Amazon's $5B AI Bet Leads a Wave of Mega-Funding in Tech and Biotech

Amazon's $5B AI Bet Leads a Wave of Mega-Funding in Tech and Biotech

The week's top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. are as follows:

This week, just half of the top 10 rounds crossed the $100 million mark, which is somewhat unusual in this high-flying era for venture megarounds. Nonetheless some large checks did get written, led by Amazon's $5 billion investment and partnership deal with Anthropic. Other sizable rounds went to companies in sectors including aviation autonomy, vision therapy and AI analytics.

1. Anthropic, $5B, foundational AI: AI giant Anthropic announced that Amazon is investing $5 billion in the company, with up to an additional $20 billion in the future. Previously, Amazon had invested $8 billion in the San Francisco-based company. The latest financing also includes a partnership with Amazon for training and deploying Anthropic's AI assistant Claude.
2. Reliable Robotics, $160M, autonomous aircraft: Reliable Robotics, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems, raised $160 million in fresh financing led by Nimble Partners. The 9-year-old, Mountain View, California-based company markets its technology for both commercial and defense aviation.
3. Ray Therapeutics, $125M, vision therapy: San Diego-based Ray Therapeutics, a biotech startup focused on vision restoration therapies, secured $125 million in Series B funding led by Janus Henderson Investors. Founded in 2021, Ray has raised $247 million in venture and grant funding to date.
4. Omni, $120M, AI analytics: Omni, developer of an AI-enabled analytics platform, closed on $120 million in Series C funding led by Iconiq Growth. The financing set a $1.5 billion valuation for the 4-year-old, San Francisco-based company.
5. Tortugas Neuroscience, $106M, biotech: Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tortugas Neurosciences, neurology-focused biotech startup, scooped up $106 million in Series A funding. Founding investor Cure Ventures co-led the round alongside The Column Group and AN Venture Partners.
6. AcuityMD, $80M, medtech: AcuityMD, an AI-enabled data and research platform for medtech industry customers, picked up $80 million in Series C investment. StepStone Group led the funding for the 7-year-old, Boston-based company.
7. OpenAI, $75M, foundational AI: Robinhood Ventures announced that it purchased $75 million worth of San Francisco-based OpenAI's common stock. The shares are owned by Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a publicly traded fund that provides investors exposure to a curated portfolio of private companies.
8. Orkes, $60M, workflow orchestration: Orkes, developer of an AI-enabled software workflow orchestration platform, secured $60 million in Series B funding. AVP led the financing for the 5-year-old, Silicon Valley-based startup.
9. Courier Health, $50M, health tech: Courier Health, a developer of tools to improve patient experience for people with chronic conditions or rare diseases, closed on $50 million in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT led the financing for the New York-based company.
10. Serif Biomedicines, $50M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Serif Bio­med­i­cines, a biotech­ startup focused on Mod­i­fied DNA as a new class of med­i­cines, launched with $50 million in initial funding from Flagship Pioneering.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the our website database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of April 18-24. 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.

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