AI startups announced about $5.18 billion in primary equity funding across 25 rounds of $20 million or more between October 19 and October 25, 2026. That is more than double last week’s $2.42 billion tally.
Tenstorrent’s $1.5 billion Series E was the largest round, at about 29% of the total. Flapping Airplanes followed with $1 billion, and the two deals made up nearly half the week.
The largest AI acquisition was Salesforce’s agreement to buy Braze for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value. Braze is a listed customer-engagement software company that uses AI to personalize marketing messages.
North American companies raised about $3.88 billion, or 75% of the total, across 19 rounds. Four European startups raised $870 million (17%), China’s Neolix raised nearly $400 million (8%), and Israel’s Mave raised $28 million.
Two deals need a plain explanation. Otter.ai took $320 million from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, but it sold no shares. It will repay the money with interest as its marketing spend brings in revenue, so the deal sits outside the total.
Formic’s $50 million combines a Series B with a loan from S2G Investments, and the company did not split the two. The full amount is counted, so the total includes an unknown debt share.
No employee share sale, secondary deal or AI-focused fund close of $20 million or more qualified this week. Reports that DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan are covered in the regional section but not counted, because the company has not confirmed the round.
AI funding this week: growth and early-stage rounds
The table lists every confirmed AI round of $20 million or more announced in the window, largest first. Otter.ai’s repayable financing is shown in grey for reference and is not part of the total.
| Company | What it does | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead and notable investors | HQ | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenstorrent | RISC-V AI chips, Galaxy servers and licensable chip designs | Series E | US$1.5B | US$6.2B post-money | Trace Capital, Innovation X (leads); ARK Invest, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, Sandisk | Santa Clara, US | North America |
| Flapping Airplanes | AI research lab training models with less data and compute | Series A | US$1B | US$6B | Index Ventures, Lux Capital (co-leads); Sequoia, GV, Kleiner Perkins | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Legora | AI platform for legal research, review and drafting | Series E | US$550M | US$8.8B post-money | Atreides Management (lead); Baron Capital, Capital Group, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan | Stockholm, Sweden | Europe/UK |
| Neolix | Level 4 driverless delivery vans | Series E | Nearly US$400M (about RMB 2.68B) | Not disclosed | Boyu Capital and a national-level fund (co-leads); Alibaba AEF NextGen, Granite Asia, Vertex Growth | Beijing, China | Asia-Pacific |
| ASI (formerly Air Space Intelligence) | Predictive AI for aviation, logistics, energy and defense operations | Series C | US$325M | US$3B | Spark Capital (lead); Citadel Securities affiliates, Meritech, Craft Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz | Boston, US | North America |
| Otter.ai | AI meeting notes and voice assistant | Repayable growth financing (no equity) | US$320M (not in total) | Not disclosed | General Catalyst Customer Value Fund | Mountain View, US | North America |
| Pigment | AI-assisted business planning and forecasting software | Series E | US$250M | US$2.3B | Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT (lead); World Innovation Lab, Greenoaks, ICONIQ, IVP, Meritech | Paris, France | Europe/UK |
| Arda Industries | AI that turns product designs into working assembly lines | Series A | US$160M | US$1.5B | Altimeter, Accel, Khosla Ventures (co-leads); 8VC, Felicis | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Eka Robotics | Robot manipulation models trained with vision, force sensing and simulation | Series A | US$150M | US$1.45B post-money | Andreessen Horowitz, F-Prime (co-leads); Obvious Ventures, Samsung Next | Cambridge, US | North America |
| Tractian | Sensors and AI that predict industrial machine failures | Series D | US$130M | US$1.4B | Sapphire Ventures (lead), M&G’s Catalyst (co-lead); General Catalyst, Bosch Ventures, Y Combinator | Atlanta, US | North America |
| Town | AI assistants that coordinate work across a company’s staff | Series B | US$108M | US$1B | Forerunner Ventures, Menlo Ventures (co-leads); Andreessen Horowitz, First Round | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Dream Labs | Robot foundation model offered through a public API | Seed | US$90M | Not disclosed | B Capital (lead), Kindred Ventures; A.Capital, Unusual Ventures, Wing VC | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Blacksmith | Build and test infrastructure for AI-written code | Series C | US$66M | US$1B | Sequoia (lead); Premji Invest, Peak XV, GV, Y Combinator | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Daytona | Sandboxed computers where AI agents run code | Series B | US$60M | US$1B | FirstMark Growth (lead); Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung Next, Okta Ventures | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Formic | Robots-as-a-service for US factories | Series B plus debt | US$50M (equity and debt split not disclosed) | Not disclosed | Mercato Partners (Series B lead); Light Ray Ventures, Citi; debt from S2G Investments | Chicago, US | North America |
| Baba | AI and human care coordination for Medicare and Medicaid patients | Series A | US$40M | Not disclosed | FirstMark Capital (lead); CVS Health Ventures, Valtruis, General Catalyst | New York, US | North America |
| Cognitive Credit | AI research tools and data for corporate bond and loan analysis | Growth | US$40M | Not disclosed | Summit Partners (lead); ETFS Capital | London, UK | Europe/UK |
| Watchtower Labs | AI planning tools for military logistics | Seed | US$35M | Not disclosed | Shield Capital, Conviction (co-leads); Founders Fund | Seattle area, US | North America |
| Mach9 | AI that turns survey scans into civil engineering drawings | Series A | US$34M | Not disclosed | First Round, Bessemer (co-leads); Prudence, Quiet Capital | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Maxinsights | First-person video data for training robots | Seed | US$30M | Not disclosed | Peak XV (lead); Tola Capital, South Park Commons, Alumni Ventures | Santa Clara, US | North America |
| Tolan | AI companion app built around animated characters | Not disclosed | US$30M | Not disclosed | Union Square Ventures (lead); Khosla Ventures | San Francisco, US | North America |
| Enact Intelligence | Robot control that senses force and touch | Pre-seed | US$30M | Not disclosed | Redalpine, Notion Capital, Firstminute Capital; angels Yann LeCun, Arthur Mensch, Thomas Wolf | Zurich, Switzerland | Europe/UK |
| Mave | AI agents that investigate security alerts | Series A | US$28M | Not disclosed | Red Dot Capital Partners (lead); Lumir Growth Partners, Dell Technologies Capital | Tel Aviv, Israel | Middle East/Israel |
| Slingshot Insurance | AI-native software for small embedded insurance policies | Seed | US$27M | Not disclosed | Rally Ventures, Skyward Group (co-leads) | Minneapolis, US | North America |
| Nirva | AI pendant that records only its wearer’s voice | Pre-Series A | US$25M | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | United States | North America |
| AuxoAI | Forward-deployed engineers who build enterprise AI systems | Series A | US$20.7M | Not disclosed | NTTVC (lead) | San Francisco Bay Area, US | North America |
AI chips, research labs and developer tools took $1.63 billion
Tenstorrent’s valuation more than doubled from the $2.6 billion it reached in December 2024. CEO Jim Keller’s company will use the money to build more Galaxy servers and license its RISC-V and Tensix designs to chipmakers such as Samsung and LG.
Flapping Airplanes was founded in late 2025 and has no product on sale. Its valuation quadrupled from the $1.5 billion set by a $180 million seed round in January.
Nvidia joined that round, adding another AI lab to its startup investment portfolio. Pigment also listed a planned Nvidia investment this week.
Blacksmith’s valuation nearly doubled in two months, from $550 million at its August Series B. The company says annual recurring revenue grew 17-fold since January as coding agents push more code through its build-and-test systems.
Daytona has raised $91 million in total. Its sandboxes give AI agents an isolated computer to run code, open files and use tools.
Physical AI and robotics startups closed eight rounds
Eight physical AI companies raised about $1.04 billion. Four of them (Tractian, Formic, Maxinsights and Enact) announced their rounds on October 22.
Neolix says it runs more than 30,000 driverless delivery vehicles in about 20 countries. Its previous round, a Series D of more than $600 million, was larger than this one.
Arda was founded by Bob McGrew, OpenAI’s former chief research officer. A prior $72 million seed round brings its total to $232 million, and its software is in use at Anduril.
Eka’s founders are MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja. TechCrunch reported its system picks about 1,500 objects an hour in tests, against a human benchmark of about 600.
Tractian’s valuation nearly doubled from about $720 million at its December 2024 Series C, which Sapphire also led. The company says more than 2,000 facilities run its sensors.
Dream Labs was founded in 2026 by former leads of Nvidia’s GR00T robotics research. It launched its API with more than 20 hardware partners.
Formic runs robots in more than 100 facilities across 30-plus US states and reports 99.6% uptime. Maxinsights pays more than 5,000 contractors in six countries to film everyday tasks for robot training.
Enact’s chief executive, Manuel Galliker, previously worked at Physical Intelligence. The $30 million is large for a pre-seed round.
Enterprise and vertical AI applications raised $1.07 billion
Legora’s valuation rose from $5.6 billion six months ago. It says annual recurring revenue passed $200 million and that the US is now its largest market.
Rival Harvey raised $550 million at a $15.5 billion valuation about six weeks earlier. In-house legal teams made up more than 40% of Legora’s new customers in the third quarter.
Pigment reports more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Its previous raise was a $145 million Series D in 2024, led by ICONIQ.
Town reached a $1 billion valuation four months after a $55 million Series A. Mach9 has raised $49 million in total, and Cognitive Credit says its data covers more than 3,500 bond and loan issuers.
Baba says it has supported more than 10,000 patients and families. Slingshot came out of stealth and plans to buy an insurance carrier. AuxoAI, founded in 2023, has worked with more than 40 enterprise clients.
Otter.ai says it has more than 40 million users and passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue last year. Before this deal it had raised about $50 million in equity, according to PitchBook data cited by TechCrunch.
Defense, security and consumer AI startups
ASI holds an FAA modernization contract with a ceiling of $875 million. The ceiling is the most the program could pay, not revenue already earned.
Watchtower Labs came out of stealth with its seed round. The Defense Innovation Unit selected it in January for a program on military sustainment decisions.
Mave’s new Series A brings its total to $34 million, including a $6 million seed. It says its agents run in more than 200 security operations centers.
Tolan says users held more than 70 million conversations with its characters over the past year. Nirva, founded in 2025 by former Meta Reality Labs staff, will sell its pendant for $249, with orders opening in November.
AI funds and acquisitions this week
One AI acquisition above $20 million carried a disclosed price. No AI-focused venture fund announced a close of $20 million or more in the window.
| Company | What it does | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead and notable investors | HQ | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braze | Customer-engagement software with BrazeAI tools that personalize marketing messages | Acquisition (definitive agreement) | About US$5.66B enterprise value | Not applicable | Acquirer: Salesforce | New York, US | North America |
Salesforce will pay $47.50 a share in cash, about 58% above Braze’s last close before the announcement. The deal still needs shareholder and regulatory approval.
Rivian bought UK simulation startup Third Dimension AI, which had raised a $7 million seed round, but neither company disclosed a price. Seaya announced a €600 million growth fund, but it backs European tech companies in general rather than AI alone.
AI funding outside the US: regional activity
Europe had four qualifying AI rounds worth $870 million: Legora, Pigment, Cognitive Credit and Enact Intelligence. Legora’s round was the largest European AI deal of the week.
Neolix was Asia’s only confirmed qualifying round. Reuters, citing four people familiar with the matter, reported that DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) from investors including Tencent and CATL.
DeepSeek has not confirmed the round, and Reuters said final figures could still change, so it is left out of the total. No Japanese, South Korean, Southeast Asian or Australian AI round of $20 million or more surfaced in our searches.
Mave was the only qualifying deal across the Middle East, Israel and Africa. Techloy counted $59.7 million across the three regions, and the second-largest deal was Modelyo’s $17 million. No Gulf or African AI startup reached $20 million.
India had no qualifying AI round. The largest Indian AI raise we found was Hunar.AI’s ₹39.3 crore (about $4.7 million) Series A. AuxoAI raised $20.7 million but is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Inc42’s and Entrackr’s weekly tallies for October 19 to 24 had not been published when this digest was compiled.
Latin America had no qualifying AI deal by headquarters. Techloy counted $181.9 million across the region, led by Tractian, which was founded in Brazil but is based in Atlanta. The next-largest round was Brazilian healthtech company Alice’s $40 million.
FAQ
How much did AI startups raise from October 19 to 25, 2026?
AI startups announced about $5.18 billion across 25 primary equity rounds of $20 million or more. North American companies took about $3.88 billion, or 75%, and four European startups raised $870 million.
What was the largest AI funding round this week?
Tenstorrent raised a $1.5 billion Series E led by Trace Capital and Innovation X. The round values the Santa Clara AI chip company at $6.2 billion, more than double its December 2024 valuation.
What was the biggest AI acquisition this week?
Salesforce agreed to buy Braze for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value, paying $47.50 a share in cash. Braze sells customer-engagement software that uses AI to personalize marketing messages.
Why is Otter.ai’s $320 million not counted in the total?
Otter.ai received repayable financing from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. It sold no shares and will repay the capital with interest from marketing-driven revenue, so the deal is not an equity round.
Did DeepSeek raise $15 billion this week?
Reuters and Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan ($15 billion), citing unnamed sources. DeepSeek has not confirmed the round, so this digest does not count it.
Trends in this week’s AI funding
- Physical AI drew eight rounds worth about $1.04 billion, the most deals of any theme. Half of them were announced on a single day, October 22.
- Several investors backed more than one company. Andreessen Horowitz joined ASI, Eka and Town; Sequoia joined Flapping Airplanes and Blacksmith; Peak XV led Maxinsights and backed Blacksmith; and Khosla Ventures backed Arda and Tolan.
- Valuations stepped up fast. Flapping Airplanes quadrupled since January, Blacksmith nearly doubled in two months, Legora rose from $5.6 billion to $8.8 billion in six months, and 11 rounds carried valuations of $1 billion or more.
