Largest VC investments of Q3 2024: Waymo, Anduril, and SSI raise billions
Globally, venture funding has been going through a downturn. Crunchbase reports that venture funding in Q3 2024 was down 15% on a year-on-year basis. This trend underscores the lack of liquidity that has been plaguing private equity for the past few years.
However, that has not stopped illustrious startups such as Waymo, Clio, and Helsing from securing some large cheques from VCs. In the recently concluded quarter, startups such as Safe Superintelligence and Candid Therapeutics which were founded in 2024 secured hundreds of millions.
In this article, we will explore the type of companies that are capturing the interest of VCs in this funding downturn by going over the top biggest VC investments of Q3 2024.
Top 10 Largest VC Investments Q3, 2024
Waymo raises $5.6 billion
In October, Waymo, the Alphabet-owned robotaxi startup, raised $5.6 billion from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global Management in its Series C funding round at a valuation of $45 billion. The company plans to invest these funds into expanding its robotaxi ride-hailing service which is currently operational in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, ventured into the self-driving car space in 2009, and in 2016, it established Waymo as a self-driving technology company. The startup is credited with launching the world’s first commercial autonomous ride-hailing service in 2018. A few years later, in 2023, the startup transitioned to an all-electric fleet.
The self-driving tech startup notes that road accidents caused more than 42,000 deaths and 2.5 million injuries in 2022. The company has a conviction that self-driving technology can reduce the casualties arising out of human errors. In its first 25 million miles, Waymo reported 72% fewer injury-causing crashes.
Anduril Industries raises $1.5 billion
On 7th August, Anduril Industries raised $1.5 billion in its Series F funding at a valuation of $14 billion. The funding round led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital saw participation from Counterpoint Global, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Franklin Venture Partners. With its Series F funding, the defense tech startup plans to scale up its operations and build Arsenal, a manufacturing platform for modern warfare.
Anduril Industries aims to manufacture thousands of autonomous weapons systems with Arsenal.
Currently, the defense tech startup operates in segments such as air systems, underwater vehicles, rocket motors, and autonomous defense systems. Lattice, Anduril Industries’ open software platform, was recently utilized in the US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) Desert Guardian exercise to integrate multiple third-party sensors into a single dashboard to enhance situational awareness of airborne threats.
The defense tech startup was also awarded a $249 million contract by the Department of Defense to deliver more than 500 Roadrunner-Ms and additional Pulsar electronic warfare capabilities.
Safe Superintelligence raises $1 billion
At a valuation of $5 billion, Safe Superintelligence raised $1 billion in a seed funding round from investors such as Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, Andreessen Horowitz, and DST Global. The AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever will utilize the funds to acquire computing power and hire researchers and engineers in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv.
Safe Superintelligence was launched just three months prior to securing this funding. There is a lot of enigma surrounding Safe Superintelligence’s mission and vision. The founders have stated that they want to build ‘safe’ superintelligence that far surpasses human capabilities but the definition of ‘safe’ in this context remains vague.
Clio raises $900 million
In July, Clio, the legal tech startup, raised $900 million in a Series F funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) at a valuation of $3 billion. Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Tidemark, TCV, and JMI Equity were some of the other investors who participated in this round. In just three years since its $100 million Series E funding round in 2021, Clio has grown its revenue beyond $200 million.
Clio plans to utilize this funding to make investments in its AI portfolio and online legal payment processing services.
Clio, which currently serves over 150,000 legal professionals in more than 100 countries, plans to expand its reach to over 130 countries on the back of this funding.
The cloud-based legal technology startup provides solutions for practice management, customer relationship management (CRM), document automation, and legal accounting.
Groq raises $640 million
At a valuation of $2.8 billion, Groq raised $640 million in its Series D funding round led by BlackRock Private Equity Partners-managed funds and accounts. Alumni Ventures, Global Brain Corporation, and Type One Ventures were some other participants in this funding round. Groq provides cloud-based and on-premise solutions such as its Language Processing Units (LPUs) to developers and businesses to enable fast AI inferences.
The AI hardware startup boasts the highest output speed on LLMs such as Llama 3.1 Instruct (8B), Llama 3.1 Instruct (70B), and Llama 3 (8B). Additionally, Groq claims that since its solutions are 10 times more energy efficient, it means 10 times lower costs of operation.
Helsing raises $487 million
In its Series C funding round led by General Catalyst, Helsing, the Germany-based defense AI startup, raised $487 million. Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Greenoaks Capital Management were some of the other investors who participated in this funding round.
While the startup hasn’t made any comments on the valuation, Bloomberg’s sources suggest that the funding round puts the startup’s valuation at $5.4 billion. Helsing aims to improve the decision-making of defense systems by training its AI models on ethical questions and trade-offs ahead of time.
Currently, the defense AI startup has offices in Munich, London, and Paris, and is being welcomed into Estonia to work on Baltic defense projects over the next three years.
Helsing has repeatedly iterated that its focus is on defending European democracies and their values and that they will only ever serve democracies.
Vastu Housing Finance raises $400 million
Vastu Housing Finance raised $400 million at a valuation of close to $1.2 billion in a funding round led by TA Associates in July. The International Finance Corporation was one of the participants in this funding round. Later in September, the lending institution received a $50 million loan from the United States International Development Finance Corporation (USIDFC) with a tenure of 20 years.
Currently, Vastu Housing Finance has assets under management (AUM) of $1.14 billion and focuses on providing affordable housing finance and backing women borrowers.
The company focuses on providing affordable housing finance in Tier II to Tier IV cities that have populations ranging from 100,000 to 10,000.
Baichuan Intelligence raises $390 million
As a part of its Series A funding, Baichuan Intelligence raised $687.6 million at a valuation of approximately $2.75 billion from Shenzhen Capital Group and Chinese tech heavyweights such as Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings. Out of the $687.6 million raised in this round, $390 million was raised in Q3 2024.
The Alibaba Group also backs Moonshot AI which narrowly beats Baichuan Intelligence for the spot of most-valuable Chinese AI startup.
Along with Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, Baichuan Intelligence is touted as one of China’s four AI tigers. The current generation of ‘tigers’ focuses on LLM capabilities while the previous generation of ‘dragons’ focuses on facial and image recognition tech.
Back in May 2024, Baichuan 4 LLM ranked highest on SuperCLUE, a Chinese language model evaluation benchmark, outpacing OpenAI and Anthropic’s LLMs.
Candid Therapeutics raises $370 million
In its first significant round of funding, Candid Therapeutics raised $370 million. As part of this funding round that was co-led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Fairmount, TCGX and venBio Partners, the biotech startup also merged with Vignette Bio and TRC 2004. Other investors in this round were Qiming Venture Partners and Polaris Partners.
Ken Song, Candid Therapeutics’ co-founder, President, and CEO, previously served as President and CEO at RayzeBio, a radiopharmaceutical therapeutics company that went public in September 2023.
Candid Therapeutics is trying to develop innovative therapies that engage T-cells, a type of white blood cells, to fight autoreactive B-cells, cells that can cause autoimmune diseases. Their conviction is that this approach is safer, more accessible, and more effective than treatments already available.
ArsenalBio raises $325 million
In September, ArsenalBio, a programmable cell therapy company, raised $325 million in a Series C funding round led by investors such as ARCH Venture Partners and NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm). Other investors in this funding round were the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), Kleiner Perkins, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The biotech startup is focused on developing solid tumor cell therapies to defeat cancer. The company’s CEO and Chairman, Ken Drazan, MD, noted initial clinical trials and preclinical studies show promise of ArsenalBio’s T-cell engineering approach. This allowed the startup to raise additional funding which will be invested in creating new tools and processes to discover more cell therapy candidates.
Top 100 largest VC investments (Q3, 2024)
The landscape of venture capital investments is characterized by significant financial backing from various firms. Here is an overview of some of the top 100 largest VC investments. The top players not only provide essential funding but also strategic guidance, playing a crucial role in fostering innovation and economic growth globally.
| Name of VC | Total Fund Raised | Highest Amount-Investment Round participated in a single company - Q3 | Name of the Company - Highest Investment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andreessen Horowitz | $39.4B | $5.6B | Waymo |
| Tiger Global Management | $41B | $5.6B | Waymo |
| Founders Fund | $13.1B | $1.5B | Anduril Industries |
| Sequoia Capital | $35.1B | $1B | Safe Superintelligence |
| SV Angel | $493.1M | $1B | Safe Superintelligence |
| New Enterprise Associates | $26.7B | $900M | Clio |
| Alumni Ventures | $1.4B | $640M | Groq |
| Global Brain Corporation | $2.9B | $640M | Groq |
| Accel | $20.1B | €450M ($485.4M) | Helsing |
| Lightspeed Venture Partners | $18.9B | €450M ($485.4M) | Helsing |
| General Catalyst | $8.6B | €450M ($485.4M) | Helsing |
| International Finance Corporation | $11.6B | ₹33.4B ($400M) | Vastu Housing Finance |
| Shenzhen Capital Group | $651.9M | $390M | Baichuan Intelligence |
| Qiming Venture Partners | $11.8B | $370M | Candid Therapeutics |
| Polaris Partners | $4.9B | $370M | Candid Therapeutics |
| Goldman Sachs | $31.8B | $350M (DEBT) | Embraer |
| Kleiner Perkins | $9.2B | $325M | ArsenalBio |
| ARCH Venture Partners | $10.7B | $325M | ArsenalBio |
| Menlo Ventures | $5.2B | $300M | Skild AI |
| CRV | $4.1B | $300M | Skild AI |
| Felicis | $2.9B | $300M | Skild AI |
| Lux Capital | $5.1B | $300M | Applied Intuition |
| Venrock | $4.8B | $277M | Element Biosciences |
| Google Ventures | $100M | $260M | Cardurion Pharmaceuticals |
| Greylock | $5.6B | $250M | Abnormal Security |
| 500 Global | $824.6M | $214M | Sakana AI |
| Khosla Ventures | $7.2B | $214M | Sakana AI |
| DCVC | $2.6B | $200M | Twelve |
| 8VC | $2.8B | $175M | Saronic |
| FJ Labs | $5.5M | $150M | Odeko |
| Canaan Partners | $6.8B | $150M | CatalYm |
| Atlas Venture | $3.6B | $150M | Scorpion Therapeutics |
| Redpoint | $5.9B | $140M | Chainguard |
| Spark Capital | $6.1B | $140M | Chainguard |
| Index Ventures | $15B | $130M | Hebbia |
| Gaingels | $52.2M | $120M | Superluminal Medicines |
| Goodwater Capital | $3.1B | $105M | Stori |
| Global Founders Capital | $2.6B | $100M | Headway |
| RRE Ventures | $2.2B | $100M | Spring Health |
| Mayfield Fund | $3.8B | $100.8M | DevRev |
| IDG Capital | $2.9B | CN¥700M ($98.16M) | Dianzhuo |
| ZhenFund | $2B | CN¥700M ($98.16M) | Dianzhuo |
| Matrix Partners China | $3.3B | CN¥700M ($98.16M) | Dianzhuo |
| Plug and Play | $45.5M | $80M | Caresyntax |
| Greycroft | $2.9B | $80M | Contextual AI |
| True Ventures | $3.3B | $80M | Parry Labs |
| Peak XV Partners | $3.9B | $80M | Supabase |
| Bain Capital Ventures | $8B | $80M | Contextual AI |
| DCM Ventures | $4.1B | $76M | UJET |
| Shunwei Capital | $4.2B | CN¥500M ($70.11M) | Infinigence |
| Legend Capital | $3B | CN¥500M ($70.11M) | Infinigence |
| Bessemer Venture Partners | $14.3B | $70M | Torq |
| Battery Ventures | $13.7B | $70M | Second Front Systems |
| Crosslink Capital | $1.7B | $70M | X-Bow Launch Systems |
| Mitsubishi UFJ Capital | ¥75.9B | $68M | Shinobi Therapeutics |
| HTGF | High-Tech Gruenderfonds | €1.4B | €63M ($67.95M) | SciRhom |
| Norwest Venture Partners | $15.6B | $66M | ShiraTronics |
| U.S. Venture Partners | $2.6B | $66M | ShiraTronics |
| BoxGroup | $1B | $63M | Standard Bots |
| European Innovation Council | N/A | €56M ($60.4M) | Reverion |
| Partech | $3.4B | €55M ($59.32M) | Payt |
| Slow Ventures | $755M | $55M | Chaos Labs |
| Speedinvest | $1B | €50M ($53.93M) | planqc |
| Benchmark | $2.4B | $52M | Fireworks AI |
| US Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administation | $1.3M | $51M | Tulsa Hub for Equitable and Trustworthy Autonomy |
| SMBC Venture Capital | ¥10B | ¥7B ($45.61M) | Loglass |
| Eight Roads Ventures | $2.8B | €40M ($43.1M) | Hero Software |
| Liquid 2 Ventures | $239.2M | $40M | AstroForge |
| Initialized Capital | $1.4B | $40M | AstroForge |
| Soma Capital | N/A | $40M | AstroForge |
| BDC Venture Capital | $1.1B | $35M | Radiant Biotherapeutics |
| Artesian VC | $67M | $33M | GALY |
| SOSV | $833M | $32M | unspun |
| Headline | $3.2B | $30M | Motion |
| Seedcamp | €3M | £23.4M ($30.29M) | Yonder |
| First Round Capital | $738M | $29M | Candid Health |
| Founder Collective | $280M | $25M | Anjuna |
| HongShan | $18.8B | $22M | Swiss-Mile |
| Techstars | $160.4M | $22.5M | AceUp, Inc. |
| Foundation Capital | $3.9B | $21.8M | Helius |
| Wavemaker Partners | $446.5M | $20M | Lhoopa |
| East Ventures | $1.1B | ¥3B ($19.55M) | Nstock |
| IndieBio | $25M | $18M | NovoNutrients |
| Advantage Capital | $346M | $14.4M | Intramotev |
| GGV Capital | $7.6B | CN¥100M ($14.02M) | Botai Automation |
| Antler | $514.5M | ₹920M ($10.94M) | Namma Yatri |
| Lerer Hippeau | $667.8M | $10M | Aerflo |
| Vertex Ventures | $3.4B | ₹835M ($9.93M) | Kapiva |
| Madrona | $5.1B | $8M | Shaped |
| Pioneer Fund | $171.8M | $7.1M | Granza Bio |
| Great Oaks Venture Capital | $80M | $5.8M | Amulet |
| FasterCapital | N/A | $5M | Mancano And Associates |
| Pareto Holdings | N/A | €4.2M ($4.5M) | Syntetica |
| Innovate UK | N/A | £2.9M ($3.75M) | Altair |
| Right Side Capital Management | N/A | $2M | Hutsy |
| Startup Wise Guys | €86.5M | $2M | PLATMA |
| Northstar Ventures | £96.7M | £810K ($1.05M) | NunaBio |
| Bossanova Investimentos | $33.3M | $520K | Emitter |
| Newchip Accelerator | $10.8M | N/A | Latence Technologies Inc. |
| LAUNCH | $65.5M | N/A | N/A |
Eqvista- The perfect fundraising partner!
In Q3 2024, tech startups operating in self-driving, defense AI, and safe AI segments attracted the majority of the funds offered by venture capitalists. Significant raises by Baichuan Intelligence, an LLM developer, and Groq, an AI hardware provider, underscore that the AI wave remains robust.
The fact that Candid Therapeutics and ArsenalBio made it to the list of biggest VC investments in Q3 2024 exhibits that VCs have as much interest in biotech as AI.
Other notable VC investments in the recently concluded quarter include Clio, a pioneer in legal tech, and Vastu Housing Finance.
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