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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
Accel’s Report Outlines The Race For Compute Amid Surging Values
Philippe Botteri, a partner at Accel, launched the firm’s GlobalScape report on the mainstage at WebSummit in Lisbon, Portugal, with the report highlighting the extent to which value on the public markets has concentrated in a small group of elite companies and how a new generation of native AI companies is rapidly accelerating. Accel is one of the top three most-active investors on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board. The Silicon Valley firm has invested in 17 companies that have joined the board in the AI boom this year, according to Crunchbase data. Its GlobalScape report, centered on the U.S., Europe and Israel, analyzed the surge in values in public and private AI-driven companies and the capex buildout required to keep growing in the next five years. Here are some key takeaways from the report, which Botteri presented on stage in Lisbon, where Crunchbase News was also in attendance. Public market concentrationPhilippe Botteri, partner at Accel The “Super Six” group of companies — Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta — represent close to half of the current Nasdaq market cap as of October 2025. Altogether, that totals $20.7 trillion. “I don’t think we have ever seen such a high concentration in the industry,” Botteri said. These six companies added $4.9 trillion in market capitalization between October 2025 and a year earlier, and showed $600 billion of operating cash flow in 2024. Public cloud is up 25% The public cloud index, a select list of U.S.-, Europe- and Israel-based companies built on the prior cloud wave, including UiPath, GitLab, Palantir Technologies and Figma was up 25% year over year as of October. Those companies are all adding agentic capabilities to their products, Botteri said. However, it’s still early. “The models are probabilistic, so if you run a model 10 times in a row, given the probability nature of it, after 10 actions, you have a divergence.” Botteri anticipates that we are 12 to 24 months from these tool capabilities delivering improved outcomes with advances in governance and security. New generation of native AI On the model and infrastructure front, notable investments for Accel include generative AI company Anthropic, small model developer H Co., and publicly traded AI infrastructure provider Nebius Group, along with numerous investments on the application side. The U.S. dominates on the foundation model side of AI, but there are also more specialized models — which don’t require tens of billions of dollars to be developed — where Europe can contribute, said Botteri, citing portfolio company H, which has developed a computer-use model to take actions on the computer on behalf of a user. “On the application [side], it’s very much a level playing field,” he said. The firm’s report claims that European and Israeli AI and cloud investments are two-thirds the size of the U.S. investment market, excluding model companies. A new generation of native AI applications are growing at an unprecedented rate. Botteri named a few AI native Accel portfolio companies, including coding company Anysphere, maker of Cursor; AI search engine Perplexity; Stockholm-based vibe coding startup Lovable; Berlin-based business automation platform n8n; Synthesia, which offers AI video creation for the enterprise; and Israel-based security company Cyera. Energy shortfall The report also outlined the energy shortfall to deliver AI over the next five years — around 117 gigawatts — the equivalent to powering Italy, Spain and the U.K. combined, said Botteri. For context to understand the buildout required, a nuclear power plant creates 1 to 2 gigawatts of power. The Super Six group of companies, who are investing in much of this infrastructure buildout over the next five years, are expected to generate around $5.5 trillion in operating cash flow. That operating cash flow along with the debt markets, will go a long way to addressing the $4 trillion required to build out this capacity, Boterri said. For this infrastructure buildout, the report estimates the revenue payback should be $3.1 trillion, an increase of 1% to 2% of compound average GDP growth per year. “If you don’t think that GenAI is going to generate a 1%-2% increase in the global GDP, then I’m not sure why we’re doing all this,” said Botteri.
Exclusive: BoomPop Books $25M To Help Companies Plan Events And Offsites Using AI
BoomPop, an AI-powered event planning platform, has raised $25 million in equity funding, the company tells Crunchbase News exclusively. The startup has also secured $16 million of debt and credit via Silicon Valley Bank. The equity portion of the raise was led by Wing VC. Other participants included Atomic, Acme Capital, Four Rivers Group, Thayer Investment Partners (which counts large hotels as LPs), the Fund of Operators Guild, and Gaingels. Several individual investors also wrote checks into the round, including MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez, former DoorDash President Christopher Payne, and other Silicon Valley founders. With the latest financing, San Francisco-based BoomPop has raised a total of just under $56 million in funding since its 2020 inception. The company declined to reveal valuation, saying only that it was a “good up round.” BoomPop started as a research entity called BoomBox during the COVID pandemic, planning virtual events, before transitioning into its current iteration in 2023. It was born out of the Atomic venture studio. The startup essentially aims to function as a “trusted event planner,” making it easier for companies to plan offsites and events for employees. Blake Hudelson and Healey Cypher, BoomPop co-founders. Courtesy photo. “Most people don’t realize that when it comes to corporate travel, almost 60% of it involves groups,” said CEO and co-founder Healey Cypher in an interview. “And most people don’t know that if you need to book more than 10 hotel rooms, you cannot do that online.” The demand is apparently there. BoomPop said it has more than 450 clients, including Netflix, Google, Amazon, Hims & Hers and Anaconda, and has seen impressive growth. It ranked No. 115 on the most recent Inc. 5000 list, reporting 3,073% three-year growth. It currently has a revenue run rate of over $75 million. Cypher projects the company should cap just over $100 million in total gross revenue this quarter. (The company makes 12% to 14% of gross for net revenue, he said.) BoomPop’s raise is one of the largest so far this year for events-related startups, Crunchbase data shows. All told, startups in the category globally have raised just under $252 million year to date, including BoomPop’s funding deal, marking a down year for the sector. That compares with more than $361 million in all of 2024, $435.6 million in 2023 and $2.1 billion in the peak year of 2021. How it works BoomPop is powered by AI, but it operates on the premise that “nothing replaces authentic human connection,” Cypher told Crunchbase News. It works as a companion to employees working to plan offsites or events for a company, with both self-serve and full-service options. For those who want more hand-holding, BoomPop employs a 35-person professional planning team that handles planning and on-site support “for higher end, more complex events,” according to Cypher. Presently, BoomPop has about 110 employees. A staffer could tell BoomPop that his or her company wants to plan a 100-person founder summit within a three-hour drive from San Francisco with a lot of fun activities. The system would then analyze “millions” of data points in real time, such as weather, hotel and venue pricing, flights, citywide events that might also be taking place, and past itineraries. It would then offer event options, with a range of variations. Based on preferences, the AI then takes over execution, booking “vetted” vendors, reviewing contracts, building event websites, managing RSVPs and coordinating directly with hotels “to ensure guest preferences — such as dietary restrictions — are met.” The company claims that its AI can accomplish tasks in minutes that “once required entire teams weeks to complete.” BoomPop’s AI is trained on a proprietary database of curated, vetted vendors, including hotels, spaces, restaurants, activities, facilitators, caterers and photographers. It can do things like message employees if there’s a last-minute change in dinner venues. It can also get sizes for any swag and compile any dietary restrictions, in addition to planning minute-by-minute itineraries, among other things. To date, BoomPop has helped book over 60,000 hotel nights for its customers. Its fastest-growing segment is company offsites and retreats. Interestingly, the startup doesn’t just help plan events for employees. It also helps them plan events for clients. “I did deep research and found that the number one marketing channel for the scaled AI companies is client events,” Cypher said. Making group events scaleable Gaurav Garg, founding partner at Wing Venture Capital, notes that in a post-pandemic world with more remote and hybrid work models, companies are investing more resources into bringing their employees together. But the process behind planning and executing these gatherings “is still painfully manual,” in his view.“BoomPop brings together what used to be a patchwork of tools into a single intelligent product,” he told Crunchbase News via email. “At Wing, we believe the next generation of enterprise software will be AI-native: deeply intelligent, vertically focused, and obsessed with user experience. BoomPop embodies that thesis perfectly. It’s transforming an outdated, service-heavy industry into a digital, automated ecosystem that’s built for the way modern teams actually work and travel.” BoomPop makes money in several ways. For one, it charges what Cypher described as a “relatively low” SaaS fee for its offering that allows internal staffers to plan events. It also offers an optional premium product, which acts as a boutique agency to help plan events or offsites, that are billed per attendee, per event. BoomPop primarily makes its money from vendors who pay it a finder’s fee. In late September, Brex also announced a partnership with BoomPop that allows companies to book private dining and sports suites using Brex points. Related Crunchbase query: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Crunchbase Sector Snapshot: It’s Been A Down Year For E-Commerce Funding
Consumers and businesses are projected to spend more than $6 trillion on e-commerce retail platforms this year. Nonetheless, startup investors are finding fewer deals they like in the space. The broad trend: While investors are still backing some big rounds, overall funding to e-commerce startup categories has declined in 2025. Even so, we are seeing some bright spots, including quick delivery, livestream shopping and AI-enabled e-commerce. The numbers: So far in this year, investors put around $7.3 billion into global e-commerce-related startup funding rounds. That puts 2025 on track to deliver the sector’s lowest investment tally in years. Funding remains stuck at a fraction of its peak four years ago, and deal counts are also way down. To illustrate, we charted investment for the past six calendar years below. U.S. e-commerce funding, by contrast, looks on track to be relatively flat year over year. Even so, investment is down more than 80% from the peak. Noteworthy recent rounds: Food and grocery delivery continue to be major themes for e-commerce funding. In the U.S., the largest financing along these lines went to New York-based Wonder, a food takeout and delivery startup that raised $600 million in May at a reported $7 billion valuation. A sort of modernized version of the food court, Wonder lets customers order a selection of different cuisines from a single location. Indian e-commerce unicorn Zepto, which offers quick deliveries of groceries and household supplies, also did well, snagging $450 million last month at a $7 billion valuation. Live shopping platform Whatnot was also a venture favorite, securing $225 million in an October Series F. The San Francisco-based company said it has surpassed $6 billion in live sales this year. Below, we look at nine of the leading e-commerce fundraisers of 2025. The broad takeaway: A mature space, but newcomers can still find niche markets. Early adopters have been buying stuff online for roughly three decades now, and early entrant Amazon is now a $2.6 trillion company. Suffice it to say, e-commerce is a fairly mature space, leaving limited new addressable markets for startups. That said, we haven’t reached the zenith of on-demand commerce, and, as Whatnot’s rise exemplifies, buyers are always looking for a compelling new shopping experience. As AI technology advances, we’re also likely to see more startups finding innovative ways to apply it to e-commerce. Related Crunchbase queries and lists: Related reading:
Crunchbase Sector Snapshot: Funding To AI-Related Healthcare Startups Is Robust This Year
Startup investment has been on the rise this year, but some industries have benefited more than others. AI-related healthcare is one of the spaces that have seen a significant rise in funding globally, Crunchbase data shows. Overall funding to the space is up this year, as more startups are tackling high-pain and high-cost parts of the healthcare system. The broad trend: Venture investment in healthcare and biotech companies that have an AI bent has been on an upward trajectory in recent years. This year is on track to be another up one, with 2025’s funding totals already topping 2024’s full-year tallies. It’s not entirely surprising why: Many healthcare organizations still operate with outdated tech, and the need for innovation is massive. (As one personal example, I was given a CD with X-ray imaging at a recent ER visit.) The numbers: Investors put an estimated $10.7 billion into seed- through growth-stage funding to companies in AI-powered health tech categories so far this year, Crunchbase data shows. That means that 2025 funding is already 24.4% higher than the $8.6 billion raised in all of 2024. Investment hit a high point in Q1 of this year, with a drop in the subsequent two quarters, per Crunchbase data. Interestingly, a recent report from Menlo Ventures about AI and healthcare outlines the factors that are likely contributing to heightened investor interest. The report surveyed more than 700 health systems, outpatient, payer and life sciences leaders. Some of its findings include: This year has seen multiple megarounds in the health care space. The largest AI-related healthcare/biotech venture round of the year closed in March. That’s when Isomorphic Labs, a Google spinoff that provides AI-driven solutions for drug discovery and development, raised $600 million in a funding round led by Thrive Capital. The financing marked the company’s first external funding round as it looks to apply artificial intelligence to the drug development process. Other investors included GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Alphabet. Notably, more than one company in the space raised multiple rounds this year: There were many other interesting rounds raised in 2025 that caught our attention. In early October, Duos, an AI-powered digital health platform for member activation and benefits execution, raising a $130 million strategic growth equity investment led by FTV Capital. Also in October, DeepMind alumnus Domenic Donato raised $13 million for his startup, Attuned Intelligence, a developer of hospital call center AI agents. (The company told Crunchbase News that it was already processing thousands of calls daily. Attuned says it went live in 10 days at Lowell Community Health Center, handling every mainline call 24/7, and that it was working toward automating up to 70% of interactions across multiple languages. Honey Health also recently emerged from stealth with $7.8 million in seed funding led by Pelion Health Partners. The company says its AI agents log into existing EHRs, or electronic health records, and autonomously complete full workflows end-to-end with the goal of cutting millions of dollars in administration overhead. And in September, Hello Patient, a 1-year-old Austin-based conversational AI company aiming to “reinvent” patient communications, announced a $22.5 million Series A financing led by Scale Venture Partners. For a bigger-picture view, below we put together a list of 10 of the year’s largest AI-related healthcare and biotech financings. The broad takeaway: It’s clear that the overall AI investment boom has funneled more capital into healthcare as one of the sectors where AI can have a large, measurable impact. Funding is climbing because the technology is better, the need in healthcare is urgent, more providers are starting to adopt AI solutions, and investors are now seeing clearer paths to scale and profit. Related Crunchbase queries: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: A Varied Lineup, Led By Crypto And Parking
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. This week has been a busy one for good-sized rounds, led by $500 million financings for crypto unicorn Ripple and AI-enabled parking provider Metropolis. We also saw multiple large financings for biotech startups, plus some big rounds for cybersecurity and enterprise software. 1. (tied) Ripple, $500M, cryptocurrency: San Francisco-based crypto payments company Ripple raised $500 million at a $40 billion valuation. Funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities led the investment, along with Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard and Marshall Wace. 1. (tied) Metropolis, $500M, parking: Metropolis, an AI-powered checkout-free parking platform, announced that it has secured $1.6 billion in debt and equity financing, including a $500 million Series D at a $5 billion valuation. LionTree led the equity financing for Los Angeles-based Metropolis, while JP Morgan Chase Bank provided a $1.1 billion term loan. 3. Armis, $435M, cybersecurity: Armis, a provider of tools for monitoring cyber risk exposure, closed on $435 million in what it described as pre-IPO funding round. Goldman Sachs Growth Equity led the financing, which set a $6.1 billion valuation for the 10-year-old, San Francisco-based company. 4. Synchron, $200M, neurotech: Synchron, a developer of nonsurgical brain-computer interface technology, picked up $200 million in Series D funding led by Double Point Ventures. The New York-based company wants to use its technology to restore communication and mobility for people with paralysis. 5. Hippocratic AI, $126M, healthcare AI: Hippocratic AI, a developer of generative AI healthcare agents, landed $126 million in Series C financing. Avenir led the round, which set a $3.4 billion valuation for the Palo Alto, California-based company. 6. MoEngage, $100M, marketing automation: MoEngage, an AI-enabled customer engagement platform, raised $100 million in new financing, with reportedly 60% going to the company and 40% going to secondary share sales. Goldman Sachs Alternatives and A91 Partners led the financing. 7. Infravision, $91M, aerial robotics: Infravision, a company that aims to transform how power lines are built and maintained with aerial robotics, raised $91 million in Series B funding. Singapore’s GIC led the financing for the 7-year-old, Austin-based startup. 8. Reevo, $80M, AI go-to-market tools: Santa Clara, California-based Reevo, developer of an AI platform for managing go-to-market strategy and processes, launched publicly and announced it has raised $80 million in funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. 9. Neok Bio, $75M, biotech: Palo Alto, California-based Neok Bio, a startup focused on developing antibody drug conjugates for improving cancer outcomes, emerged from stealth with $75 million, backed by Korean biotech ABL Bio. 10. Azalea Therapeutics, $65M, genomic medicines: Berkeley, California-based Azalea Therapeutics, a developer of precision genomic medicines, launched from stealth and announced it has raised $65 million in a Series A led by Third Rock Ventures. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Nov. 1-7. 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
Startups Are Serving Up Drinks With Protein, Caffeine And A Shot Of Wellness
Stuff it with protein. Add a kick of nutrients and caffeine. And please, stay away from sugar. Those, in obnoxiously overgeneralized terms, are the basic tenets of launching and scaling a beverage startup targeting the modern consumer. Per an analysis of Crunchbase data, recently funded companies in the drinks space typically check one if not all of those boxes. These are not especially shocking findings. Consumers willing to pay handsomely for a container of liquid are commonly looking for health and wellness benefits, as well as an energy boost, if not a buzz. That’s reflected in our sample list of 26 noteworthy beverage startups funded this year. Standouts include such potable offerings as protein soda, botanical tonics and sugar-free energy drinks. We take a closer look at where the money is going by focusing on a few top investment themes. Protein everywhere First off, it seems safe to say protein is officially the macronutrient of the year. This is evident in the beverage space, where startups and established brands alike are competing to stuff more protein into everything from sodas to lattes to flavored waters. Below, we assembled a list of four startups along these lines funded this year. Dutch startup Vivici, which produces dairy proteins through precision fermentation, picked up the biggest recent round, landing $37 million in a February Series A. The company makes a whey protein that’s been used for clear drinks, powder mixes and snack bars. Slate Milk, which makes high-protein milk shakes and iced coffees, is also poised to scale, having secured a $23 million Series B in September. More than three-fourths of the calories in its drinks come from protein. For those seeking something fizzier, Don’t Quit is another option. The Los Angeles-based company sells canned sodas that feature 15 grams of whey protein. Energy Of course, what use is all that protein if one isn’t awake or alert enough to appreciate it? Enter our next favored funding category: energy-boosting drinks. Using Crunchbase data, we assembled a sample list of five such startups funded this year. One continuing trend is the incorporation of caffeine into drinks that traditionally don’t contain the stuff. Gorgie, for instance, markets a sparkling pink lemonade with more caffeine than many cups of coffee. Lucky Energy, meanwhile, sells a lineup of even more caffeinated fruity-flavored drinks. We’re also seeing startups straddling multiple hot beverage niches. Concentrated coffee purveyor Jot, for instance, sells a protein latte. And Atomo Coffee makes products with added ingredients offering nutritional and health benefits. Wellness Drinks for health and fitness buffs are also attracting investors. To illustrate, we assembled a list of five startups funded this year that meet this criteria. Hiyo, a maker of fizzy tonics crafted with potentially mood-boosting plant ingredients, scored one of the more high-profile rounds, selling a minority stake to the venture arm of spirits maker Constellation Brands early this year. The Southern California startup promotes itself as a festive alternative to alcoholic beverages. Venice, California-based Magic Mind also picked up a venture round, per a securities filing, as it scales up its offerings of drinkable shots crafted to augment mental performance. Anything but tap water It’s a good thing for startups that consumers are accustomed to paying up to quench our thirst with basically anything other than tap water. But given the plethora of options already out there, newcomers are playing in a crowded field. “The big question starting to emerge is: How big can the shelf get and how many options can consumers truly absorb?” research and accounting firm Ernst & Young posited in a recent report on beverage industry trends. The firm sees certain categories as better poised to cut through the clutter, with wellness drinks having a particular edge. Sugar-free or low-sugar drinks also appear to be on the rise, at least looking at funded startups, with a sizable chunk of this year’s investment recipient boasting this attribute. It’s not just zero-calorie drinks either. In fact, both startups and established brands are increasingly pushing the envelope on the notion that a drink can be both sweet and protein-rich enough to sub for a steak. Now that brands have made such strides in the nutritional profile of drinks, the next step will be to see which ones consumers believe actually taste good. Related Crunchbase list: Illustration: Dom Guzman