SA国际传媒

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding rounds here.

Rounds raised by U.S.-based startups were big this week, with three topping $200 million. No one category stood out, as investors wrote checks for anything ranging from livestream shopping to biotech to ways to develop clean drinking water. After a slow start to the month, large rounds have come back into play for some startups.

1.听, $260M, e-commerce: Investors clearly seem to think livestream shopping is the next evolutionary step for commerce. and growth fund, , co-led a $260 million Series D for Los Angeles-based Whatnot. The round now values the live shopping platform at $3.7 billion鈥攁 2.5x increase from September when its valuation was $1.5 billion. That鈥檚 an impressive jump considering the venture market was very different in September. However, the company seems to be coming off an impressive year. Whatnot said it grew sales more than 20x year over year last year, and more than tripled its monthly sales thus far in 2022. Founded in 2019, the company has raised nearly $485 million, according to SA国际传媒 data.

2. , $250M, energy: The promise of real nuclear fusion energy continues to fire up investors. TAE Technologies is the latest to ride that wave of interest, as the Foothill Ranch, California-based company raised a $250 million round that induced cash from the likes of and . The last year has been big for fusion startups, as companies such as , , and others have raised substantial rounds. Fusion energy鈥攃reated when two atoms are merged鈥攊s the holy grail of clean energy. With many experts thinking it is getting closer to being commercialized, investors are lining up their bets. TAE has collected a lot of those bets, as the company鈥攆ounded in 1998鈥攕aid it has now raised $1.2 billion.

3. , $225M, biotech: Unfortunately, cancer remains a public health concern, and early ways to detect and monitor the dreaded disease are always going to be highly sought after. Baltimore-based Delfi Diagnostics has developed a way to look for DNA fragments in a patient’s bloodstream that are linked to specific forms of cancer. The new technology was interesting enough to help the company close a $225 million Series B led by . The company鈥攆ounded in 2019鈥攚ill use the new proceeds for continued development and commercialization of its blood tests. Delfi has now raised more than $330 million, according to SA国际传媒.

4. , $150M, food tech: You can buy a lot of filet mignon with $150 million鈥攑robably even more if it鈥檚 鈥渇aux鈥� filet mignon. Boulder, Colorado-based Meati Foods became the latest food tech startup making plant-based meat to score a large funding round, locking up a $150 million Series C funding led by . Meati specializes in creating whole-cut steak cutlets and chunks that use mycelium鈥攁 mushroom root鈥攖o stand in for meat. Cuts of meat have proven a problem for the fake meat industry as the texture is hard to replicate. However, Meati鈥檚 cuts are already being sold in grocery stores and restaurants in Arizona and Colorado. The company has raised $278.6 million to date, according to SA国际传媒.

5. , $130M, environmental engineering: Other than oxygen, nothing is more important than water鈥攜et viable sources of drinking water are getting scarcer. Scotttsdale, Arizona-based Source, a developer of sustainable drinking water technology, closed a $130 million Series D led by and . The company鈥檚 tech uses the sun to draw water vapor out of the air and transform it into mineralized drinking water, even in low-humidity locations. According to the company, at least 2.4 billion people globally do not have聽 clean water to drink, and by 2050 that number will increase to 6 billion as a result of climate change. Founded in 2014, Source says it has raised a total of $270 million to date.

6. , $125M, edtech: San Francisco-based edtech startup ClassDojo announced it closed a $125 million Series D led by that valued the company at $1.25 billion. The round was raised in September, but was not announced at the time. Founded in 2011, the company has now raised more than $190 million, per SA国际传媒.

7. (tied) , $100M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology firm Camp4 Therapeutics raised a $100 million Series B led by . Founded in 2016, the company鈥攚hich is developing RNA treatments鈥攈as raised $190 million, according to SA国际传媒.

7. (tied) , $100M, energy storage: Durham, North Carolina-based FlexGen closed a $100 million Series C led by . Founded in 2009, the energy storage solutions provider has now raised more than $275 million, per SA国际传媒 data.

9. , $90M, cybersecurity: Miami-based Halborn, a cybersecurity firm for traditional finance and blockchain-based customers, completed a $90 million round led by . Founded in 2019, this was the company鈥檚 first external round.

10. , $75M, biotech: San Mateo, California-based BigHat Biosciences raised a $75 million Series B funding round led by . Founded in 2019, BigHat, which is developing antibody therapies for patients using machine learning and synthetic biology, has raised $105 million to date, according to the company.

Big global deals

Even though U.S.-based startups saw some large raises this week, the two largest rounds came from European companies.

• Paris-based customer behavior analytics firm closed a $400 million Series F.
• announced it raised nearly $300 million鈥攂ringing its total raised to $1 billion.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the SA国际传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of July 16-22. 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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