OpenAI cuts its round to $20 billion, Meta plans a $95 billion stock raise, and more - AI Funding Brief #89

In this edition, covering 25 October to 2 November:

• OpenAI has reportedly cut its planned funding round to $20 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, and Cognition is weighing a round at $70 billion to $80 billion.
• Meta plans to raise $95 billion in stock and Microsoft $25 billion in bonds to fund AI infrastructure.
• Marvell and Lumentum agreed to combine in an all stock deal valued at about $115 billion, and Thrive Holdings agreed to buy ADT in a $15.3 billion deal.

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The largest sums

OpenAI has reportedly cut the target of its planned round from $30 billion to $20 billion and lowered its valuation goal from more than $1.4 trillion to $1.25 trillion. The Financial Times reported that the first closing could raise less than $20 billion after some investors reduced their allocations. AI coding startup Cognition is considering a round at a $70 billion to $80 billion valuation, weeks after raising $2 billion at $48 billion. The talks are at an early stage. Cohere announced the initial close of a Series E targeting up to CAD $7 billion, which would value it at CAD $35.7 billion, led by the companies of Schwarz Group. Physical Intelligence is discussing a round of at least $1 billion at about $20 billion, Bloomberg reports, after a valuation of $11.5 billion earlier in 2026. Baseten is raising about $2 billion in two tranches at $26 billion and then $30 billion, with Sands Capital expected to lead. OpenAI · Cognition · Cohere · Physical Intelligence · Baseten

Anthropic

Anthropic's IPO filing shows nearly $900 billion in future obligations for data centers, servers, GPUs, leases and power, with $117.5 billion in current liabilities and $112 billion in cash. It outlines about $800 billion in future TPU and GPU commitments, and less than one third of its $8.9 billion first half compute bill went to serving customers. The filing says the retail value of Claude used internally exceeded monthly employee compensation costs, excluding stock awards, in April, and that by September Claude wrote over 90% of the code added to Anthropic's software. It also shows $2.75 million spent on protecting CEO Dario Amodei in 2025 and $1.29 million for president Daniela Amodei. Obligations · Compute commitments · Internal Claude use · Security costs

Anthropic was the unnamed Customer B in SpaceX's filing, Bloomberg reports, with 34.5% of SpaceX's third quarter revenue through data centre contracts in Memphis that could be worth up to $120.5 billion through 2029. Anthropic has agreed to an initial $250 million order for Fractile's inference chips, according to Bloomberg, and Companies House filings show Fractile allocated £577 million, about $774 million, in Series C shares. Nvidia is discussing billions of dollars in credit guarantees for the West Virginia data center that Anthropic plans to use under its $45 billion compute agreement with Nscale. The financing has not been signed. Blackstone told investors it expects Anthropic to receive a double B credit rating after its IPO, the Financial Times reports, and Senator Elizabeth Warren asked Dario Amodei how the company will address risks from its AI systems, with answers requested by November 3. SpaceX · Fractile · Nscale · Blackstone · Warren letter

Anthropic plans to sell up to US$3.5 billion of shares to Japanese investors as part of its US IPO, with Mizuho Securities managing the Japanese sale; the filing does not give the IPO's size or valuation. Japan share sale

An amendment to Anthropic's IPO filing puts its purchase and lease commitments at about $895.4 billion, mostly for compute and infrastructure, with about $447.5 billion due by the end of 2030, and reports $17.0 billion in revenue for the quarter ended 30 September. IPO amendment

The amended filing also reports $33.2 billion in revenue for the nine months ended 30 September 2026, with a $1.3 billion operating loss and a $104.0 billion net loss, and warns that AI development could outpace its safety and security measures. Nine month results

Anthropic named the brokers, financial intermediaries and selling agents for proposed retail offerings of its Class A shares in Australia, Canada, selected European countries, Japan, Switzerland and the UK, with RetailBook as the UK public offer platform operator. Anthropic says it plans to list only on Nasdaq, under the symbol ANT. Retail offerings

Meta and Microsoft

Meta plans to raise $95 billion in equity to fund AI infrastructure and superintelligence, $35 billion through underwritten offerings and up to $60 billion through an at the market program. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom are interested in buying up to $5 billion of the shares. S&P Global Ratings lowered the outlook on Meta's AA minus rating from stable to negative over heavy AI spending, and Meta says it disagrees. Microsoft plans a $25 billion bond offering to support capital spending, including AI infrastructure, and expects it to close on November 4. Meta stock · S&P on Meta · Microsoft bonds

Chips and infrastructure

FuriosaAI raised $620 million at a $2.9 billion valuation, led by South Korea's National Growth Fund with Cisco Investments and NAVER, and plans to produce 20,000 chips in 2026 and 40,000 in 2027. PIF and Aramco closed a transaction that gives Aramco a 49% stake in HUMAIN, with PIF keeping 51%. Aramco will contribute about SAR9.9 billion ($2.6 billion) in 2026, along with AI, computing and digital assets. Hyderabad based AM Intelligence plans to raise up to $3 billion in bonds and bank loans to buy 29,000 Nvidia Rubin chips, and EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure completed a $521 million asset backed securitization on its SV01 data center in Santa Clara. FuriosaAI · HUMAIN · AM Intelligence · EdgeCore

General Compute raised a $100 million Series A for an inference cloud built on Cerebras, SambaNova and Positron AI chips. Powerlattice has raised $86 million of a planned $111 million for chiplets that cut the power used by AI processors, according to an SEC filing, and Hyperbolic raised a $30 million Series A1 for a global compute grid. Context Labs received an undisclosed investment from Abu Dhabi based 22/x and will set up its regional headquarters in Abu Dhabi. General Compute · Powerlattice · Hyperbolic · Context Labs

Oracle filed a preliminary prospectus for a $10 billion common stock offering in the United States, alongside a separate $10 billion senior notes offering. Oracle says proceeds may go to capital spending, including more data center capacity, as well as debt repayment, investments, acquisitions, dividends and share repurchases. Oracle offering

Bloomberg reports that Baidu's AI chip unit Kunlunxin may delay its Hong Kong IPO to 2027 while it awaits approval from Chinese securities regulators, and Baidu denies the reports. Kunlunxin IPO

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle together plan to raise more than $131 billion for AI infrastructure, including a potential $80 billion Amazon loan facility and a €6 billion Google bond sale. $131bn debt

Fermi says its 222MW lease with AMD based neocloud TensorWave did not close by the 31 October deadline, though neither party has used termination rights. Fermi and TensorWave

Acquisitions

Marvell and Lumentum agreed to combine in an all stock transaction valued at about $115 billion. Lumentum holders will receive 4.500 Marvell shares per share, and Marvell shareholders will own about 67% of the combined company, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. Marvell and Lumentum

Thrive Holdings plans to buy ADT in an all cash deal valued at $7.6 billion in equity and $15.3 billion in enterprise value, or $10 per share. Intel will buy Israeli quantum software company Classiq in a $2.3 billion cash and stock deal, and Guidewire will buy London based hyperexponential for $1.7 billion in cash plus up to $400 million in contingent payments. Itaú Unibanco agreed to buy NeoSpace AI for 2.925 billion reais (about $589 million), and Affle will buy Perion for $11.70 per share in cash, about $420 million. Marvell is in advanced talks to buy Lumentum, according to a source familiar with the matter. ADT · Classiq · hyperexponential · NeoSpace · Perion · Lumentum

Salesforce agreed to buy Rune Technologies, which makes logistics software for US military and allied frontline teams, for its Missionforce portfolio. Apple bought data engineering firm Ascend.io from Ascension Labs in a deal that closed on June 30, 2026, according to an EU listing. Unconventional AI is buying Israeli chip startup NeuReality in a cash and stock deal, and about 40 NeuReality employees will join. Deepgram bought Daily, the developer of the Pipecat framework, which stays open source. Rune · Ascend.io · NeuReality · Daily

In legal AI, Harvey bought Aida, its fifth acquisition in 2026, and Clio bought Page, which monitors legislation and regulations. AI law firm Crosby bid for the trademark, brand and some internal data of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which is preparing to vote on dissolution. Freshworks bought Robusta Dev for its Freshservice platform, Coveo bought Anglera for product data enrichment, and Digital Science bought Jenni AI, an academic writing platform used by more than 8 million students and researchers. Swarmer will acquire rights to some of Vataga Drone's engineering IP and hire its CEO and 14 hardware staff. Flawless sold its TrueSync dubbing technology and DeepEditor tool to TBellScout after its UK trading business went into administration. Aida · Page · Crosby · Robusta Dev · Anglera · Jenni AI · Vataga Drone · Flawless

Shanghai based Gamehaus Holdings agreed to buy 56% of Techforge, the holding company of AI content platform Anamana, for US$19.6 million in shares and a US$7 million cash investment, with completion expected in November 2026. Gamehaus and Anamana

San Francisco based Omen AI bought Aquatic Labs for $16 million in cash and stock to improve real time monitoring of data center cooling fluid; founder Allan Adams joins as chief science officer. Omen AI

Dark Matter Technologies bought House Numbers' AI agent platform and its intellectual property to add loan file monitoring and borrower communication to its Empower loan origination system. Dark Matter

Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cresta, whose voice agents handle complex customer service calls and support human representatives. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2028, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. Cresta

Windward bought Azimut.ai, which identifies vessels with cameras at ports and maritime chokepoints, including ships that stop transmitting signals. Windward and Azimut.ai

CrowdStrike agreed to acquire agent observability company Fiddler AI and security testing startup Dreadnode for about $495 million combined, as reported. Waters acquired MOBILion Systems, adding its SLIM ion mobility technology for proteomics to its mass spectrometry portfolio, for undisclosed terms. CrowdStrike · Waters

Expedient acquired phoenixNAP's US managed VMware cloud and backup business serving clients from Phoenix and Ashburn, for undisclosed terms. PartnerOne acquired 3CLogic, a voice first customer experience platform built on conversational AI, to expand its enterprise software portfolio. Expedient · 3CLogic

Robots and industry

Bedrock Robotics raised a $600 million Series C at a $4.1 billion post money valuation, led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, for self driving software for heavy construction equipment. Agility Robotics and Churchill Capital Corp XI expect their merger and related financings to raise about $465 million before expenses, including a $201 million PIPE led by Foxconn, with Nasdaq trading under AGLT planned for November 5. Dulo, founded by Sebastian Thrun and Adrian Aoun, raised a $130 million seed round for hardware design models, and Foundry Robotics raised a $100 million Series A led by Marlinspike for robotic assembly facilities. Bedrock Robotics · Agility Robotics · Dulo · Foundry Robotics

Machenta raised a $40 million seed round led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures to train robots in simulation, Circuit Mind $25 million to check circuit schematics with AI agents, and Dream, founded by former Palantir executives, $17 million led by Andreessen Horowitz for AI building design. Chinese MoSense raised about RMB 100 million for robot electronic skin, Bleu Robotics €5 million for industrial humanoid robots, and EDGE Sound Research an additional $2 million for its sensor data platform. Machenta · Circuit Mind · Dream · MoSense · Bleu Robotics · EDGE Sound Research

Paris based Gallium Defense raised a €7.1 million seed round led by Keen Venture Partners and 360 Capital to scale production of its GDS-10 drone detection radar, with orders opening in the first quarter of 2027. Gallium Defense

Stockholm based Sortrace raised about $800,000 led by Almi Invest, with Antler and Gorilla Capital, for camera and computer vision analysis of waste sorting for municipalities and waste companies. Sortrace

Tutor Intelligence, based in Watertown, Massachusetts, raised a $75 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz to train robot foundation models and build its Sonny and Cassie robots, bringing its total funding to $117 million. Tutor Intelligence

Berlin based Conlio raised €6.4 million in a round led by Piton Capital for AI that reviews freight documents, and says it can automate more than 90% of checks. Conlio

Beijing based GenRobot AI raised $100 million in a Series A+ round from investors including SAIC Motor, Baidu and CITIC Goldstone to expand Matrix, its robot training data platform. South Korean motion data startup MOVIN raised $7.6 million in a Series A led by IMM Investment and will build a research and development center. GenRobot AI · MOVIN

Robotics startup Armatrix raised Rs 67.28 crore in a seed round led by Crane Venture Partners, which Entrackr estimates values it at about Rs 360 crore, 4.8 times its pre seed valuation. Armatrix

Enterprise AI and security

Serval raised $150 million at a $3 billion valuation, led by Sequoia Capital Operations, to extend its AI agents beyond IT into human resources, finance and legal work. Solink raised more than $100 million led by Vertu Capital for AI analysis of security camera footage. &Truth came out of stealth with $70 million in seed funding for a system that uses formal verification and AI to prove whether code is safe and correct. Fragment raised $56 million for AI agents that handle procurement exceptions, Wabi $55 million at a $1.25 billion valuation led by IVP, and Broccoli $52 million across two rounds led by Khosla Ventures. Serval · Solink · &Truth · Fragment · Wabi · Broccoli

Bites raised a $40 million Series A led by PeakSpan Capital for frontline training, Infisical $40 million at a $600 million valuation led by Elad Gil to control AI agents' access to sensitive systems, and Avante $30 million for benefits agents. Nous raised $17 million for an agent that handles household admin, Plato a $16 million Series A for simulated workplaces where developers train and evaluate models, and Omnichat US$10 million for its AI agent platform. AvalonX launched an AI penetration testing platform with up to $10 million from Ridown Capital, Mintive raised a $7 million seed round for AI agent identity, Northstar Security $7 million, and Crux Labs over $6 million to test AI agents. In Europe, Ares Intelligence raised €2.9 million to plan enterprise AI adoption and Pixel Systems €2.7 million for AI content detection. Bites · Infisical · Avante · Nous · Plato · Omnichat · AvalonX · Mintive · Northstar Security · Crux Labs · Ares Intelligence · Pixel Systems

Munich based Marble Cognition raised $3.75 million in pre seed funding co led by Heartcore and Seedcamp for AI coworkers that observe workflows, map business processes and automate tasks with human oversight. Marble Cognition

Estonian AI career company Roleo raised €2.9 million in a round led by Practica Capital, with Inventure, to expand its AI career agent across Europe. Roleo

Trajectory raised a $45 million Series A at a $300 million valuation, led by Sequoia with Nvidia, Bessemer Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, for a platform that uses human feedback to improve open source models for specialized tasks. Its customers include Harvey, Rogo, Decagon, Mercor and Nvidia, and the platform is now publicly available. Larridin raised a $30 million Series A led by Pelion Ventures for its platform that measures AI spending, adoption, productivity, output quality and business value, bringing its total funding to $47 million. Trajectory · Larridin

Milan based CyberKord raised a €2.7 million pre seed round led by 360 Capital, with Plus Partners, Addendum Capital and Vento, for its AI IT and cybersecurity platform. CyberKord

Athena raised $2.5 million from a16z for its commercial property legal service, where AI agents review and redline agreements and lawyers approve all work. Portuguese startup Granter raised €1.6 million in a round led by 3XP Global, bringing its total funding to €2 million. Athena · Granter

Fintech

Collective raised a $40 million Series B and a $60 million growth facility from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund to automate taxes and payroll for solo entrepreneurs. Nevis raised a €62 million Series B led by EQT Ventures, with Charles Schwab among its strategic investors, and Hyphenate a $45 million Series A for finance agents, saying its revenue grew 86 times in 12 months. Ravical raised a $17 million seed round for accounting firms, Lette $6.5 million for its UK rental platform, CoverGo US$6 million in the initial close of a Series B1, i23 £4.9 million for insurance brokers, and Talky Labs €1.5 million for AI accounting. Collective · Nevis · Hyphenate · Ravical · Lette · CoverGo · i23 · Talky Labs

Clark launched Clerks, autonomous AI employees for CPA firms that review documents, run audit tests and prepare workpapers, and raised an $11 million seed round led by Touring Capital. Clark

Israeli startup 42AI came out of stealth with $62.5 million in seed funding for a behavioral world model that predicts the probability of people's decisions; it says 10 brokerages use it for liquidity, margin and hedging. 42AI

Health and science

Formation Bio launched a $600 million fund to acquire and develop 10 to 15 clinical stage drug programs over the next 3 to 5 years. Vera Health raised a $28.5 million Series A led by Threshold Ventures for a clinical AI search engine used by more than 800,000 clinicians, and Midstream Health a $20 million Series A led by Valtruis to help hospitals recover money they are owed. Atlas Bio raised $12.5 million for AI virtual clinical trials, NanoForge AI USD 11 million for materials research, ALLOX $10.5 million for drug discovery, and adsilico £10 million to test medical devices on virtual patients. SpendRule raised $4 million led by Mark Cuban's Radical Investments to find overcharges in hospital supplier invoices. Formation Bio · Vera Health · Midstream Health · Atlas Bio · NanoForge AI · ALLOX · adsilico · SpendRule

Lorenzo Albertazzi of Eindhoven University of Technology received a €3.7 million European Innovation Council Pathfinder grant for an automated AI microscope that analyses patient biopsies, starting with B cell lymphoma. TU/e grant

Results and markets

Intel shares closed down nearly 29% on October 30, their worst day since 1974, after a fourth quarter revenue forecast of $15 billion to $16 billion. Its third quarter revenue rose 21% to $16.5 billion. Alphabet shares fell more than 13% after search and YouTube advertising sales missed forecasts, and Reddit shares fell about 29% after a drop in search referrals that CEO Steve Huffman tied to Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews. ServiceNow shares fell 27% after it raised its 2026 subscription revenue outlook to $15.78 billion to $15.79 billion. Amazon's third quarter sales rose 12% to $201.9 billion, and AWS revenue rose 39% to $46 billion. Short seller Culper Research claims Cerebras chips last 1.4 to 2.3 years, below the three to five years stated in its draft IPO filings, and Cerebras stock fell after the report. Intel shares · Intel results · Alphabet · Reddit · ServiceNow · Amazon · Cerebras

Apple reported record September quarter revenue of $114.5 billion, up 12%, and forecasts December quarter growth of 7% to 10% as Siri AI adds cloud costs. SOPHiA GENETICS reported third quarter revenue of $24.3 million, up 25%, while its adjusted EBITDA loss improved 31% to $6.1 million. Apple · SOPHiA GENETICS

Zhuhai based Amicro, whose chips and software are used by Xiaomi, iRobot and Ecovacs, is offering shares in Hong Kong, with trading expected to begin on November 12. Amicro IPO

Also

Dallas based Disruptive raised a $10 billion fund for AI, defense and software startups, and Oman based Phaze Ventures launched two AI and deeptech funds targeting $75 million, with more than $40 million already committed. Representatives Maxine Waters and Greg Casar introduced a resolution that warns of an AI asset bubble and opposes federal bailouts for insolvent AI companies or executives. Disruptive · Phaze Ventures · AI bailout resolution

Creandum closed its $750 million eighth fund to back companies from pre seed to Series A, with a focus on AI and a wider reach through its San Francisco office. Creandum VIII

Berlin based Robin Capital closed its second fund at €15 million, bringing commitments across its two early stage funds to €30 million. Robin Capital

Xiao Yuanqi, vice head of China's National Financial Regulatory Administration, said in Hong Kong that concentrated AI investment is raising borrowing costs and credit risks and crowding out traditional industries. Xiao Yuanqi

Former Phoenix Court partner Yvonne Bajela launched Evertrue Capital with a $17m fund backed by the British Business Bank and others, investing about £350,000 per pre seed AI startup. Evertrue Capital

Zalando unveiled an AI shopping agent for purchases from other retailers in its app, while its third quarter gross margin fell to 38.7%. Zalando