing

• , a builder of factories for defense and the aerospace industry, raised a $131 million private equity funding led by . The 5-year-old Hawthorne, California-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
• , a developer of no-code applications for manufacturing, raised a $120 million Series D led by . The 11-year-old Somerville, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• �ѴDzԳٰ�é����-��������� , a manufacturing automation company utilizing modular robotics, raised a $90 million Series D led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Security

• , provider of security for cloud services in real time to protect from hackers, raised a $250 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Tel Aviv-based , an AI security platform that integrates with existing security platforms to provide context on incidents, raised a $140 million Series D led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• Belgium-based , a developer-oriented security platform, raised a $60 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Semiconductor

• , an AI chip developer to run transformer models, raised a reported $500 million funding led by . The 3-year-old Cupertino, California-based company was valued at $5 billion.
• , an AI chip design company, raised a $300 million Series A led by . The less than 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $4 billion.

Cryptocurrency

• Stablecoin payments platform raised a $250 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• Crypto payments network raised a $75 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Healthcare

• Maternity healthcare provider, raised a $92 million Series C led by Stripes. The 4-year-old New York-based company with plans to expand healthcare services to women and children was valued at $1.7 billion.
• , a co-ordination platform for medications across doctors, pharmacies and patients, raised a Series B led by . The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense

• Paris-based , an autonomous drone maker, raised a $200 million Series B led by aircraft manufacturer . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• , a builder of secure software for the defense industry, raised a $136 million Series B led by . The 4-year-old Colorado-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Fintech

• Tokyo-based brokerage infrastructure provider raised a $150 million Series D led by . The 11-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• India-based , a payment infrastructure provider, raised a $50 million Series D led by . The 13-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Fitness

• , an owner of physical fitness brands and the parent of , raised a $785 million private equity financing led by . As part of the transaction it announced a merger with . The San Luis Obispo, California-based company was valued at $7.5 billion.

Autonomous Driving

• Toronto-based , a self-driving technology company, raised a $750 million Series C led by and ,valuing it at $3.8 billion. The 5-year-old company announced a partnership with to support robotaxis.

Social media

• , an AI-powered video generation platform for social media, raised an $80 million Series A extension funding which brings its Series A funding total to $130 million. The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Education

• Online tutoring platform raised a $150 million Series D led by at a $1.2 billion valuation. The 14-year-old Brookline, Massachusetts-based company was founded by Ukrainians and maintains a team in Ukraine.

Compliance

• ESG compliance software platform raised a $100 million Series C led by , a joint venture between and . The 7-year-old Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany-based company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Energy

• , a developer of a residential energy storage device for electricity and electric vehicles, raised a $163 million funding. The 7-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

• (1,684)
• (596)
• (37)
• (186)
• (115)
• (102)
• (868)
• (494)
• (226)
• (38)
• (470)

Related reading:

• High-Spending Investors Give 2026 An Active Start
• In The Era Of Unicorn Valuation Escalation, A Trillion Dollars Isn’t What It Used To Be
• Global VC Investment Surged In January, With U.S. Dominating Funding, But A Pair Of AI Model IPOs In China
• A Growing Share Of Seed And Series A Funding Is Going To Giant Rounds

Methodology

The Crunchbase ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

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 deal roundup here.

Venture investors’ thirst for AI isn’t close to quenched yet. That’s the takeaway from this week’s lineup of large U.S. funding rounds, which was mostly a mix of AI pure-plays and companies with a heavy focus on the technology.

The week’s largest round however, a $600 million financing for drone delivery provider Zipline, offered evidence that investors are also keen on platforms and technologies with applications in the physical world. The second-largest round, a $480 million seed deal for upstart AI lab Humans&, meanwhile, showed there’s also still appetite for ultra-ambitious newcomers.

1. , $600M, drones: Drone delivery unicorn Zipline it closed on over $600 million at a $7.6 billion valuation from investors including , , and . South San Francisco, California-based Zipline also says it expects to expand into at least four new states this year, with initial plans to begin service in Houston and Phoenix.

2. , $480M, AI: Humans&, an AI lab working to apply the technology in ways that are centered “around people and their relationships with each other,” secured $480 million in seed funding. The company was founded in September by top researchers from , , , and .

3. , $300M, AI infrastructure: AI infrastructure startup Baseten reportedly $300 million with backing from , and . The financing set a $5 billion valuation for the 7-year-old, San Francisco-based company.

4. , $250M, medical AI: OpenEvidence, an AI platform for doctors, announced that it picked up $250 million in a Series D funding round that doubled its valuation to $12 billion. and co-led the round, which marks the fourth fundraise for the Miami-based startup in less than a year.

5. , $215M, rare earth magnets: San Marcos, Texas-based Noveon Magnetics, a manufacturer of sintered rare earth permanent magnets, it secured $215 million in Series C funding, including $200 million from . The money will go toward expanding the company’s rare earth magnet manufacturing capacity.

6. , $200M, AI infrastructure: AI networking infrastructure startup Upscale AI $200 million in Series A funding led by , and . The financing set a valuation of more than $1 billion for the Santa Clara, California-based company, which was founded less than two years ago.

7. (tied) , $150M, online tutoring: Language learning marketplace Preply raised $150 million in Series D funding led by . The financing reportedly sets a $1.2 billion valuation for the 14-year-old, Brookline, Massachusetts-based company.

7. (tied) , $150M, AI inference: Inferact, a startup founded by creators and maintainers of open-source LLM inference engine vLLM, announced its launch along with $150 million in initial funding. and led the financing, which set an  $800 million valuation for the company.

7. (tied) , $150M, cybersecurity: Security provider Claroty picked up $150 million in Series F funding led by . The 11-year-old company, founded in Israel and now headquartered in New York, has raised close to $900 million in equity funding to date, per Crunchbase data.

10. , $115M, geothermal energy: Salt Lake City-based Zanskar, a startup applying AI to geothermal exploration, raised $115 million in Series C funding led by and joined by a long list of new and existing investors.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Jan. 17-23. 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:

Those were once again the findings of our annual look at which U.S. colleges and universities graduate the highest number of funded startup founders, based on Crunchbase data.

As usual, four universities — , , and — hung on to the top four slots. The remaining names on our list mostly include a mix of large state research universities, Ivy League institutions and private schools known for tech and business.

For a more detailed overview, we posted the full ranking below. It tracks the number of founders affiliated with each school whose startups raised seed through growth-stage funding this past year.

Leading schools are also hard to get into

When we look at the top-ranked schools on our list, all are known for providing a rigorous education. What they also share in common are highly competitive admissions processes.

This is particularly true for undergrads. For the , for example, Stanford admitted just 3.6% of applicants, followed by Harvard at 3.7%, and MIT at 4.6%.

Many of those accepted are likely people well-poised to succeed in entrepreneurship regardless of degree. For evidence, look at the history of prestigious university going on to found valuable companies such as , and . That said, of course, we also see co-founders in areas that rely on their academic expertise, particularly among AI and biotech unicorns.

Public university outperformers

Public universities, which have higher acceptance rates for in-state residents, are harder to measure for admissions competitiveness. But when it comes to funded-founder track records, it’s clear that a few names stand out.

The far-and-away leader in this category is UC Berkeley, which benefits from its highly regarded STEM programs as well as its location in the San Francisco Bay Area, the global capital of the venture industry.

ranks a distant second, with just over 100 grads going on to launch companies funded in the past year. and are close behind, with 97 and 93 funded founders, respectively, followed by , with 86.

Ivies and hard-to-get-into private schools round out the list

All eight schools in the made our list, which is what we’ve seen in past years as well. After Harvard, the next-biggest Ivies for funded startup founders were , and .

Of course, there are also other private, non-Ivy universities that are notoriously hard to get into or known for particularly demanding STEM curriculum. Not surprisingly, these churn out a lot of funded founders as well. In this category, beyond the aforementioned Stanford and MIT,  , and also ranked high on our list.

Since size is a consideration here as well, we also ought to give a shout-out to some smaller schools that produce a disproportionately high number of funded founders. For instance, , with only about 2,500 students, outperforms many much larger well-regarded schools.

Business schools play an outsized role

Several of the schools on our list also got there to a large degree as a result of business school grads.

Per Crunchbase data, standout business schools for funded founders include , , Northwestern’s and Penn’s , among others.

Business schools have also factored in favorably in prior research looking at universities that produce the highest numbers of startup CEOs.

No big changes

While it may seem like the world is changing at a faster rate than ever, funded founder and university rankings are one of the more stable indicators. Over the years we’ve been crunching these numbers, the component universities of our list, and their respective rankings, haven’t budged dramatically.

Bottom line: If your plan is to be a unicorn founder, attending Stanford is still probably not a bad idea.

Related Crunchbase query:

Related reading:

• Harvard’s Still A Startup Heavyweight
• The Unicorn Founder Myth: Why Education Actually Matters
• These Schools Graduate The Most Funded Startup CEOs

And now, in the same surreal timeline, we’ve got signing — directing the and the to prioritize funding for AI-related research and grants.

You truly can’t make this stuff up and even if you could, you no longer have to.

To be clear: I’m not anti-technology. AI has a role to play in education. Personalized learning, intelligent tutoring systems, data-driven insights — these are powerful tools when used thoughtfully. But let’s not kid ourselves. We’re living through a moment where the Trump 2 administration is taking a DOGE chainsaw to the very foundations of public education. And instead of confronting that, we’re being told to get excited about chatbots in the classroom.

This isn’t leadership. It’s deflection.

Funding for future success

The truth is, AI is not the lifeline our education system needs. Certainly not right now. What we need — what we’ve needed for decades — is serious investment in teachers, classrooms, infrastructure and support services. And we’re getting the opposite.

The Trump administration is proposing deep cuts to key education programs, gutting federal support for public schools, and pushing policies that favor privatization and deregulation over student success. Amid all that, we’re supposed to believe that some AI-powered lesson plans are going to move the needle?

Please.

Let’s start with the obvious: AI doesn’t fix underfunded schools any more than A1 sauce would. You can’t put an algorithm into a building with no heat, no internet and no functioning restroom and expect a miracle. You can’t expect a teacher managing 35 kids on her own to suddenly have the time and training to integrate AI into daily lesson plans (if they even have the time to make one actual lesson plan a week). And you can’t tell communities that are already struggling to get basic resources that what they really need is machine-learning software.

This executive order assumes that what’s missing in American education is innovation. But we don’t have an innovation problem — we have a priorities problem. Our students aren’t falling behind because teachers aren’t tech-savvy enough. They’re falling behind because our country refuses to treat education like a public good.

What’s broken

We’ve normalized schools with outdated textbooks, overworked staff and dilapidated facilities. We’ve made it acceptable for teachers to buy their own supplies, for students to skip meals, and for mental health crises to go unanswered.

And now, in the middle of that, this administration wants to convince us that the real problem is that we’re not moving fast enough on AI.

Let’s also be honest about what AI in schools usually means. It doesn’t mean teachers getting sophisticated tools that make their jobs easier. It means more standardized testing, more data collection, more screen time and more surveillance, especially for kids in low-income communities.

It means feeding student information into systems built by private companies, often with little oversight or transparency. It means potentially outsourcing educational decisions to algorithms that don’t understand context, nuance (sidebar: do any of us get nuance anymore?) or humanity.

It’s a far cry from the glossy pitch the administration is selling.

Widening the digital divide

And let’s not ignore the inequity intentionally baked into all of this. AI-enhanced education requires reliable internet, up-to-date devices, tech-literate staff and digital infrastructure — things that affluent districts are more likely to have. For schools in underserved areas, this push risks widening the digital divide under the guise of modernization.

What’s being framed as progress is actually an elegant Trojan horse for deeper inequality. The schools that most need real, human-centered support are the least likely to benefit from this initiative.

It’s particularly galling that all this is being rolled out with a heavy dose of PR spin. The A1 comment might’ve been a gaffe, but it was also revealing. It showed just how deeply unserious this administration is about the reality on the ground in American schools. It was meant to sound cool, forward-thinking, maybe even meme-worthy. Instead, it became a symbol of how disconnected Trump’s appointee is from what’s actually happening in classrooms across the country.

What schools really need

Teachers aren’t asking for AI. They’re asking for manageable class sizes, fair pay, mental health resources and the ability to teach without being completely buried by bureaucracy. Students aren’t crying out for machine learning — they’re asking for support, stability and a system that sees them as more than test scores or data points. And parents aren’t begging for the latest edtech. They want to know their kids are safe, challenged and cared for at school.

AI is a tool. That’s it. It’s not a savior, it’s not a substitute, and it’s certainly not a replacement for public investment. If the Trump administration were serious about improving education, it would be fighting to expand school funding, not slash it. The administration would be making college more affordable, not reversing progress on student debt. It would be strengthening teacher pipelines, not weakening them. And it would be protecting public schools, not undermining them.

Instead, we get a photo op and a tech policy wrapped in buzzwords.

So yes, Secretary A1, AI has its place. But until we’re ready to fund schools like they matter, treat educators like professionals, and address the real, systemic issues at the heart of this crisis, all the artificial intelligence in the world won’t save us.

And that’s not artificial. That’s just reality.

is the chief strategy officer for . He holds a law degree and has taught entrepreneurship at and the , and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. His writing has been featured in , , , , , , , and many other publications. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize .

Related reading:

• Can We Please Still Have Nice Things That AI Hasn’t Touched?
• Stealing Ghibli: How AI Has Crossed The Line Into Creative Theft
• Who Owns Your Face? The Legal Fight for Identity In The Age of AI
• When Legal Tech Fails: The California Bar Exam Disaster And The Risks Of Blind Innovation

Illustration:

U.S. President ’s trade war has impacted both nations’ economies and rankled what long has been a close relationship between the neighboring countries.

While many wait to see the aftermath of the new tariffs — which went into effect this month — in the public market, there are also questions about what it could mean for venture investment in Canada-based startups.

While Canada only made up about 2% of the global venture market last year, 2024 did represent a comeback of sorts after a down 2023.

Last year, VC-backed startups in Canada raised $6.9 billion, per Crunchbase .That was a 17% jump from the $5.9 billion raised in 2023 — the lowest mark since the country’s startups raised only $3.9 billion in 2020.

Big money

The jump in dollars actually coincided with a fairly significant drop in deal flow. Last year saw fewer than 700 deals, compared to 2023 which saw almost 1,000 funding rounds.

However, the dollar number was helped out by some pretty massive rounds — all having to do with artificial intelligence, not surprisingly — including:

• In July, Vancouver-based legal tools platform locked up a $900 million Series F at a $3 billion valuation. The company’s Clio Duo generative AI solution helps lawyers complete routine tasks and leverage use analytics to run more efficiently. The AI platform includes audit log functionality for court discovery.
• In December, , the Toronto-based chip startup led by vaunted semiconductor engineer , raised more than $693 million in a Series D funding that gave it a $2 billion pre-money valuation.
• Also in July, Toronto-based raised a $500 million Series D at a $5.5 billion valuation. Cohere builds large language models that allow AI to learn from new data, and can be customized and put into applications for features such as interactive chat or to generate text.

Quarter breakdown

Those rounds helped both Q3 and Q4 2024 break the $2 billion barrier. However, so far this year it has been a different story, as deal flow seems to be picking up while dollar totals trend down.

In Q1, Canada-based startups raised $1.6 billion in 128 deals, compared to $2.4 billion in 118 rounds in Q4 last year, per Crunchbase data. The Q1 dollar total is the lowest since Q2 2024, which saw only $1.3 billion raised.

The Q1 dollar total, however, was about twice that of the same quarter last year and included big deals such as Toronto-based programmatic advertising platform raising a $235 million growth round led by in February, and cybersecurity firm raising a $160 million Series C this month that values the company at $1.5 billion.

What’s next?

Of course, Q1 was completed by the time the new U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods went into effect, so it’s hard to tell what result they will have in the venture world.

While many point to chips and devices and other such hardware components being affected by trade issues, it is important to remember even software will see effects. Uncertain markets and volatility cause companies to rein in spending — with software being the first to go.

After a strong 2024, Canada’s growing venture market bears watching as markets continue to be in flux.

Related Crunchbase Pro query:

Related reading:

• Legal Tech Startup Clio Raises Whopping $900M At $3B Valuation
• Cohere Raises $500M At $5.5B Valuation
• Jim Keller-Led Tenstorrent Raises Another $700M For AI Chips At $2B+ Valuation
• Advertising Startup StackAdapt Snags Massive $235M Round

Illustration:

India—which like many regions had a banner year in 2021—is one of those areas seeing the most pronounced decline.

Funding in India dropped to its lowest point since the first quarter of 2020. VC-backed companies took in $2.9 billion in the third quarter of this year, a massive 66% drop from the previous quarter and a mind-blowing 81% drop from the same quarter last year.

Deal flow did not see nearly as major a dropoff, but numbers were still down. Just more than 420 deals were announced in Q3, a 12% drop from the second quarter and a 32% decrease from the same period last year.

“The funding environment globally has weakened significantly, and India is no different,” said , managing director at .��

“We have seen several hedge funds and global investors without local/regional presence recede from the market to focus on core markets,” said Ravishankar, adding the dramatic drop should also be seen in the context of a very exuberant market in 2021.

Asia’s issues

To that point, India certainly is not alone in the dropoff. Venture funding in Asia sank to its lowest level in 10 quarters, mirroring what is going on in the public markets, and investors slowed funding to private companies with only $21.2 billion for startups in the region. That is a 26% decrease from the second quarter and an astonishing 56% decrease from the third quarter of last year. The total funding amount marked the lowest investment since the first quarter of 2020, when the world was just entering into a pandemic.

Many likely would point toward China for such a decline, especially with the regulatory crackdown on tech firms there. While China’s numbers have dipped significantly quarter to quarter—Chinese startups saw only $9.6 billion invested last quarter, compared to $18.5 billion in the same quarter of 2021—India took a more pronounced decline in venture funding by percentage.

“There has been a significant pullback from the large crossover funds—, , etc.,” said , co-founder of New Delhi-based . “These funds typically led later-stage rounds with significant checks, so their retrenchment shows up as a big drop in the amount of funding.”

The numbers bear out that large late-stage and growth rounds—where crossover funds normally participate—did take the biggest drop in India during the third quarter. The quarter saw only $1.5 billion go to Indian startups for those late, large rounds—a 76% drop from the second quarter, which saw $6.2 billion invested in such rounds.

Even more dramatically, the Q3 numbers represent a 89% decline from $13.6 billion invested in Q3 2021.

Those numbers are not shocking, as late-stage and growth rounds are also down in the U.S. and globally, but it does show the trend is affecting areas with even less mature tech startup ecosystems.

Ravishankar said growth and late-growth rounds are being the most impacted, due to the IPO windows being shut and therefore companies don’t have near-term liquidity prospects.��

That is not to say there were not some large rounds in the region in the third quarter. Edtech giant closed a venture round worth approximately $210 million in August and fintech platform raised a $100 million Series D, minting it as a unicorn in July.

However, such large deals have become few and far between as investors become more wary of spending big money in large valuations and large crossover investors pull back.

Early and seed

All that is not to say earlier rounds have not been affected.

Seed and angel funding—which totaled about $400 million in Q3—in the region fell about 16% quarter to quarter and 4% year to year.

Early-stage funding hit approximately $1 billion in the third quarter, falling 47% from the second quarter and 32% from Q3 2021.

“Early stage seems to have recovered in the last few weeks and we are seeing some buoyancy return here,” Ravishankar said.

What’s next?

The current downturn has affected most sectors, including SaaS, fintech and B2B, Ravishankar said.��

“But certain sectors like edtech have been even more impacted as a result of the strong comeback of offline markets,” Ravishankar said. “On the positive side, there is more demand for consumer and financial services businesses that are profitable and compounding.”

Just like in the U.S., investors are eyeing strong cash flow and profitability or at least a road map to it.

“The downturn has affected all companies, but companies in spaces that have high growth but unclear monetization” have been hit hardest, Verma said. “Three words—path to profitability—have made a resurgence.”

While investors are not expecting that to change in the near future and believe the fourth quarter may resemble the currently ended third, some light remains at the end of the tunnel.

“We expect the rest of the year to continue to be slow and all eyes are on the actions of the U.S. ����,” Ravishankar said. “We are cautiously optimistic about 2023 as there are several funds that have raised significant capital in 2021/2022 and they would look to pick interesting opportunities in the market.”

Verma adds that while more short-term pain is likely, from a longer-term point of view this is a great time to be investing.

“We will also see more (local institutions and families) bring later-stage capital to the table, making for a more resilient ecosystem in future,” Verma said.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of Oct. 3, 2022.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration:

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Osmo develops and launched its app and a suite of educational toys that interact with its software platform through the camera of an iPad or Kindle Fire tablet. Kids can learn basic problem solving and spatial reasoning with these toys and through the game-like interface of the application.

Prior to its acquisition, Osmo had raised in outside funding, the last of which arrived in . , , and , among , are investors in Osmo. The company will continue operating as a separate brand of hardware and software products after the transaction is complete, according to a statement from the company. Osmo is Palo Alto-based and has about 60 employees.

, co-founder and CEO of Osmo, told Crunchbase News in a phone interview that the deal made strategic sense for both companies and kind of came by surprise.

Three months ago, Sharma said, Osmo had almost closed a new round of funding (for what would have been its Series C), when he met , co-founder and CEO of ���۴���’S. Realizing they had similar backgrounds—both working in educational technology, both hailing from small villages in India—and complementary businesses, acquisition talks proceeded quickly. “We made the decision within a week,” according to Sharma.

“Platform-thinking is in our DNA,” said Sharma, who, alongside his co-founder , quit software engineering jobs at Google to start Osmo. According to Raveendran, ���۴���’S had been focused on “building a content-driven platform” built around what he referred to as “the DNA of learning.” Add to that that Osmo already had traction in a market segment and geography ���۴���’S wanted to expand, and you’ve got a corporate genetic match.

Raveendran said he’s known about Osmo’s product for awhile. ���۴���’S had been working to develop and roll out content for a younger audience, aimed at kids between the ages of three and eight. Accordingly, Raveendran had a professional interest in tracking the market for young kids’ educational products, but he also had a personal reason: “I have a five year-old son, and he’s been playing with Osmo for the past eight months.”

Raveendran said that ���۴���’S currently has “over 1,000 people” working on video content and game development.

“This makes us one of the biggest studios in India,” he said. Raveendran said his company is growing revenues by ten percent month-over-month. The application has 30 million registered students, two million of which pay for a subscription.

Osmo is the first U.S.-based company that ���۴���’S has acquired, but it has made in the past. in the education technology company include , , , and the .

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The markets are , and while American stocks , private companies aren’t in the mood to be overshadowed.

There’s a new supergiant round for us to cover, and that means we’re closing out the last days of 2018 with at least one more nine-figure investment. Who raised it? A China-based edtech company called .

Series F

Yuanfudao, founded in 2012, is a Beijing-based service that provides streaming-powered tutoring. The Chinese , , leading to a boom in tech companies serving it in recent years. Business coverage of the trend has been extensive as we can see , , and , for example.

Crunchbase News previously covered the Yuanfudao round back before it was confirmed. At that time, it was expected that the unicorn would raise $250 million at a $2.8 billion valuation. Those figures rose to $300 million at a $3 billion valuation, according .

So, the company’s Series F was an even bigger event than anticipated.��Yuanfudao, which China’s first edtech unicorn, is now flush heading into today’s uncertain economic market.

The new capital raised in Yuanfudao’s is more extensive than all the money it previously raised. The firm’s Series , , , , , and were worth just over $244 million in total. The company has now raised around $544 million, .

China

China’s venture market took center stage in 2018 as the country’s startup scene raised tectonic new rounds and its constituent companies grew like hell. There were some notable stumbles, and China’s startup set will contain the usual set of misses and overpriced mistakes. But wrapping the year with another $300 million investment, a round led by one of China’s leading tech companies, , is very appropriate.

�ճ󾱲������󲹰��� we published before, detailing the funding pace of various China-based edtech companies, is now out of date, but it should give you an idea of how quickly the set of companies is racing forward. I will be fascinated to see how long that pace of capital attraction can continue into the new year.

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