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Bezos Launches AI Startup With $6.2B In Reported Funding
Jeff Bezos will reportedly serve as co-CEO of a new artificial intelligence startup, Project Prometheus, focused on applying the technology to physical tasks, according to an article in The New York Times citing anonymous sources. Project Prometheus is reportedly launching with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Bezos. The startup’s other co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who most recently served as CEO and co-founder of biotech startup Foresite Labs. Bajaj is also known for his work at Google’s X, the company’s lab dedicated to pursuing moonshot projects. Additionally, he served as co-founder of Alphabet precision health tech startup Verily. Bezos, who stepped down from his longtime role as Amazon CEO in 2021, has long been active in funding and scaling startups. His best-known venture investment vehicle, Bezos Expeditions, has participated in at least 115 known funding rounds since the mid-2000s, per Crunchbase data. The Amazon founder is also famously associated with spacetech ambitions, most prominently through spaceflight startup Blue Origin. To date, the company says it has flown 80 individuals into space. Project Prometheus, meanwhile, will reportedly be focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in multiple fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles, per the article. Its work could potentially provide technology that Blue Origin could use to further its goals for expanding spaceflight. The company has already hired a team of close to 100 employees, according to the article, including researchers affiliated with OpenAI, Meta’s AI efforts, and other prominent AI labs. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Beyond The Pitch: How Emerging VCs Can Still Raise
By Alex Menn Over the past few years, we’ve been witnessing a paradox in venture capital. Carta’s data shows that smaller VC firms have higher TVPI than larger funds of the same vintage. Yet, less money has gone to emerging funds, even as they continue to outperform established players. Endowments, pensions and family offices claim they want exposure to innovation and risk, but in reality, their capital increasingly flows into the safest, largest franchises. A tougher market for first-time fundsAlex Menn Bloomberg reports that first-time fund managers have raised only $1.1 billion in the current fundraising cycle, a fraction of what they raised just a few years ago. Carta’s 2024 Fund Performance report states that for funds in the $100 million to $250 million range, the median number of LPs fell to 47 in 2024, nearly half the level of two years earlier. Even with a stellar team and returns surpassing Sequoia Capital’s, for most small funds, fundraising is no longer about projected IRR. It is about credibility and connection. The first fund is about people, not performance At an early stage, investors back the person, not the model. Sure, some may genuinely believe in you as a manager. But most will back you because they like being around you. Some like to talk about deep tech or discuss how you win deals. But many will just want to have a drink, play sports or be part of your circle. I call it long-term entertainment, because investors stay close due to the environment you create. The question is how to deepen that connection and make it real. Capital follows trust. Build trust, and you’ll have higher chances that the money shows up. Familiarity still decides who gets funded People still divide the world into “ours” and “theirs.” A Harvard–Stanford–Yale graduate who spent years at Goldman Sachs or Meta will hesitate to back someone from a completely different background, even if that person is successful. The solution to this barrier is to either stop fishing in ponds where the fish fear you, or learn to present yourself in a way they see you as an insider and belong to the same tribe. The goal is to be visible in the same spaces and speak the same cultural language, in order to build enough familiarity that the initial bias fades. Look beyond traditional LPs Most managers chase the same predictable investors. But while they are already flooded with decks, there’s more capital sitting where no one bothers to look. Owners of sports teams are a good example. They’re used to losing millions each season chasing Champions League victories; the risk in a venture fund feels tame by comparison. Developers who’ve stopped building in Europe because the economy has stalled are also searching for new ways to deploy money. And side note — don’t bother writing to the person who was the U.K.’s top taxpayer last year. By the time they make that list, you’re already too late. It can be valuable to have an anchor, but choose wisely Many first funds will end up with one dominant investor. This gives you stability and legitimacy. The key is why that investor comes in. The good ones invest because they want proximity to the team and trust your judgment. The bad ones invest because they want to influence where the money goes. You’ll never make real returns under someone else’s steering. A strong anchor believes in your process and stays close for perspective, not control. Otherwise, you don’t have an ally. You have a boss. Alex Menn is a partner at Begin Capital, a $120 million London-based venture capital fund backing tech founders in Europe and the U.S. Prior to moving into VC, he was a founder (exit in 2018) and spent more than 12 years in European private equity, where he was involved as an investor in over 50 deals worth $3.5 billion. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Longevity Startup Funding Sees Fewer Moonshots, But Plenty Of Buzzy Investments
Virtually everyone would like to live a longer, healthier life. Given the ubiquity of this aspiration, it’s not surprising that longevity has a lengthy history as a popular startup investment theme. However, the space is also not immune to market dynamics. In recent quarters, investors appear to have pulled back on large financings for startups innovating around extending lifespans. This comes in the wake of underwhelming performance of many of their biggest prior bets. As we’ve seen in prior analyses around longevity startup funding, deals continue to get done, even during off cycles. To illustrate what’s attracting interest this time around, we used Crunchbase data to assemble a list of 14 longevity-focused startups that secured funding in 2025. Few moonshots, more measured dealmaking The largest longevity-related funding round we could find this year totaled $130 million — which is sizable but not crazy moonshot-level dealmaking. It went to NewLimit, a startup co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong that touts its mission as “epigenetically reprogramming cells to younger states.” The next-largest rounds went to AI drug discovery companies, coinciding with a very buzzy year for the space. This includes Insilico Medicine, an AI drug developer that cites aging-related diseases as one of its core focus areas, which raised $110 million. Nine-year-old Juvenescence also picked up a $76 million Series B-1 tranche this spring to develop a pipeline of AI-enabled therapeutics to extend healthy lifespans. It’s focused on medicines that target core aging mechanisms to treat and prevent age-related diseases. And on the prevention side, Fountain Life, a startup that counts Peter Diamandis and Tony Robbins among its co-founders, secured an $18 million Series B. Fountain sells memberships that it says offer access to AI-guided insights, personalized restorative therapeutics and “proactive biologic optimization” for every stage of life. Seed-stage action Seed-stage companies, meanwhile, secured smaller rounds but also demonstrated ambitious visions. Toronto-based Grey Matter Neurosciences, for example, is looking to use focused ultrasound to treat age-related diseases of the brain. Launched last year, it secured $14 million in an initial funding round in January. Another intriguing newcomer is Seattle’s Circulate Health, which offers therapeutic plasma exchange to patients seeking to extend their healthy lifespan. The startup emerged from stealth and announced in July that it raised $12 million in a seed funding led by Khosla Ventures. And while it’s not precisely a longevity startup, Tomorrow Bio certainly has an intriguing business model. The Berlin-based startup provides cryopreservation for humans and pets. Longevity startups don’t always age well Since the desire to live a longer, healthier life is so universal, it’s common for longevity startups to generate early enthusiasm. Ironically, they don’t always age well. Performance of several longevity-focused IPOs demonstrates this propensity. Probably the most recent was BioAge Labs, a startup focused on “harnessing the biology of human aging” to develop new therapies for obesity and metabolic diseases. It went public on Nasdaq just over a year ago, and shares are now trading at less than half the initial IPO price. One of the biggest disappointments was Unity Biotechnology, a longevity-focused biotech that went public in 2018 after raising nearly $300 million in venture funding. Its shares are now worthless, and the company is no longer operating. Among early private unicorns, Human Longevity, a provider of diagnostics and longevity also co-founded by Diamandis, also underperformed expectations. The San Diego-based company reportedly saw its valuation fall to $310 million from $1.6 billion in 2018. It’s unclear where the valuation stands now. Not just about returns For longevity founders, however, ROI is obviously not the only metric that matters. The big success stories will be those that advance our understanding of the aging process and contribute to dialing back the ravages of age-related disease. Hopefully, they’ll continue to forge ahead on these fronts regardless of how the IPO market is faring. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: AI And Defense Tech Take The Lead
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 rounds here. The largest rounds this week went to AI and defense tech companies, amid a generally busy period for big financings. Coding automation platform Cursor and parent company Anysphere led by a long shot, closing on a $2.3 billion Series D. The next-largest round was a $510 million financing for defense tech company Chaos Industries, followed by financings in sectors including AI inference, e-commerce and electric vehicles. 1. Anysphere, $2.3B, AI coding: Coding automation platform Cursor and parent company Anysphere raised $2.3 billion in a Series D financing backed by Accel, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, Coatue, Nvidia and Google. The round set a $29.3 billion post-money valuation for the San Francisco-headquartered company, which is more than 3x higher than what it secured just six months ago. 2. Chaos Industries, $510M, defense tech: Chaos Industries, a defense tech startup focused on counter-drone radar and communication systems, announced that it secured $510 million in new funding led by Valor Equity Partners. The round sets a $4.5 billion valuation for the 3-year-old, Los Angeles-based company. 3. D-Matrix, $275M, AI infrastructure: Santa Clara, California-based D-Matrix, a developer of generative AI inference compute for data centers, closed on $275 million in Series C funding. Bullhound Capital, Triatomic Capital and Temasek led the round, which sets a $2 billion valuation for the 6-year-old company. 4. Gopuff, $250M, fast delivery: Philadelphia-based Gopuff, which offers fast delivery of groceries and other products, picked up $250 million in new funding led by Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners. Founded in 2013, Gopuff has raised $3.7 billion in known funding to date, per Crunchbase data. 5. Forterra, $238M, defense tech: Clarksburg, Maryland-based Forterra, a developer of autonomous systems for the defense sector, closed on $238 million in Series C equity and debt funding. Moore Strategic Ventures led the financing. 6. Skims, $225M, apparel: Skims, the Kim Kardashian-founded shapewear and clothing brand, landed $225 million in new financing led by Goldman Sachs. The round sets a $5 billion valuation for the 6-year-old, Los Angeles-based company. 7. Genspark, $200M, AI tools: AI agent builder Genspark raised $200 million in a financing led by SBI Investment and LG Technology Ventures. Per Crunchbase data, the round brings total funding to date to $360 million for the Palo Alto, California-based company, which was founded in 2023. 8. Harbinger, $160M, electric vehicles: Garden Grove, California-based Harbinger, a maker of medium-duty electric and hybrid vehicles, secured $160 million in a Series C round led by FedEx, Capricorn Investment Group, and recreational vehicle manufacturer Thor Industries. Along with its investment, FedEx placed an initial order for 53 Harbinger EVs, the company says. 9. TeraDAR, $150M, sensors: TeraDAR, a developer of terahertz technology to be used in sensors for automotive, defense and other industries, closed on $150 million in a Series B round. VXI Capital led the financing for the Boston-based company. 10. Alembic, $145M, AI marketing tools: Alembic, a startup that provides AI-enabled data analytics for marketing, picked up $145 million in a fundraising round led by Prysm Capital and Accenture. The round values the San Francisco-based company at $645 million. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Nov. 8-14. 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
The Patience Gap In Healthcare AI, And What To Do About It
By Jonathan Kron Healthcare funding is surging again. Crunchbase data shows investors put an estimated $10.7 billion globally into startups in AI-powered health tech categories so far this year — already 24% higher than 2024’s full-year total. But what funders are failing to understand is that in this sector, adoption happens in regulatory cycles instead of viral ones. Their impatient push for hockey-stick growth is quietly suffocating the kind of systemic change that healthcare actually needs. Bessemer Venture Partners’ 2025 Healthcare AI Adoption Index found that while most health systems are running pilots, only 3 in 10 projects reach production. This shows that venture speed keeps outpacing the system’s ability to absorb it. Jonathan Kron When investors push for short-term traction, founders are forced to chase momentum instead of integration. They pivot to whatever metric looks good on a dashboard, even if it drags them further from clinical adoption. Some health tech startups start building out infrastructure that could reshape the system, but end up building features that fit pitch decks. The result is predictable: high burn, high noise and very little real change. This is not a problem of bad intentions. It is a problem of mismatched time horizons. In consumer tech, speed is a moat. In healthcare, it’s often a mirage. Trust, validation and interoperability are what compound value here, and those take years. The biggest returns in healthcare don’t come from the first wave of hype. They come from the infrastructure that everyone else eventually depends on. But that kind of staying power requires patient capital, not tourist capital. Why healthcare resists ‘move fast’ culture Healthcare AI is entering a defining moment. The same ingredients that fueled the crypto boom are all here. Rapid innovation, speculative funding and a flood of new entrants. If the sector keeps overpromising and underdelivering, a correction is inevitable. The antidote is integration. The companies that will last are the ones building with clinicians and health systems, not around them. They are teams that understand data standards, compliance and workflow realities. If AI companies in healthcare focus on solving grounded, verifiable problems rather than chasing headlines, they can avoid the crash cycle and deliver real transformation. The bubble no one wants to name There is also a valuation gap worth watching. The “AI wellness” segment has exploded because it is fast to market, light on regulation and easy to pitch. Engagement metrics are plentiful, while validation is optional. Meanwhile, the “AI clinical” space, focused on diagnostics, decision support and infrastructure, is slower and harder. Yet, it is where the defensible IP, regulatory moats and long-term value live. Five years from now, the speculative wellness valuations will likely correct downward while clinically grounded AI platforms quietly underpin global health systems. Founders who win play the long game For founders, the path forward begins with alignment. Not every investor understands healthcare, and that is fine. The goal is to find those who do. It is a waste of energy to educate fast-turnover capital. In this regard, it is wise to design for adoption, not hype. A technology that fits neatly into an existing workflow will outlast dozens of flashier competitors. Founders who anchor their story in outcomes and compliance, not features, will earn the trust that drives longevity. Patient investors will own the future Investors have a role to play, too. If they want meaningful change, they need to fund patient trust, not just fast algorithms. A model can be brilliant and still fail if it never earns clinical confidence. They should back integration-first models and think in decades, not quarters. Healthcare transformation doesn’t follow startup speed, and it never will. The investors who accept that and stay committed through early friction will own the platforms everyone else eventually builds on. At its best, the real compounding advantage of investing in healthcare AI is about underwriting the next operating system for global health. Those who understand that difference will not only create impact but will also capture the kind of returns that only compound when you have the patience to wait. Jonathan Kron is the CEO of BloodGPT, an AI-powered platform for diagnostic laboratories and clinics that interprets blood test results in seconds. He is a healthcare strategist and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience building and scaling healthcare ventures. Before joining BloodGPT he founded and exited Med24, a London-based clinic (raised £5 million, exited 2022), co-founded PCG, a Monaco-based healthcare-at-home startup that secured $1 million-plus in contracts on a $500,000 seed budget, and has advised digital health ventures including Klarity and LIPS Healthcare on major fundraising and growth. Illustration: Dom Guzman
5 Interesting Startup Deals You May Have Missed: Robotic Hands, An Artificial Retina Developed In Space, A GenAI Sticker Printer For Kids, And More
This is a monthly column that runs down five interesting startup funding deals every month that may have flown under the radar. Check out our September entry here. Many months, this column is dominated by AI-related startups of the software variety. That’s not too surprising, given that those companies receive the bulk of venture funding these days. Still, for this month’s edition of 5 Interesting Startup Deals, all the funded companies that caught our eye were hardware-centric, from a medical device for at-home acne treatment, to an artificial retina developed aboard the International Space Station. Here’s a closer look. $25M for in-home injectable acne care Just a few short years ago, the idea that one would get a prescription without ever stepping into a doctor’s office, then administer said treatment oneself, at home, by injecting oneself with a needle seemed … far-flung, to say the least. But that was then, and this is now. In 2025, millions of Americans have grown accustomed to getting prescriptions for injectable medications such as Ozempic online, with a few clicks of a button, and then administering those treatments to themselves in the comfort of their own homes. One of the platforms that led the way in online healthcare is Hims & Hers, which started in 2017 by prescribing and selling men’s products such as generic Viagra and hair-loss treatments online, and now operates a fully fledged telehealth network offering everything from birth control medications to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Now, an alumnus of Hims has started a similar business, but for acne care. Hims & Hers co-founder Jack Abraham’s new startup, Indomo, recently emerged from stealth with $25 million in funding. The startup, which is still in clinical trials, says it aims to be the first and only company to bring prescription corticosteroid injections for acne straight to consumers in their homes, via its ClearPen microneedle device. “ClearPen will be the first big innovation in acne care since Accutane,” Abraham, who also serves as managing partner at Atomic, said in a statement. “For too long, people have had to choose between ineffective surface treatments or waiting weeks for a dermatologist. ClearPen will provide patients instant access to a corticosteroid microneedle injection right in their bathroom cabinet.” Along with Atomic, investors in Indomo include Foresite Capital and Polaris Partners. The company said it will use its capital to support Phase 2 clinical trials and the development of its device platform. Long-term, it aims to use its ClearPen technology to address other skin conditions beyond acne. “We look for teams that marry scientific rigor with practical impact,” Foresite partner Hyung Chun said in a statement. “Indomo applies proven dermatology science in an accessible, patient-friendly format — with an emphasis on precision and patient safety during development. That combination is rare.” Related Crunchbase query: Venture Funding To Telehealth Startups Just the hands, please: $16M for humanoid robotic limbs If you’ve been following the robotics sector, you’re likely aware that there’s something of an ongoing debate in the industry: To be humanoid, or not to be humanoid? For Zurich-based Mimic Robotics, the answer is: Both, sort of. The Swiss company earlier this month announced $16 million in new funding to develop its industrial robotic limbs, which sport human-like hands and are designed to sit on a rolling table top in a factory or retail setting. “Humanoids are exciting, but there aren’t many industrial scenarios where the full-body form factor truly adds value,” Stephan-Daniel Gravert, co-founder and CPO at Mimic, said in a statement. “Our approach pairs AI-driven dexterous robotic hands with proven, off-the-shelf robot arms to deliver the same capabilities in a way that is much simpler, more reliable and rapidly deployable.” That’s a similar approach to MicroFactory, a San Francisco-based startup that we featured in last month’s edition of this column. That company, too, eschewed the full-body bot approach to focus only on the appendages needed for a particular task, though the Bay Area company’s robotic arms featured various tool attachments rather than humanoid hands and fingers. Mimic has raised $20.8 million to date, per Crunchbase. Its latest round was led by Elaia, alongside Speedinvest. Other investors in what the company described as a “heavily oversubscribed” seed round were Founderful, 1st kind, 10x Founders, 2100 Ventures and Sequoia Scout. Overall, robotics funding — for both humanoid and non-humanoid designs — has been on a tear this year, Crunchbase data shows. In fact, investment to robotics-related startups in 2025 is on track to hit the highest total since 2021 as companies including Figure and The Bot Co. raise large rounds. Related Crunchbase query: Robotics Startup Funding $7M for a blindness treatment developed in low-earth orbit It takes a lot for a funding round to land on this list, given the steady flow of intriguing deals that cross our desk in any given month. But a startup making artificial retinas aboard the International Space Station certainly crosses that high bar. LambdaVision is a startup working on developing an artificial retina in the microgravity environment on the ISS’ orbiting laboratory. The Farmington, Connecticut-based company earlier this month closed a $7 million seed funding round to continue work on developing a protein-based artificial retina for people with retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, which cause partial or complete blindness for millions of people worldwide every year. The startup is working to develop highly uniform, 200-layer protein thin films for artificial retinas in the microgravity environment aboard the ISS, since the process is challenging to do on Earth, according to the company. Its new funding will be used to advance preclinical development and scale up space-enabled manufacturing of the retina. “The round underscores the growing recognition of the potential for space-based biomanufacturing to accelerate the development of life-changing therapies on Earth,” LambdaVision CEO Nicole Wagner said in a statement. “This seed round funding will help bring us closer to clinical trials and continue to pioneer scalable production of our artificial retina, including manufacturing techniques implemented in low-Earth orbit.” Its latest funding was co-led by Seven Seven Six and Aurelia Foundry with support from Seraphim Space. “We’re excited to support their journey as they scale their microgravity manufacturing platform toward clinical impact,” Rob Desborough, partner at space-tech focused investor Seraphim Space, said in a statement. The company has now raised $13.7 million to date, according to Crunchbase, including a $5 million grant from NASA in 2020. Related Crunchbase query: Biotech Venture Funding 2025 $7M for AI-generated stickers for kids Stickerbox says it got its start just two months ago when co-founder Robert Whitney’s 4-year-old son asked: “Can we make our own coloring sheets?” That question prompted Whitney, an alumnus of Anthropic, to join co-founder and CEO Arun Gupta (formerly of Grailed) to start Stickerbox, a toy company that claims it’s developed the first-ever voice-powered AI creativity tool for kids. The idea was apparently so compelling that the New York-based startup quickly secured $7 million in seed funding from Maveron, AI2 Incubator, Matthew Brezina and tennis legend Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures. The Stickerbox is pretty much like what it sounds like: A cube that prints stickers. Children deliver prompts for images with their voices. Importantly, the company says, the box doesn’t collect voice data and doesn’t have a camera. Like many other popular techie toys these days, including the Yoto and Toniebox audio players, Stickerbox also emphasizes that while it’s tech-enabled, it’s screen free, meaning it doesn’t come with many of the drawbacks associated with excess screentime for children’s developing brains. Related Crunchbase query: Venture Funding To Toy Startups $6.9M for lab-made rare metal alternatives Rare-earth minerals are essential inputs for everything from smartphones to electric vehicle motors to wind turbines and defense systems. But, despite their name, this group of 17 closely related elements are not so much geologically scarce as they are supply-constrained. That’s due to both the difficulty and expense of extraction and China’s near-monopoly on their production and processing. China’s dominance has also made rare earths a geopolitical flashpoint and a critical vulnerability for industries and governments worldwide. So when a startup that claims to be developing lab-grown alternatives to rare metals enters the scene, we take a closer look. Oxford, U.K.-based Milvus Advanced said last month that it has raised $6.9 million in seed funding to “recreate Earth’s rarest metals from abundant elements and scale commercialization across clean energy, transport, electronics, and chemical manufacturing.” The company said it’s working to design the next generation of low-cost nanomaterials that replace some of the world’s most scarce and strategic materials in clean energy, catalysis and optoelectronics. Its nanoalloys and membranes are currently being tested in partnership with global electrolyser OEMs and chemical manufacturers. Milvus’ funding was led by Hoxton Ventures, with LQD Ventures, Übermorgen Ventures, Tuesday Capital, Mark Leslie Enterprises, van Den Bosch Dynasty Fund, Bluebirds, MD One Ventures, EQt Foundation and returning investor Lowercarbon Capital also participating. Rare-earth minerals are an area of intense interest to startup investors. In the past few quarters, a growing roster of venture-backed companies has secured funding for areas including battery and magnet recycling, rare earth-focused mining technology, and even extracting materials from space, Crunchbase data shows. Related Crunchbase query: Recently Funded Companies Tied To Rare-Earth Materials And Battery Recycling Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Cursor’s $2.3B Financing Reminds Us: Coding Automation Is Still Ultra-Hot
Coding automation platform Cursor announced today that it has raised $2.3 billion in Series D funding at a $29.3 billion post-money valuation. That valuation is more than 3x higher than what Cursor parent company Anysphere secured just six months ago, an indication that investors 1 see both lightning-fast growth and enormous potential for more to come for startups in the coding automation space. Cursor has certainly signed on to that vision as well. The San Francisco-headquartered company, founded in 2022, now has a team of more than 300 and touts ambitious plans to extend its footprint. The company also said it now has over $1 billion in annualized revenue. Other investor favorites But Cursor is far from the only startup attracting considerable attention and big checks from venture investors lately. Using Crunchbase data, we put together a sample of a dozen companies working on AI-enabled coding and software development tools that raised sizable rounds in the past several quarters. AI coding startup Cognition is another investor favorite. The San Francisco company, known for its AI software development platform Devin, secured $400 million in a September round led by Founders Fund at a $10.2 billion valuation. Replit, an agentic platform for app development, also scored big, landing a $250 million Series C this summer. And Lovable, a Swedish startup offering AI-enabled app and website development, pulled in $200 million in a July financing. Exits too Coding automation is also an area where acquirers are active. This includes Cursor. OpenAI reportedly made overtures to acquire the company last year, but a deal did not come to fruition. Cursor parent Anysphere has also been an active buyer, acquiring fellow startups Koala and Supermaven in roughly the past year. Cognition is also an M&A player, having announced in July that it was acquiring definitive agreement code automation provider Windsurf. Just prior to that, Google hired away Windsurf’s CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and research leaders in a $2.4 billion tie-up. Given that the most heavily funded companies in the AI coding space are mostly relatively youthful startups, we’ve yet to see activity on the IPO front. But if things keep progressing at the current pace, that might not be far away. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Even Bigger Venture Bucks For Obesity Therapies As Metsera Sells For Up To $10B
Venture investors have long been active backers of startups developing obesity and weight loss treatments, and they’re holding strong in the GLP-1 age. It helps, of course, that there are big returns happening as well. Case in point: Three-year-old Metsera, a developer of oral and injectable drugs for weight loss, just delivered one of the sector’s largest M&A deals to date. In a deal with Pfizer announced late last week, the pharma giant agreed to pay up to $10 billion for the New York company, following a litigious bidding war with rival Novo Nordisk.1 The planned purchase comes only nine months after Metsera made its Nasdaq debut. Just last year, the company also disclosed over $500 million in venture funding, with Arch Venture Partners as its largest stakeholder.2 Venture funding around obesity and weight management Metsera is one of several companies that raised sizable venture funding in the past couple of years with a focus on obesity and weight management. For a bigger picture of where investment is going, we used Crunchbase data to assemble a sample list of 17 such startups funded in roughly the past couple years. It’s a biotech-heavy list, reflecting a shift away from the pre-GLP-1 mindset that obesity could be curbed through dieting, exercise and willpower alone. Today, nearly 12% of American adults have used GLP-1 weight loss drugs, per an August Rand report. Another 14% said they are interested in using those drugs. Popular as the current crop of medications have become, however, startup investors believe there is more innovation ahead. To that end, they’re backing a number of quite large rounds. Largest funding recipients The largest funding round for a company on our list is also among the most recent. Kailera Therapeutics, a developer of injectable and oral GLP-1 therapies to treat obesity, closed on $600 million in Series B funding last month. The Waltham, Massachusetts- and San Diego-based company also recently reported positive clinical trial results for obesity patients in China. London-based Verdiva Bio, a developer of GLP-1 treatments for cardiometabolic conditions, is another VC favorite. The company launched out of stealth in January with $411 million in Series A financing led by Forbion Capital Partners and General Atlantic. Not everyone raising a good-sized round is on the GLP-1 track. Boston-based Syntis Bio, which picked up a $33 million Series A this summer, develops oral treatments that harness the therapeutic potential of the small intestine to treat multiple conditions, including obesity. And Helicore Biopharma secured $65 million in January to further develop a class of therapies based on GIP, or gastric inhibitory polypeptide, antagonists for obesity and related conditions. Exits, too We’ve also seen a handful of good-sized exits in the past couple years. On the IPO front, BioAge Labs, which says it is “harnessing the biology of human aging” to develop new therapies for obesity and metabolic diseases, went public on Nasdaq just over a year ago, after raising over $290 million in venture funding. Thus far, it hasn’t performed well, with shares trading well below the initial offer price. As for M&A, Versanis Bio, a startup developing drugs with applications in obesity treatment, delivered one of the larger outcomes for the space two years ago, with Eli Lilly agreeing to buy the company in a deal valued at up to $1.9 billion. More recently, we saw a unicorn acquire a startup in the space, with wellness-tracking ring maker Oura buying Veri, a developer of tools for people to track their metabolic health, for an undisclosed sum. Promising times Overall, these are promising times for those who’ve long struggled with obesity and the unpleasantries of dieting-induced hunger pangs or the difficulties of maintaining a desired weight range. That said, there’s room for improvement. Roughly half of GLP-1 users surveyed by Rand, for instance, said they have experienced nausea as a side effect, while about one-third reported diarrhea. Personally, I’m still awaiting the ultimate metabolic miracle treatment. This would ideally allow a user to eat unlimited amounts of junk food, abstain from vigorous exercise, and not gain any weight or suffer any unpleasant side effects. For now, it looks unlikely that venture-backed startups will be delivering on this particular vision. Related Crunchbase list: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman