When forecasting which startup sectors are likely to attract big follow-on rounds, it’s helpful to find areas that are already seeing a lot of large initial ones. For this, we can look to seed funding tallies.

Even as overall seed-stage investment declined in 2024, a few areas saw big gains. This includes the obvious category — artificial intelligence — as well as a subset of sectors largely focused on automating things that humans currently do.

Below, we look at four top picks.

Robotics

Robotics isn’t the cheapest industry for building a new product. So when a newly minted startup does get funding, it’s often larger than a typical seed round.

This past year, examples abounded of companies in the space securing unusually large initial investments. One U.S. standout was San Francisco-based , a startup founded by former CEO that launched with $150 million in seed funding to further its vision of building robots to do household chores.

San Francisco-based , a developer of AI foundational models for robotics, was another investor favorite. It secured a $70 million seed round in March and a $400 million Series A in November. And China-based also had a good year, picking up a $95 million angel round in June, plus another $70 million in November.

Large seed rounds contributed to boosting overall seed-stage funding to the robotics space to just over $1 billion in 2024 1 — up a whopping 77% from a year ago. In addition, it helped that we’re seeing robust activity at the intersection of robotics and AI.

Moreover, the industry had a splashy year across stages in 2024, with several companies landing jumbo-sized rounds for humanoid robots.

Accounting, tax prep and bookkeeping

Robots are omnipresent in futuristic sci-fi movies. Automated bookkeeping, not so much.

But while it might not be the most cinematically appealing of innovations, intelligent software for accounting is certainly attracting attention from investors lately. Much of that is directed at the seed stage.

Per Crunchbase , startups tied to accounting, bookkeeping and tax preparation picked up $143 million in seed funding in 2024. That’s an increase of 70% from the prior year and only slightly below the 2021 peak.

AI fueled the gains. This included the largest funding recipient, , a Danish startup offering an AI-powered general ledger for multinational companies that landed $13 million in June.

Among U.S. startups, two companies developing AI-enabled tools also snagged big rounds. , a provider of billing management tools for businesses, landed $10.2 million in seed financing in October. , a provider of AI-enabled financial planning tools, secured $10 million in a May seed round, followed by a $28 million October Series A.

Legal tech

Legal tech is interesting as it’s one of the few areas where seed funding hasn’t really declined from 2021 boom-era levels.

In each of the past four years, legal and legal tech startups have raised between $170 million and $200 million globally. That’s a very steady range given that most industries have seen dramatic year-to-year fluctuations as cycles rise and wane.

Last year, in what should come as a surprise to no one, startups applying AI to legal tech were the standout seed funding recipients, with particularly strong gains in the U.S. Overall U.S. seed funding to legal tech hit $93 million in 2024 — up 37% year over year.

The largest U.S. funding recipient was , a regulatory compliance platform that picked up $11 million in seed funding in January, followed by a $27 million Series A in June. Next was a $6.8 million seed round for , a provider of tools for patent lawyers.

Artificial intelligence

We put artificial intelligence in the No. 4 slot not because it was the smallest, but because it was the most obvious category. Trend analysis tends to be more interesting when it begins with something you didn’t already know.

Nonetheless, it’s not like we could ignore AI either. After all, companies in Crunchbase’s AI-focused industry categories pulled in $7.6 billion in seed funding in 2024 — more than one-fourth of global investment at this stage.

Some of the largest rounds in the category were for the aforementioned AI robotics startups The Bot Co. and Physical Intelligence.

Other big seed deals for AI companies included a $142 million financing for , a developer of biological artificial intelligence models for therapeutic design, and a $100 million round for Paris-based generative AI startup .

The age of AGI

We look to seed funding trends not only for an idea of where future fortunes might be made but also for a sense of cultural vibe shifts. If the most ambitious and skilled entrepreneurs are putting their energies in a particular space, that says a lot about how they envision the future unfolding.

What we are seeing lately seems to indicate a big vibe shift. In particular, we’re seeing a marked change from the overarching direction of seed financings several years ago, where there was more emphasis on tools and services to make humans’ lives more pampered and comfortable. In the 2010s — the era that birthed many consumer-facing app unicorns — we saw the rise of giants such as and that accomplished these goals with a heavy reliance on human labor in the form of drivers and hosts.

These days, the focus seems increasingly on how to lessen our reliance on humans in the daily slog of getting things done. Robots will clean our houses, software will automate our bookkeeping and tax compliance, and AI will serve as our in-house research department.

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Related reading:

• Seed Funding Fell Hard In These Sectors
• Seed Rounds Got Larger Through The Downturn. Why Is That?
• The Year Of Humanoid Robots

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Last column, we took a look at the massive amount of cash that went to artificial intelligence-related startups.

But who is putting that cash into the sector? Not surprisingly, it’s the usual suspects.

— which also topped our list of most-active global post-seed investors last year — also took part in the most post-seed rounds for AI-related startups. The firm completed 42 deals, per Crunchbase data. That’s more AI-related rounds than the firm consummated in 2022 and 2023 combined.

Those rounds included participating in the massive $10 billion raise at a $62 billion valuation — the largest venture capital raise of 2024 — as well as ’s $6 billion round in May.

The Silicon Valley giant also placed first for firms that led or co-led the highest number of AI-related rounds post-seed with 20.

Who’s next?

ranks second on our list of investors with the most post-seed rounds for AI-related startups, with 37 deals announced in 2024, compared to 26 AI-related rounds the previous two years.

Lightspeed’s biggest AI bets last year included xAI’s $6 billion funding round in November that valued it at $50 billion and ’ $1.5 billion Series F that valued the company at $14 billion.

came in third last year for most post-seed rounds invested in when it came to AI-related companies. The accelerator giant took part in 36 such rounds, including a $1 billion round for that valued the data labeling and evaluation startup at a stunning $13.8 billion.

Next on the list are (32 deals), (30) and (27).

This will not come as a shock, but all of those firms increased the number of AI-related deals they completed in 2024 from 2023.

As far as which firm led or co-led the most amount of rounds money wise, that was . The firm led or co-led eight AI-related rounds that totaled $17.3 billion — including Databricks’ huge raise and a $6.6 billion investment for .

Next on that list is — yep, you guessed it, the same firm that began this column — Andreessen Horowitz.

In general, this list is similar to the most-active global post-seed investor list. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise considering it’s logical that the most-active investors in venture certainly are likely to have been caught up in the AI craze that has dominated the market.

Nevertheless, it is impressive to see not just the amount of deals many of these VC titans have completed, but the amount of cash involved. As history tells us, only a small percentage of these bets are likely to pan out for VCs, and those companies will need to have massive exits for the return everyone in this game wants.

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• Eye On AI: AI Venture Funding Shattered Quarterly Records In Q4
• What We Learned About AI From 7 Active Startup Investors This Year
• Databricks Raises $10B In 2024’s Largest Venture Funding Deal
• xAI Makes It Official — Raises $6B At $24B Valuation
• Anduril Industries Valued At $14B After $1.5B Series F
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• OpenAI Raises $6.6B At $157B Valuation

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We’re slogging through what’s shaping as the . at an alarming rate. And fossil fuel consumption .

Now, here comes another grim data point: Equity funding to startups focused on cleantech and sustainability is down this year.

In the first half of 2024, around $9.6 billion went to seed through growth financings for companies in Crunchbase’s . That’s a decline of 61% from the second half of last year, and about 10% from year-ago levels.

For perspective, we charted investment and round counts for the aforementioned categories below:

As industries go, cleantech-related sectors overall weren’t as hard hit in the post-2021 downturn as other categories like consumer products or fintech. Funding to the space last year was flat for example, even as overall investment declined.

This year, even though overall equity investment declined, the broader picture is more nuanced. For one, we’ve seen huge sums go into debt-based project financing.

Sweden leads in this arena, with two giant rounds for Stockholm-based companies in January. , a sustainability-focused battery manufacturer, $5 billion in project financing to expand its facilities, and $4.6 billion in debt financing to go toward what it described as the world’s first large-scale green steel plant.

Those aren’t the deal sizes we see for sectors in decline. Since infrastructure-heavy cleantech companies commonly turn to debt financing as they scale, the shift from equity rounds to project finance may be more an indication of a maturing startup pipeline than a change of heart among investors in the space.

Hot themes include EV charging, battery supply chain and hydrogen

Back to equity rounds, meanwhile, a few investment themes stand out so far this year.

One is around the battery supply chain. Amid growing EV adoption and a hoped-for shift to cleaner energy sources, we’ll need more batteries and a more robust, reliable supply chain to produce them. As a result, we’re seeing strong investment in alternative battery materials and battery recycling.

In the first category, Alameda, California-based , a next-generation battery materials company, raised led by and .

In the recycling camp, Westborough, Massachusetts-based was the standout, securing . Ascend makes battery materials using valuable elements reclaimed from spent lithium-ion batteries.

Electric vehicle charging has been another popular investment theme in recent months. Those that raised large rounds this year include charging spot operators , based in Paris, which landed a in January, and , based in Quebec City, which picked up in June.

There’s also strong venture interest around hydrogen energy, particularly startups developing electrolyzers, devices that use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

An Australian electrolyzer startup, , picked up in a financing co-led by and in May. And in February, Denver-based , which focuses on identifying and commercializing geologic hydrogen resources, closed on led by .

The exit climate has not warmed

While big venture rounds are still happening, the pace of IPOs and M&A deals involving venture-backed cleantech companies remains rather slow. So far in 2024, we haven’t seen much in the way of big exits of any kind.

One exception to the slowing was Chinese EV maker . The company carried out a NYSE IPO in May and had a recent market cap around $5 billion. However, shares have been trending lower since its debut.

“It’s a colder exit environment than it was in 2021 and 2022,” observed Anthony DeOrsey, a research manager at the , who attributes this to the overall decline in technology IPOs, particularly for U.S. companies. The collapse of the SPAC as a route to the public market has also impacted cleantech, as many had gone public this way around the market peak.

Hopefully, the exit climate will warm up a bit beginning next year. There’s certainly a large enough pipeline of well-funded private companies at this point to make for a compelling list of IPO candidates.

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announced the launch of its $100 million AI fund — named the Anthology Fund — in partnership with generative AI startup and competitor, .

The new fund will look to back founders building AI-first applications and infrastructure solutions that leverage Anthropic’s technology and AI models.

Investments will concentrate on — but won’t be limited to — five areas of AI: infrastructure, frontier/novel application, consumer experiences, trust and safety and solutions that maximize societal benefits. The fund will invest from seed to expansion stages, with investments starting at $100,000.

“From our earliest meetings with Anthropic when we first invested in early 2023, we were impressed by their team’s caliber and commitment to world-changing, safe AI innovation,” wrote Menlo’s and in a .

“With the Anthology Fund, we’ve teamed up to further our commitment to the most imaginative AI pioneers,” they continued.

Menlo took part in Anthropic’s Series C in 2023 and earlier this year led a $750 million round in Anthropic.

Another AI fund

While Anthropic will not take a stake in the companies the fund invests in, an AI or big tech company helping to create an AI-specific fund has become the norm.

The OpenAI Startup Fund was launched in 2022, investing $175 million raised from OpenAI partners. OpenAI itself is not an investor.

Last year, — ’s venture arm — announced a Generative AI Fund to $500 million. The firm is an investor in .

In May, a new Databricks AI Fund as part of .

Related reading:

• Eye On AI: Q2 Funding Shows Investors Are Willing To Open Their Checkbooks — For the Right Company

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The increase in venture dollars was mainly due to a significant jump in nine-figure rounds — illustrating that even as investors may be pulling back on investing in young startups, they are willing to double down on more mature companies looking for growth rounds.

In the second quarter, cyber startups saw a robust $4.4 billion invested in only 153 deals — the lowest deal count in years — according to Crunchbase . The dollar figure represents a 63% increase from Q1, which saw $2.7 billion roll to startups in 173 deals.

The number also is a whopping 144% increase from Q2 of last year, which saw only $1.8 billion invested in cyber startups in 193 deals. In the larger picture, the first half of the year saw $7.1 billion in venture dollars go to cyber startups in 327 deals — a 51% jump from the $4.7 billion invested in H1 2023 in 101 fewer deals.

Less deals, big deals

That drop in deal flow also may be an indication of what has changed to boost funding — mainly really, really big rounds.

The biggest in Q2 was cloud security startup ’s announcement in May that it had raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation. That round is still the biggest in cybersecurity this year. It’s the largest cyber round since raised more than $1 billion from in February 2022.

Of course, Wiz is reportedly now in talks to be acquired by for $23 billion — the deal would be the largest ever for a VC-backed company, according to Crunchbase data. If the deal is consummated, it would undoubtedly bring even more heat to the sector.

Nevertheless, Wiz’s huge round was far from the only one in the second quarter, as 10 rounds hit $100 million or more. Data security startup raised a $300 million Series C led by at a $1.4 billion valuation, and Dallas-based enterprise browser developer locked up a $175 million Series D led by new investor and existing investor at a $3 billion valuation.

“This surge is mainly the result of a growing number of exceptionally large growth rounds such as (from) Wiz, , Island and Cyera,” said , senior partner and head of the Israel office for cyber venture firm .

“After several years of a near freeze in late-stage funding, this revival is the result of impressive growth that these startups achieved since their foundation, prior to the boom of 2021,” he added.

In total, the first half of the year saw 19 rounds of $100 million or more, while the first half of last year saw only a dozen. In fact, there were only 20 such rounds all of last year.

Schreiber said he does see a bifurcation trend in the cybersecurity industry right now. On one side, more early, moderately-sized exits by younger companies — some acquired after struggling to raise follow-on financing. On the other, massive growth rounds raised by startups vying to build multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity giants.

Shifting economics

However, investors don’t believe it was just big deals that have caused a slight shift in the market.

, a managing director at who specializes in cyber, cloud and AI infrastructure, said factors such as an increase in cyber hacking, threat proliferation due to AI and enterprises starting to buy cyber products again after reeling back spending the last few years have all contributed to the uptick in investor interest.

“The last couple of years there were economic headwinds affecting all actors — and most certainly cybersecurity,” he said. “Now you are seeing these enterprises come back to the market and buying again.”

Specifically, Padval sees security including cloud, as well as governance and privacy, taking center stage with investors for the next few quarters.

In addition, AI can not be left out of the picture, Padval said, as companies are looking for ways to secure what is needed for the processing of large language models.

Everything, everywhere

Speaking of AI, it is often easiest to attribute everything to the tech of the moment. However, doing so in cyber’s case would be wrong.

While many cyber startups have AI components and tools, it was not purely the AI craze driving cyber funding.

Instead, it was a little bit of everything. Cloud security, browser management, endpoint security and more all saw huge rounds, as did those specializing in more niche areas like traffic analysis and crowdsourced security testing.

Investors expect the market to continue to warm as the second half of the year wears on.

“While the market hasn’t completely recovered yet, investors remain bullish on supporting strong security startups who can potentially challenge incumbent security giants,” Schreiber said.

Methodology

Cybersecurity is defined by the industries of network security, cloud security and cybersecurity, according to Crunchbase data. Most announced rounds are represented in the database; however, there could be a small time lag for rounds reported late in the quarter.

Related Crunchbase Pro query:

Related reading:

• Cybersecurity Funding Shows Resilience In Q1
• Huntress Captures $150M Series D At $1.5B-Plus Valuation
• Google In Talks To Buy Cyber Startup Wiz For $23B — Report

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San Jose, California-based became the second chip startup this week to raise big — locking up a $75 million equity round co-led by the and .

On Monday, Santa Clara, California-based , a developer of a laser manufacturing technology platform for the semiconductor industry, raised an $80 million Series B led by .

DreamBig, founded in 2019, develops chiplet platforms and its specialties include applications in large language models, generative AI and more. The company has raised nearly $93 million, per Crunchbase data.

AI boon

The semiconductor industry seems to be riding the current AI craze, as the market looks for specialized generative AI chips that are more cost-effective and energy-efficient, but also faster.

The DreamBig raise is just the latest big round in the industry. Besides the Halo round, San Francisco-based locked up a $120 million round led by and late last month.

Other big deals in 2024 include:

• This month raised nearly $275 million — mainly from the German government.
• In March, optical interconnectivity startup raised a massive $175 million Series C led by ’s . Celestial’s photonic fabric platform helps separate compute and memory, making processing extensive AI faster and more energy-efficient.
• In February, San Jose, California-based , which is developing its AI inference chip for both the generative AI and automotive industries, raised a $102 million Series C co-led by and .

Overall, venture funding to semiconductor chip startups continues to be strong. Thus far in 2024, VC-backed chip startups have raised nearly $5.7 billion in just 210 deals, per Crunchbase .

Last year, startups saw less than $10.4 billion in 498 deals.

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Altogether, companies in South and Central America raised $791 million in reported seed- through growth-stage financing in Q2 of 2024, per Crunchbase data. That’s a rise of 25% from the prior quarter and 17% from a year ago.

Recent gains follow an unusually weak Q1, in which funding to the region hit a multi-year low. And while the latest numbers look stronger, we’re still far below the heights reached during a record-breaking run in 2021, as charted below:

Meanwhile, reported deal counts were down for the quarter, although we did see an encouraging pickup in volume at the early stage. We’ll also expect the seed round counts to rise a bit over time as well as more previously unreported deals are added to the database.

All about fintech

As overall investment rose in Q2, fintech led the recovery. The four largest funding recipients of the quarter were all fintechs, including:

• , a Brazilian provider of banking tools for businesses, closed on $120 million in Series C financing in June.
• , a Mexico City-based provider of technology for merchants to accept digital payments, secured $100 million in a June financing, its first equity round since 2021.
• , a Brazil-based provider of loyalty and promotion tools for retailers, picked up $74 million in a May financing led by .
• , a Mexico City-based provider of tools for merchants to offer installment plans to customers, secured $70 million in equity funding in May led by .

Fintech’s strength isn’t entirely surprising. The sector has long been a top area for regional investment. It was the top area for investment last quarter too.

However, we did see companies in other spaces raise good-sized rounds in Q2. For example, , a Brazilian data and AI consultancy, landed $40 million in financing backed by . And , an insurance platform, pulled in a $22.5 million Series A.

Late-stage up, early-stage stable

Late-stage saw the biggest improvement in overall funding. Reported investment at Series C and beyond  $291 million – roughly double Q1 levels and a nearly 6X gain from a year ago.

While these may look like eye-popping gains, it’s not quite such a striking turnaround in broader context. Both Q1 of 2024 and Q2 of 2023 were anomalously weak quarters for late-stage dealmaking.

At early-stage, investment levels have been more stable. In the second quarter, investment totaled $386 million – up a bit from Q1 and down a bit from year-ago levels. Overall, we’ve seen less fluctuation of investment at early-stage than late-stage, where one or two large deals can significantly impact the totals.

Getting better

Overall, data points to an improving climate for venture investment in Latin America’s leading startup hubs. Funding at every stage rose in Q2 from the prior quarter.

The rebound was particularly pronounced for Mexico, with roughly $230 million into known rounds, up from less than $40 million the prior quarter.

Still, funding to Latin America remains over 80% below its peak in Q2 of 2021. Unicorn creation is still sluggish. And we haven’t seen many big exits for venture-backed companies. Even if we don’t expect to retrace those former highs, it looks like there’s still plenty of room left to rebound.

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One of its biggest ever involving a venture capital-backed startup.

, the parent company of , is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup for approximately $23 billion. The deal, which would be Google’s largest ever, was first reported in .

In fact, the deal would be the largest ever for a VC-backed company, according to Crunchbase data. It is even bigger than ’s ill-fated $20 billion deal to acquire design unicorn in 2022 — a deal that fell through after facing pressure from regulators.

The deal is even more stunning considering Wiz, a cloud security startup, just locked up the biggest cybersecurity round of the year thus far in May when it raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation. The round was co-led by , and .

The Google deal would essentially double Wiz’s valuation from just two months ago.

Wiz said it achieved $350 million in annual recurring revenue in 2023.

Google eyes bigger slice of cloud pie

The deal seems to mean Google is tired of being stuck in third place when it comes to cloud services — behind and ’s . Wiz’s software helps companies secure their cloud applications — meaning Google could increase their security revenue.

This would not be Google’s first big cybersecurity buy. The tech giant bought for $5.4 billion in 2022.

Exits

The cyber M&A market has shown some signs of life in the last six months — although investors likely expected more coming into the year.

Thus far, 45 VC-backed cybersecurity startups have been acquired this year — per Crunchbase — far outpacing the 66 total startups bought all of last year.

On the other hand, the potential Google deal comes at a time when the IPO pipeline still seems slightly frozen — although perhaps thawing. Investors have often pointed to Wiz as a company that could go public whenever it chooses and likely will wait for the most opportune time.

After Wiz’s $1 billion raise in the spring, co-founder and CEO openly talked about the company’s ambition to one day go public.

However, $23 billion can change a lot of plans.

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• Cybersecurity Dealmaking Shows Signs Of Life
• Cloud Security Firm Wiz Raises $1B At $12B Valuation

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Both early and late-stage funding was up — with a notable increase in late-stage funding.

For the first time in a decade, quarterly funding to European startups was higher than in Asia. According to a recent Crunchbase report, Asia-based startups suffered their worst quarter since the final quarter of 2015, not helped by the tension between the U.S. and China.

Table of contents

• AI led in Europe
• Late-stage grew
• Early-stage up
• Seed tailed
• M&A in Paris
• Good signals
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Across Europe, the UK was the leading market with $6.7 billion and France the second largest with $2.9 billion in funding — both markets up year over year. The third largest market, Germany, was down this past quarter with $1.8 billion going to startups there.

AI led in Europe

AI was the leading industry in Europe with $3.3 billion invested in Q2. Large rounds went to London-based automated driving company , Paris-based foundation model , and Cologne-based language translation platform .

The second largest sector was financial services, totaling $3 billion. Three U.K.-based companies raised large rounds: lending platforms and as well as digital bank .

Sustainability was the third largest in Europe with $2.5 billion invested as renewable energy companies raised mega-rounds north of $100 million.

Late-stage grew

Late-stage funding reached $7.5 billion across more than 100 rounds. Funding was up the most quarter over quarter and year over year, but it was not the highest quarter in the last year.

Ever since funding began to slow down a couple years ago, quarterly totals have fluctuated as late-stage funding surged or fell. This is true for the past five quarters, charted below:

Early-stage up

Early-stage funding reached $6.5 billion across just over 300 funding rounds. Series B funding showed the largest increase year to year at this stage.

Seed tailed

Seed stage funding reached $1.8 billion, across 900 rounds, down from $2.3 billion in Q2 2023.

M&A in Paris

Paris-based startups generated some of the largest acquisitions this past quarter.

London-based PE firm acquired a majority stake in Paris-based employee hub for $650 million. Social network , also from Paris, was acquired by mobile gaming company for just over $500 million. And not the largest deal, but of interest in the AI sector, was Belgium-based AI legal drafting service , purchased by U.S.-based for $160 million.

Good signals

Three companies from Europe joined the unicorn board in Q2, down from five in Q1. They include Paris-based business forecasting service , Berlin-based auto parts retailer , and London-based no-code app developer . European unicorn companies number on The Crunchbase ������Ƶ.

And in good news for European venture, fintech unicorn posted its 2023 earnings showing strong revenue growth — 95% year over year. The company reported $2.2 billion in revenue for 2023 and a profit of $545 million alongside 12 million new customers. Revolut was last valued at $33 billion in 2021.

Overall, European startups posted a pretty good quarter, showing an increase in late-stage funding to mature startups. We also saw the most prominent sector, AI, take the lead for funding in Europe, and a positive sign of substantial revenue growth from one of the region’s most highly valued private companies, Revolut.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of July 7, 2024.

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

We have made a change to how we include corporate funding rounds in our reporting as of January 2023. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

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.)

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, which develops artificial intelligence software for defense, raised approximately $489 million in funding led by that values the company at $5.4 billion.

The Germany-based startup designs software that helps boost weapons capabilities in drones and jet fighters and improves battlefield decision making.

The company has been active in Ukraine and the Baltic states as eastern European nations fear further aggression from Russia.

The announcement comes just as the NATO summit in Washington D.C. is being held.

Helsing is no stranger to large rounds. In September 2023, the company raised a round worth approximately $227 million, also led by General Catalyst. Founded in 2021, the company has raised approximately $827 million, per Crunchbase.

Money battle?

The new round for Helsing is the second largest ever in defense tech, per Crunchbase data.

Software and hardware defense tech startup closed a massive $1.5 billion Series E in late 2022, which remains the largest. Earlier this year, it was the startup was raising another $1.5 billion round, this time at a $12.5 billion valuation.

However, even with the round, global venture dollars have not poured into defense tech this year the same as last — despite many conflicts showing few signs of being diffused.

So far this year, defense tech startups have raised only $827 million, per Crunchbase . Last year, such startups collected nearly $2 billion.

However, this round shows it only takes one big fundraise in this sector to get right back on track — or even ahead — of last year’s pace.

Pro query:

Related reading:

​​Defense Tech Funding Slows At Start Of Year

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