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The Largest Recent Seed Rounds Are All For AI Companies
The stereotypical seed-funded company may be a scrappy startup with a shoestring budget. But in the age of AI, that’s not where investors are concentrating their bets. Instead, recent months have served as a busy period for big commitments to seed-stage companies that are short on operating history and long on ambition. To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to cull a list of the largest seed rounds of the past six months 1. Globally, at least 12 companies within these parameters pulled in rounds of $100 million or more. Physical AI is leading theme A majority of top seed funding recipients operate at the intersection of AI and the physical world. This includes the largest recent fundraiser, Paris-based Advanced Machine Intelligence, which raised $1.03 billion in a March seed round backed by a long list of prominent venture firms, individual investors and strategic backers. The startup is developing AI models that learn abstract representations of real-world sensor data and make predictions. Unconventional AI, meanwhile, is operating at the intersection of AI and energy. The San Francisco company secured a $475 million seed round in December to develop energy-efficient silicon circuits that demonstrate similar non-linear dynamics to biological neurons. Also up there is Periodic Labs, which is applying AI to science and experimentation, with goals including automating materials design in areas like semiconductor manufacturing, transportation and power grid engineering. The San Francisco company raised $300 million six months ago. China-based startups have also recently landed large seed rounds tied to physical AI. This includes Lingchu Intelligence, developer of an AI platform for robotic device development that simulates physical world environments, and Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, a developer of AI robotic technology. Humans and AI AI startups haven’t forgotten about humans either. One example is Merge Labs, a startup co-founded by Sam Altman that raised $252 million in an OpenAI-led financing earlier this year. The San Francisco company is focused on applying AI advancements to brain-computer interfaces, Humans&, the second-largest seed recipient, is a bit harder to categorize. The Silicon Valley startup, which raised $480 million in January, is focused on foundational models “centering around people and their relationships with each other.” A new era for seed In addition to spotlighting investors’ growing enthusiasm for AI, the latest batch of jumbo seed round recipients also demonstrate changing dynamics around how capital is allocated at the earliest stage of company formation. The general trend points to fewer deals and larger average seed round sizes. While the majority of seed-stage deal counts still occur for rounds $5 million and under, that percentage has trended down over time. Meanwhile, larger and outlier seed rounds of $10 million and above have climbed from 2% of deals in 2018 to 9% over that time. Seed rounds of over $100 million — once exceedingly rare — are also more commonplace, with 27 such deals announced globally since the beginning of 2025, per Crunchbase data. Of course, it’s too soon to say if such large checks written at such a nascent startup stage will prove worth it in hindsight. For now, it’s certainly at least a boon to the seed-stage companies at the receiving end, which have the rare opportunity to iterate highly ambitious missions without the added burden of having to do it all on a shoestring budget. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: A Varied Week For Big Deals, Led By AI And Defense
Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. 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. The pace of large-scale dealmaking picked up some this week, led by OpenAI’s disclosure that it raised another $10 billion to add to its record-setting megaround announced last month. Other big financings went to startups and growth-stage companies in sectors including defense tech, enterprise AI, autonomy and even laundry. 1. OpenAI, $10B, foundational AI: OpenAI is raising $10 billion in additional funding for its record-setting megaround announced in late February, reportedly bringing the total fundraise to the San Francisco-based company to over $120 billion. Backers in this latest financing include Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw, MGX, TPG and T. Rowe Price. 2. Shield AI, $2B, defense tech: San Diego-based defense tech unicorn Shield AI said it secured $2 billion at a $12.7 billion valuation. The round consists of $1.5 billion in Series G funding led by Advent International and JPMorgan Chase along with $500 million in preferred equity financing backed by Blackstone. Part of the proceeds will help pay for the planned acquisition of Aechelon Technology, a defense software company whose technology is used to train pilots and test advanced aircraft and autonomous systems. 3. Cambridge Mobile Telematics, $350M, transportation safety: Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a telematics and AI company focused on enabling safer mobility, picked up $350 million in a new financing led by The Rise Fund and Allianz X. Founded in 2010, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has raised over $850 million to date, per Crunchbase data. 4. (tied) Harvey, $200M, legal tech: Harvey, the fast-growing provider of AI-enabled tools for law firms and in-house legal teams, closed on $200 million in fresh financing at an $11 billion valuation. GIC and Sequoia Capital led the round, which brings total funding to 4-year-old San Francisco-based Harvey to around $1.2 billion. 4. (tied) eMed, $200M, healthcare: eMed, a provider of GLP-1 programs for employers that counts Tom Brady as chief wellness officer and backer, said it raised $200 million in new funding. Aon Consulting led the round, which set a $2 billion plus valuation for the Miami-based company. 6. Xona, $170M, satellite tech: Xona secured a $170 million Series C round led by Mohari Ventures Natural Capital. The funds will go to scaling satellite production for a planned constellation of next-generation navigation satellites. Founded in 2019, Burlingame, California-based Xona has raised over $320 million to date. 7. Cents, $140M, laundry tech: Cents, a provider of software and payments technology for the laundry industry, secured $140 million in Series C funding led by Sumeru Equity Partners. The New York-based company said the round represents “the largest single software investment in the laundry vertical to date.” 8. Qualified Health, $125M, AI health tools: Palo Alto, California-based Qualified Health, developer of an enterprise AI platform for health systems, locked up $125 million in Series B financing led by New Enterprise Associates. 9. (tied) DashO, $110M, data observability: Dash0, an agentic observability platform, announced it closed on $110 million in Series B funding led by Balderton Capital. Founded in 2023, the New York-based company has raised over $154 million to date. 9 (tied) Performance Drone Works, $110M, drones: Huntsville, Alabama-based Performance Drone Works, a startup that designs, engineers and manufactures drones for defense and law enforcement, secured over $110 million in Series B funding led by Ondas. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of March 21-27. 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: Dom Guzman
Austin’s Star Is Still Shining Bright: Venture Funding To City’s Startups Hits All-Time High
At the height of the pandemic and the global shift to remote work, tech founders and investors alike flocked to Austin, Texas, drawn to a more business-friendly environment, relatively lower housing costs, and the city’s hip reputation. Venture firms that set up shop in the Texas capital city included Bedrock Capital, Breyer Capital, and 8VC 1, among others. Elon Musk famously moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin in 2021, while also purchasing a house and establishing a residence there. But as more employees returned to in-office work, Austin slowly seemed to fall out of favor with the tech community, some of whom said it had been overhyped as a startup hub. There were reports of tech workers who had moved to the city during the pandemic and claimed to regret it, saying they were going back to places like the Bay Area. Musk relocated Tesla’s engineering headquarters back to California in 2023. Funding tops pandemic peak Undeterred by the “tourists,” the startup and venture community in Austin kept plugging away. And those efforts are reflected in a surge in funding to startups headquartered there last year, with 2025 posting an all-time high for Austin venture investment, Crunchbase data shows. Investment into Austin-based startups spiked 64.8% to $7.19 billion in 2025 as more investors poured money into companies based in the region, according to Crunchbase data. That’s compared with the $4.37 billion raised by Austin-area startups in 2024 and tops even the $6.1 billion raised in 2021, at the height of the venture funding frenzy. Notably, deal counts actually decreased from 312 in 2024 to 272 year over year, signaling an increase in later-stage deals. Indeed, the data corroborates that with $4 billion of the total raised in 2025 classified as late-stage rounds. Last year’s totals were also more than double — 130% higher — than the $3.1 billion raised in 2023. That money was raised across 403 deals, signaling much smaller round sizes at the time and a more mature market. A tech scene decades in the making Morgan Flager, managing partner of Silverton Partners, doesn’t believe that the Austin funding performance in 2025 was anomalous. Rather, he calls it “the payoff from decades of compounding.” “Talent density in venture categories such as software, fintech, health tech, defense and robotics has reached a critical mass, driven by waves of Bay Area relocations, both full HQ moves and satellite offices, that brought technical, product and operational talent into the market,” Flager said. That talent eventually left to build new companies, he said, and the cycle repeated. “On the capital side, the stack has matured across all stages, from pre-seed through growth, with local firms that have now cycled through multiple funds and understand the market deeply,” Flager said. “Layer in a business-friendly regulatory environment, a relatively lower cost of living, as well as a lower effective tax rate, and Austin becomes an attractive place to start and scale a company.” Former Austin Mayor Steve Adler saw so much potential in the city’s startup scene that he began a career in venture investing after his tenure ended in early 2023. (He now works for New York-based Commonweal Ventures). Part of the city’s success as a startup hub stems from its reputation as a haven for mavericks and risk-takers, Adler has said. “Most cities in the world, you try something, you fail; it’s hard to have access to the capital the second time,” he told Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff in a podcast interview in 2022. “In Austin, the civic folk heroes are the people that tried something and it didn’t quite work out and they worked on it until it did.” Pat Matthews, founder of Active Capital, a solo GP venture firm based in nearby San Antonio, said that it feels like Texas and the Austin metro area specifically are becoming more attractive to manufacturing- and engineering-heavy businesses. “Some of that may be thanks to Tesla, and some of it may simply reflect the physical advantages of the state,” he told Crunchbase News. “Either way, this [surge in financing] feels less like hype returning and more like capital concentrating around a narrower set of serious, technically differentiated companies.” Deal sizes grow That diversity among funded startups is reflected in last year’s investment totals for Austin, which were boosted by several large, late-stage deals across a broad range of industries. The largest was a $1 billion Series C round for energy provider Base Power in October. New York-based Addition led that financing, which valued the 2-year-old company at $4 billion. Looking back, February in particular was a busy month for venture funding. That month alone saw the second-, third- and fourth-largest rounds in Austin for the year. They included: The findings correspond with Flager’s observations. “A good chunk of the capital raised in Austin was driven by several large deals. Similar to what we saw across the U.S. in 2025, venture funding in Austin was more concentrated than it has been in the past,” he told Crunchbase News. “Roughly 38% of the capital deployed went to the top five venture financings in Austin. I believe the top 10 deals nationally accounted for more than 40% of the capital raised last year. We’ll see if this trend continues into 2026 and beyond. The start of the year suggests it will.” Krishna Srinivasan, founding partner of Live Oak Ventures, agrees, noting that from a dollars perspective, the surge in financings was driven by a handful of outsized capital-intensive deals in newer categories such as defense and deep tech. “These companies require a combination of technology, land for manufacturing facilities, and talent for manufacturing tasks. Austin has unique skillsets for that,” he said. “It has a density of three things: talent in deep tech with The University of Texas, and many others moving to Texas in light of favorable business conditions with expertise in these industries; expansive land around Central Texas that is inexpensive, especially compared to California; and lower cost manufacturing-related labor especially given the surge in manufacturing jobs such as at Tesla in recent times.” Burgeoning industries Once upon a time, Austin was better known as home to software and CPG companies. And while those types of companies certainly still exist, a number of other industries are growing increasingly robust, as the local investors have pointed out. As with many top tech markets, Flager said Austin has long been strong for application and infrastructure software, which is currently being challenged by AI. In his view, that talent has migrated to building “quality” vertical agentic software and AI-native businesses. “We are seeing these companies grow quickly and build scale, while using less capital — which is exciting,” he added. “The domain experts who built and scaled application software companies here over the last two decades are spinning out to build the next generation of native AI businesses.” The market overall is also broadening in interesting ways. Defense and autonomy have emerged as breakout categories, with Austin becoming one of the stronger markets in the country for dual-use and autonomous systems companies, noted Flager. “The combination of software and hardware skills now in Texas, along with a business-friendly regulatory environment, has allowed Austin to take a leadership position in these important and developing markets,” he said. “Energy tech is also a natural fit given Texas’ grid scale and the surging power demands of AI infrastructure.” Finally, robotics and advanced manufacturing are also gaining momentum, driven by deep engineering talent and the ability to scale manufacturing near Austin cost-effectively, allowing engineers, executives and other factory employees to coexist and collaborate in close proximity. Srinivasan noted that his firm is seeing strong activity in vertical AI companies, or companies that serve vertical markets with AI that is tuned on specialized proprietary vertical data, often targeting the services and labor expenditures by their customers. “These companies deliver ‘Services as Software’ with close to software gross margins and pricing models that are based more on usage and outcomes as opposed to the traditional seat-based models,” he said. Srinivasan also expects the city to continue to see large funding deals in defense and deep tech, given the combination of local strengths and robust global demand for such products. Continued momentum Investors and companies continue to be drawn to Austin. In late December, San Francisco-based venture firm Craft Ventures signed a lease in the city. One of the firm’s founders, David Sacks, also announced that he had personally moved to Austin. The firm’s other founder, Bill Lee, had lived and worked in the city since 2022. In late March of this year, Musk announced plans to build two semiconductor factories totaling 100 million square feet in Austin to supply advanced chips for SpaceX and Tesla. The venture, known as Terafab, aims to manufacture 1 trillion watts of computing power per year, he said. Media outlets valued the initiative at nearly $25 billion. Also this week, Barcelona-based AI health tech startup Biorce announced it will open an office and hire in Austin. CEO Pedro Coelho told Crunchbase News that with the company’s New York office already established, the next step was not just expansion, “but choosing the right place to build.” “And we chose Austin for one reason above all: talent,” he said. “As an AI health tech company, our success depends on attracting exceptional people across engineering, data and life sciences. Austin has rapidly become one of the most competitive talent markets. The city is one of the fastest-growing in the United States. This brings together deep tech expertise, entrepreneurial energy and a growing concentration of healthcare innovation. Ideal for our goal of building an R&D hub. “ Coelho also points out that Biorce has witnessed a “trend” of people moving from the Bay Area to Austin, noting that “the quality of life has gained notoriety.” “But for us, this isn’t about following a trend,” he added. “It’s about building where the best people are — and where they want to be.” Related Crunchbase query: Related reading:
Seed Funding Hasn’t Stalled, But It’s Skewing Larger And Is More Competitive Than Ever, Crunchbase Data Shows
Venture capital news headlines these days are dominated by stories of size: capital concentration into the highest-growth companies, surging valuations, seed rounds totaling tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, and megafunds raising tens of billions in new capital. Smaller funds and more modest seed rounds are seemingly out of favor. Seed trends bifurcate Crunchbase’s U.S. seed funding numbers confirm that perception. Deal counts and amounts are down roughly 20% year over year for the pre-seed and regular seed funding range bands that include deals of $200,000 to under $5 million. (As always, that proportion will improve a bit over time as smaller seed rounds are added to Crunchbase.) The mid-tier band, from $5 million to under $10 million, was on par year over year. Among U.S. seed funding deals, it’s only the upper bands of larger and outlier seed rounds — those $10 million and above — that grew in 2025, Crunchbase data shows. It’s a bifurcated market, according to Katie Stanton, founder of seed fund Moxxie Ventures. “You’re either an AI elite team that is growing really fast and you’re going to raise a ton of capital at Series A from one of the big firms — or you’re everybody else,” she said. In reaction to the market changing, her fund has shifted its strategy, saving a greater proportion — 60% to 70% for primary capital — compared to 50% in prior funds. “We would rather have more shots on goal,” she said. The second shift has been to find founders even earlier, often not even waiting for product-market fit. Seed deal counts The majority of seed-stage deal counts still occur for rounds $5 million and under. But that percentage has trended down over time, from 93% in 2018 to 75% of deals in 2025. Meanwhile, larger and outlier seed rounds of $10 million and above have climbed from 2% to 9% over that time. That means roughly 1 in 10 seed deals over $200,000 in 2025 were in deals $10 million and over, numbering around 360. Seed amounts U.S. seed funding totaled $19.4 billion in 2025, per Crunchbase data. Large deals drove that increase — 51% in seed deals $10 million and over, compared to a third in 2024. The largest seed round in 2025 was $2 billion for Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab. Between 2018 and 2025, seed rounds of $200,000 to $5 million fell, from 70% of all seed funding amounts to 26%. At the same time, seed rounds of $5 million and above have gained ground since 2021, and remained elevated in contrast to 2020 and earlier. In 2025, the biggest jump in amounts were the outlier seed rounds — those deals $50 million and above — which increased more than 300%. Even those larger seed rounds of $10 million to $50 million gained 20%. Seed reshaped Crunchbase data shows seed funding has by no means stalled. Instead, AI is reshaping seed investment, with multistage venture and mid-tier funds backing hot companies earlier and at higher values due to founder pedigree or company traction. As a result, larger seed rounds increased in 2025 with more than 20 outlier deals of $50 million-plus and over 300 in the $10 million to $50 million range. Seed fund managers are shifting strategies based on a changing funding market. “It has never been so easy to build a product, and it’s never been so hard to build a business,” said Stanton. A small seed round can lead to the next breakthrough company. “There’s still a need for the smaller companies to emerge, and the smaller VCs to emerge to serve those different constituencies,” she said. Related Crunchbase queries: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Exclusive: YC Doubles Down On Trayd, A Construction Tech Startup That Just Raised $10M In 3 Weeks
Trayd, a startup that is building a back office operating system for the construction industry, has raised $10 million in Series A funding, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively. White Star Capital led the company’s Series A, which was raised in just three weeks and included participation from repeat backers Y Combinator and Suffolk Technologies. The round also included an investment from new strategic backer RXR Realty, a real estate and technology investment firm. It brings New York-based Trayd’s total funding to $17 million. Co-founder and CEO Anna Berger grew up in a New York construction family, watching her father navigate razor-thin margins and complex compliance requirements. “I saw firsthand the operational strain that comes with juggling union rules, multistate labor laws, and endless manual back-office processes,” she recalls. The experience inspired her to team up with Cara Kessler, the company’s CTO, who spent 10 years as LinkedIn’s web platform lead, to start Trayd in 2021. Specialty trade serviceAnna Berger, CEO, and Cara Kessler, CTO, co-founders of Trayd. (Courtesy photo) For the unacquainted, specialty trade contractors are businesses that place skilled workers on job sites to perform the actual physical building work. These contractors include concrete crews, electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, painters and fireproofing. They’re distinct from general contractors, who manage and coordinate projects overall but don’t typically perform the hands-on trade work themselves. Trayd automates payroll, HR, compliance and labor cost tracking for such contractors. Among the benefits it touts are providing real-time visibility into the costs of labor, equipment and materials. The startup aims to substantially cut the time specialty trade contractors spend on its weekly payroll and compliance process. “What used to take 14 hours of manual work can now be done in under 30 minutes,” Berger told Crunchbase News. Trayd is working to fill what it believes is a unique gap in the market. While there are significantly more specialty trade contractors than general contractors, the majority of construction technology has been built for the latter, Berger believes. The startup’s closest competitors are legacy payroll providers like ADP and Paychex, along with newer companies like Miter and Lumber. “The difference is that most of these systems weren’t built for the complexity of specialty trades,” Berger explains. “Trayd was.” Streamlining payroll In construction, compensation is uniquely complex, Berger said. A single worker might earn four different pay rates in a single day depending on the specific trade task, the project scope and the jurisdiction. “Generic” payroll platforms cannot handle this constant rate variability, contends Berger. For example, payroll admins might receive stacks of paper timesheets or phoned-in hours from various job sites. Then they have to manually key all of that field data into Excel spreadsheets and calculate the pay rates by hand, factoring in union rules, prevailing wage requirements and state-by-state taxes. They might then have to cross-check the spreadsheet math and manually double-enter the finalized numbers into a generic payroll system, and then again into their accounting software. Trayd, according to Berger, dramatically reduces the time to perform all those tasks by capturing the time data directly from the field and automatically calculating the correct variable pay rates, union deductions, and multistate taxes. “Unlike salaried workforces, construction workers can earn multiple different rates in a single day depending on the trade, the project, and whether the work falls under prevailing wage, state or union requirements,” she said. “Trayd was designed from day one to handle that complexity.” National expansion The product seems to be resonating in the industry. Trayd has grown revenue over 600% year over year and moves tens of millions of payroll dollars each week, according to Berger. Several hundred contractors use Trayd weekly. United General Contractors, Wohl Diversified Services and Titan Structural Group are among its customers. The startup operates on a SaaS model, with pricing tied to the number of workers processed through payroll. Trayd started in New York and the broader Northeast, where union density and regulatory complexity are highest. It is now expanding nationally. Presently, it has about two dozen employees. Before Trayd, Berger co-founded Curtn, a consumer social platform backed by Sam Altman that is now defunct. She acknowledges that being female founders in a male-dominated industry has not been easy. “As women building in construction — where we’re outnumbered 9 to 1 — the default assumption is that we’re too far removed or don’t have access to truly understand the problems on the ground. In the early years especially, there’s a ‘prove it twice’ dynamic. Without the benefit of the doubt, we had to earn credibility through repetition —- every meeting, every deal, every product decision. We’ve had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously,” she told Crunchbase News. “But that pressure becomes an advantage. You show up more prepared, you listen more closely, and you build conviction faster. Over time, that compounds into a better product and deeper, more trusted customer relationships.” Eddie Lee, general partner at White Star Capital, said his firm was first impressed by Trayd’s founding team, describing Berger and Kessler as “a rare combination.” “Anna’s background and family ties to the space allow her to understand the unique pain points contractors face from the inside,” he wrote via email. “Cara brings the technical depth to build mission-critical systems without sacrificing product simplicity.” Beyond the caliber of the founders, White Star also believes that Trayd stands out because “it is truly a better product for its customers.” “On a technical level, we were very impressed by how thoughtfully the product has been built,” Lee added. “We see that as a real advantage, because by structuring data cleanly at the system level, Trayd is better positioned to scale reliably and to become a strong foundation for AI in the construction industry over time.” Venture investment in property technology startups has rebounded in recent years after plunging from the pandemic peak. In 2025, startups in the sector pulled in approximately $10.5 billion in seed- through growth-stage financing globally, per Crunchbase data. That’s up about 17% from $9 billion in 2024, with much of the recent investment going to startups that promise greater ROI through the use of automation or AI. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Kleiner Perkins Raises $3.5B For AI-Focused Funds
Storied venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins announced Tuesday that it has raised $3.5 billion across new funds with a primary focus on artificial intelligence. The fundraise includes $1 billion for KP22, a fund to back early-stage companies, and $2.5 billion targeted for growth-stage investments. It’s a considerable increase in capital commitments compared to the last time the Silicon Valley-based firm raised a flagship fund, back in 2024. In that raise, Kleiner pulled in just over $2 billion for funds to back early- and later-stage startups. This time around, Kleiner believes market fundamentals look particularly attractive for scaling up. “The AI super-cycle is one of the most important company-building moments in our lifetimes, and we are still in the early innings,” its fundraising announcement states. Kleiner also notes that AI is enabling today’s startups to iterate and grow faster than in past cycles. Founded in 1972, Kleiner has long been known as a cross-industry investor, active in virtually every popular sector for venture dealmaking. For its latest fund, the firm also identified a broad array of focus areas, including professional services, healthcare, autonomy, security, financial services and the physical economy. Recent investments Most recently, Kleiner, like most venture heavyweights, has been focused on AI startups. Beyond that, however, its portfolio companies are a highly varied lot. To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to put together a list of the latest reported rounds in which it served as a lead or co-lead investor. It spans healthcare, accounting and cybersecurity, among other areas. Large lead investments While it’s active in seed- and early-stage dealmaking, Kleiner also leads quite a few larger rounds. Over the past year, it’s been lead investor in at least five valued at $150 million or more, which we list below. Of these, the largest was a $600 million Series F for Applied Intuition, a developer of autonomous vehicle technology. The next-largest include a $356 million Series D for Chainguard, focused on secure open-source software for AI systems, and a $300 million Series E for Harvey, the AI legal tech unicorn. Exits too Kleiner has also seen a few sizable recent exits for portfolio companies that it backed as lead investor. This includes last year’s largest software IPO — Figma — which counted Kleiner as Series B lead investor. The firm was also an early lead investor in business credit card provider Brex, which Capital One agreed to acquire this year for $5.15 billion. Of course, Kleiner also has much more famous portfolio investments in its more distant past, including Google, Uber and Airbnb, to name a few. You don’t last 50 years in the venture business without at least some of those too. Related Crunchbase queries: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Tax Credit Opportunities Startups Often Forget (And Why It Keeps Happening)
By Harrison Garba Founders spend a lot of time thinking about capital. They model burn carefully. They negotiate valuation. They weigh hiring plans against runway. But many startups overlook a source of capital that doesn’t require dilution at all: tax credits. And to be clear, this isn’t typically because a business doesn’t qualify. It’s because no one builds a process to identify and capture these credits consistently. Most startups are aware of at least one major opportunity, and that’s the Research & Development tax credit. But fewer founders take a broader look at business decisions throughout the year and how many of those may lead to tax credit opportunities. Hiring decisions, benefit structures, accessibility upgrades, facility investments and certain energy projects all can carry incentives. So, the issue isn’t eligibility. It’s ownership, timing and consistency. Harrison Garba In early-stage companies, finance teams are lean. Credits often get discussed once a year during tax preparation. However, by that point, it can be too late. The required elections may have been missed, documentation may not support a claim, or deadlines may have passed. When that happens, the opportunity is gone. We see this pattern frequently in examples such as: None of the above decisions are inherently wrong, but they are incomplete. Coordinating credits Tax credits don’t appear automatically because money was spent. Taking advantage requires planning, including specific documentation, elections and coordination between departments. Without that coordination, even well-managed startups leave savings unclaimed. More-mature companies approach this differently. Instead of waiting until year-end to ask, “Did we qualify for anything?” established organizations build periodic reviews into their operating cadence. This doesn’t mean turning every department into tax specialists. It requires clarity around who’s responsible for asking the question early enough, and it ideally includes expert guidance and support to get it right. It’s helpful to think about this as an evolution. At a reactive stage — which is most startups — credits are evaluated only when the tax return is being prepared. At a more structured stage, the company reviews credit opportunities quarterly and aligns documentation throughout the year. And in a strategic stage, leadership fully understands how certain business decisions may create incentives and ensures the right processes are in place before those decisions are implemented. Multiple credits add up The accumulated financial impact can be meaningful. While a single credit isn’t likely to transform a business, multiple credits across hiring, development and benefits can offset real costs. For companies focused on extending runway without raising additional capital, those offsets matter. There’s also a governance component. Investors and buyers increasingly review operational controls during diligence. A startup that has evaluated available credits and maintained documentation signals discipline. A company that hasn’t considered them at all may invite additional questions (especially if elections were missed or filings need to be amended). None of this is to suggest credits should drive a founder’s core strategy. Product development, revenue growth and customer demand remain the priority. But when companies are already investing in innovation, hiring and infrastructure, it makes sense to evaluate whether part of that investment can be recovered. The first step is simple: Get the full picture before making any decisions. In many cases, that includes working with an adviser who understands how credits apply to growing businesses. Then, assign ownership. Determine who is responsible for reviewing credit opportunities throughout the year. Coordinate among departments like finance, HR and operations before major decisions are finalized. Make documentation part of the process rather than a reconstruction exercise at the end of the year. Being proactive Again, tax credits are not automatic. They’re for those who plan the entire year. Startups looking to be more proactive should keep credits like the R&D in mind for its potentially meaningful offsets when investing in product or technical improvements. But don’t stop there. If considering structured paid leave, review the Paid Family and Medical Leave Credit, which can apply when policies meet specific requirements. Businesses reviewing facility improvements may qualify for the Disabled Access Credit. While credits such as these don’t apply to every company, they’re common enough to demand attention before decisions are finalized — even seemingly unrelated ones. Startups focused on capital efficiency will see this planning make a measurable difference over time. Harrison Garba is a tax supervisor specializing in research and development tax credits at Burkland Associates. He holds a master of science in accounting from The University of Texas at Dallas and has experience across both public and private sectors. Garba has spent several years advising companies on R&D tax credits, helping startups and growth-stage businesses navigate complex tax regulations and maximize available incentives. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Investment Slows, But Security And AI Remain Top Picks
Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. 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. In insecure times, security looks like an appealing sector for investment. That’s one interpretation of this week’s tally of the largest startup funding rounds. The size of the largest U.S. deals was smaller than in recent weeks, and heavily featured cybersecurity- and privacy-focused startups. This includes the week’s biggest round — a $375 million Series B for consumer privacy and security platform Cloaked. Other areas that attracted good-sized financings included AI infrastructure, biotech, healthcare, and robotics. 1. Cloaked, $375M, privacy: Cloaked, a provider of consumer privacy and security tools, raised $375 million in Series B funding led by General Catalyst and Liberty City Ventures. Founded in 2020, the Massachusetts-based company sells monthly subscriptions for individuals and families. 2. Frore Systems, $143M, AI infrastructure: Frore Systems, a developer of integrated cooling architecture for AI computing and networking hardware, announced that it closed on $143 million in Series D funding. MVP Ventures led the financing, which set a $1.64 billion valuation for the 8-year-old, San Jose-based company. 3. (tied) XBow, $120M, cybersecurity: Seattle-based XBow, a provider of autonomous security testing technology, picked up $120 million in Series C funding. DFJ Growth and Northzone led the round, which values the 2-year-old company at over $1 billion. 3. (tied) Oasis Security, $120M, cybersecurity: Oasis Security, a developer of identify security tools with a focus on AI agents, secured $120 million in a funding round backed by Craft Ventures, Cyberstarts, Sequoia Capital and Accel. The 4-year-old company, which is headquartered in New York and has a presence in Israel, has raised $195 million to date, per Crunchbase data. 5. (tied) Imperative Care, $100M, medical devices: Imperative Care, a medical device company focused on treatment for stroke and vascular diseases caused by blood clot formation, secured $100 million in convertible note financing. Elevage Medical Technologies and Perceptive Advisors led the investment for the Campbell, California-based company. 5. (tied) Bluesky, $100M, social media: Seattle-based social network Bluesky disclosed this week that it raised a previously unannounced $100 million Series B round that closed last spring, led by Bain Capital Crypto. 5. (tied) Cape, $100M, privacy and security: Cape, a recently launched privacy-focused mobile network, landed $100 million in Series C funding. Bain Capital Ventures and IVP led the financing, which set a $900 million valuation for the Arlington, Virginia-based company. 8. Latent, $80M, healthcare AI: Latent, an AI platform aimed at helping move patients from clinical decision to therapy, picked up $80 million in a Series A round. Spark Capital and Transformation Capital led the financing for the San Francisco-based company. 9. Crossbow Therapeutics, $77M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Crossbow Therapeutics, a biotech startup focused on developing new antibody therapies to treat a broad range of cancers, raised $77 million in Series B funding. Taiho Ventures and Arkin Bio Ventures led the round, which will support a Phase 1 clinical trial of the company’s lead program. 10. RoboForce, $52M, robotics: RoboForce, a startup focused on developing AI-enabled robot labor for industrial environments, said it picked up $52 million in fresh funding, bringing its total raise to $67 million. YZi Labs led the financing for the Milpitas, California-based company. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of March 14-20. 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: Dom Guzman