SA国际传媒

In a year that shattered venture capital funding records, it should come as no surprise there were some hefty financing rounds to be had by startups. In fact, two companies that saw three of the top rounds of the year used the funding to ride them to the public market鈥攅lectric car-maker and stock trading app .

Just to make the top 10 list, a company needed to raise well over $1 billion in a round. Here are the top rounds of 2021:

1.听, $2.75B, autonomous cars: San Francisco-based announced a $2 billion round in January, but upsized it with an investment from and others to $2.75 billion in April to take the top spot. The new money took the -backed self-driving car startup鈥檚 valuation to more than $30 billion. The company had previously partnered with Walmart for a self-driving delivery pilot in the Phoenix area.

2.听, $2.65B, electric vehicles: The second-largest round of 2021 came only 19 days into the year, as Irvine, California-based closed a $2.65 billion private-equity round led by . When the company announced the round, it called 2021 a 鈥渃ritical year,鈥� with the launching of a handful of electric vehicles. At the time, few probably knew that Rivian was only getting started for the year.

3.听, $2.5B, electric vehicles: Coming into the year, when people thought of the EV space, companies like and came to mind. That all changed in July, when Rivian closed its second huge funding of the year鈥攁nd the third-largest round of the year. The company raised a $2.5 billion private funding round led by , , and funds and accounts advised by . The round helped set up Rivian鈥檚 IPO last month, where the company raised another $12 billion. That means Rivian raised a little more than $17 billion just this year alone. Definitely a year to remember.

4.听, $2.4B, fintech: Menlo Park, California-based also had quite a year. The stock-trading app raised in February from an investor group led by 鈥攋ust days after the company took some heat for allowing an extremely high volume of trading by retail investors that drove up shares of video game retailer and others. Undeterred by the criticism and buoyed by fresh cash, Robinhood went public in July and raised an additional $2.1 billion.

5.听, $2B, cleantech: The year in venture investment will definitely be remembered as a good one for greentech and cleantech. Investors saw new opportunities as companies continued to try to cut their carbon footprint and the federal government passed a huge infrastructure bill to support such tech. San Francisco-based rode that interest in raising a $2 billion round led by and . The company builds, owns and operates infrastructure related to sustainability鈥攕uch as battery storage and industrial solar.

6.听, $1.8B-plus, energy: Investors also caught fusion fever this year, as several companies took in huge rounds on the promise of carbon-free energy. No company took in more than Cambridge, Massachusetts-based , which raised a huge Series B of more than $1.8 billion led by . The round marked the largest one for any nuclear fusion startup ever, as the company is seeking to build the world鈥檚 first 鈥渃ommercially relevant鈥� net energy fusion machine and the first commercial fusion power plant.

7.听, $1.6B, data: San Francisco-based hit a post-money valuation of $38 billion after raising a $1.6 billion Series H led by in August. That round came just seven months after the company raised $1 billion at a $28 billion valuation in February. Databricks, which has now raised a total of $3.6 billion, creates tools and products to help companies view both structured and unstructured data in a single location鈥攚hat it calls a data 鈥渓akehouse鈥濃�攚ithout moving between different systems.

8.听, $1.5B, e-learning: Only in 2021 could you get a $1.5 billion 鈥淪eries A.鈥� That鈥檚 what New York-based training and e-learning provider Articulate Global raised in a round led by . The company鈥檚 software helps companies create and deliver online training for everything ranging from sales to compliance to soft business skills like team building. The round values the company鈥攆ounded in 2002鈥攁t $3.75 billion. The company refers to it as a Series A funding because it marks its first outside funding round.

9.听, $1.4B, space travel: How about another large Series A? Broomfield, Colorado-based closed a $1.4 billion Series A led by , and . It was just another large round in what was a strong year for space tech. Founded this year, the company plans to use the new cash to develop its Dream Chaser Spaceplane, an orbital commercial spaceplane.

10.听, $1.3B, cybersecurity: While security in general saw crazy investment this year, no area of it saw crazier rounds than cloud and container security. The space took off as more companies moved to the cloud and adopted container strategies to build out applications. The space became an arms race, with , and all raising multiple rounds at valuations of more than $1 billion. However, Lacework saw the biggest amount. The San Jose-based company became a unicorn when it closed a $525 million growth round in January鈥攂ut it was not done yet. Just last month, it closed a $1.3 billion Series D round led by , , and . The new investment set a valuation of $8.3 billion for the 7-year-old company.

Big global deals

The top two global deals this year did not involve U.S.-based startups.

• India-based online shopping platform closed a $3.6 billion round at a $37.6 billion valuation in July.
• Stockholm-based , a lithium-ion battery manufacturing company, raised a $2.75 billion round in June.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the SA国际传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the year. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported later.

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