Venture capital funding warmed in 2024, with global investments reaching close to $314 billion, up around 3% from 2023. The theme of 2024 appeared to be artificial intelligence, with funding to AI startups locking in 31% of global funding in Q3 2024.[1] In this blog, we’ll talk about some of the largest funding rounds of 2024 and how they could shape venture capital funding in 2025.

Largest Funding Rounds of 2024

11 companies in 2024 each raised at least $1 billion, with those companies bringing in $35.7 billion in funding. The following is a summary of each of these recent funding rounds:

* denotes a MicroVentures portfolio company

Databricks*

Databricks raised a $10 billion late-stage venture round in December 2024, the largest round of the year. The AI-powered data company secured a $62 billion valuation with investments from Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Iconiq Growth, Insight Partners, and others.

The funds are expected to be used for former and current employee liquidity, making new acquisitions, and overseas expansion. Back in November 2024, Databricks’ co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi stated that if the company were going to IPO, the earliest it might conduct an initial public offering could be “mid [2025] or something like that”.[2]

OpenAI*

The second largest deal of 2024 went to OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, DALL-E, Whisper, and Sora. Raising $6.6 billion at a $157 billion valuation in October 2024, this round solidified OpenAI’s positions as one of the most valuable private companies in the world. OpenAI secured this round of convertible debt from Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, Microsoft, and Nvidia.[3]

xAI*

Continuing with the AI theme, xAI also secured one of the largest funding rounds of 2024, receiving $6 billion in December 2024 and receiving a $45 billion valuation. Participants in the round included Andreessen Horowitz, Blackrock, Fidelity, Lightspeed, Morgan Stanley, Valor, Nvidia, and others.

Led by Elon Musk, the creator of Grok plans to use the funds to accelerate infrastructure, ship new products, and accelerate research and development.

Anthropic*

Another AI company, the creator of the Claude AI chatbot Anthropic secured a $4 billion investment from Amazon in November 2024. This corporate round built upon two previous investments of $1.25 billion in September 2023 and $2.75 billion in March 2024, making Amazon’s total commitment $8 billion.[4]

Veeam Software

Veeam Software, a data resilience firm, tripled its valuation to $15 billion in a $2 billion secondary sale in December 2024. This round aimed to bolster the company’s cap table before an eventual IPO. The round was led by TPG while Temasek and others participated.[5]

G42

The UAE-based AI company received a $1.5 billion investment from Microsoft in April 2024. In exchange, Microsoft received a minority stake in the company and a board seat. As part of the deal, G42 plans to use Microsoft cloud services to run its AI applications.[6]

Anduril Industries*

Defense tech startup Anduril raised a $1.5 billion Series F round in August 2024, reporting a $14 billion valuation. The round saw participation from longstanding investor Founders Fund in addition to Fidelity and Baillie Gifford.[7]

The funds from the round are expected to help Anduril conduct its Arsenal-1 factory, which it recently announced will be built in Ohio.[8]

CoreWeave

A specialized cloud provider for AI, CoreWeave secured $1.1B in Series C funding in May 2024. The round was led by Coatue with participation from Magnetar, Altimeter, Fidelity, and others. The funds were raised to support growth across business areas in addition to expansion into new geographic regions.[9]

Safe Superintelligence

Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI company, Safe Superintelligence, raised over $1 billion in a Series A funding round in September 2024, reaching a $5 billion valuation. Participants in the round included NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global, and SV Angel. The company plans to use the funds to acquire computing power and hire additional researchers and engineers.[10]

Scale AI

Providing data-labeling services for training machine learning models, Scale AI raised a $1 billion Series F round at a $13.8 billion valuation in May 2024. The round was led by Accel Ventures and included participation from Amazon and Meta.

Scale stated the funds will help accelerate the “abundance of frontier data that will pave our road to artificial general intelligence”.[11]

Xaira Therapeutics

Rounding off the list includes another AI company, this time in the drug discovery industry. Xaira Therapeutics raised $1 billion in Series A funding in April 2024. The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs and included participation from Sequoia, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Menlo Ventures.

Xaira plans to use the funds to develop drugs that are impossible to make without the recent breakthroughs seen in AI.

Final Thoughts

2024 appeared to be the year of AI venture capital funding, with the 11 largest funding rounds of the year going to companies either building AI or building with AI. Will 2025 see the same trends in venture capital funding or will a new theme emerge for the year? And which companies could raise the largest funding rounds of 2025?

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[1] https://www.rdworldonline.com/25-landmark-rd-heavy-tech-funding-rounds-of-2024/

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/17/databricks-valued-at-62-billion-from-10-billion-financing.html

[3] https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-closes-66-billion-funding-haul-valuation-157-billion-with-investment-2024-10-02/

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/22/amazon-to-invest-another-4-billion-in-anthropic-openais-biggest-rival.html

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/04/data-resilience-company-veeam-valued-at-15bn-after-2bn-secondary-sale/

[6] https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/microsoft-invest-15-bln-emirati-ai-firm-g42-new-york-times-reports-2024-04-16/

[7] https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/07/anduril-raises-1-5b-to-hyper-scale-defense-production/

[8] https://www.anduril.com/article/anduril-building-arsenal-1-hyperscale-manufacturing-facility-in-ohio

[9] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/coreweave-secures-1-1-billion-in-series-c-funding-to-drive-the-next-generation-of-cloud-computing-for-the-future-of-ai-302133328.html

[10] https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/04/ilya-sutskevers-startup-safe-super-intelligence-raises-1b/

[11] https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/21/data-labeling-startup-scale-ai-raises-1b-as-valuation-doubles-to-13-8b/

*****

The information presented here is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be, nor should it be construed or used as, comprehensive offering documentation for any security, investment, tax or legal advice, a recommendation, or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, an interest, directly or indirectly, in any company. Investing in both early-stage and later-stage companies carries a high degree of risk. A loss of an investor’s entire investment is possible, and no profit may be realized. Investors should be aware that these types of investments are illiquid and should anticipate holding until an exit occurs.

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The Largest Funding Rounds of 2024