{"id":9484,"date":"2026-08-21T22:09:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T19:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/21\/the-weeks-10-biggest-funding-rounds-defense-tech-ai-tools-and-infrastructure-lead-the-way\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T22:09:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T19:09:46","slug":"the-weeks-10-biggest-funding-rounds-defense-tech-ai-tools-and-infrastructure-lead-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/21\/the-weeks-10-biggest-funding-rounds-defense-tech-ai-tools-and-infrastructure-lead-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"The Week\u2019s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Defense Tech, AI Tools And Infrastructure Lead The Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2026 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week\u2019s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week\u2019s biggest funding deal roundup here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Startup investors were busily closing on big rounds this week, with AI and defense among their favored target sectors. The biggest financing went to Castelion<\/a>, a defense tech startup developing a hypersonic missile. Other sizable rounds went to companies developing AI inference technology, a video-creation platform, data centers and voice-to-text tools.<\/p>\n

1. Castelion<\/a>, $800M, defense tech:<\/strong> Castelion, a defense tech startup developing a hypersonic strike missile, raised new Series C funding consisting of $800 million in equity capital along with $250 million in debt financing. JPMorgan Chase<\/a>, Andreessen Horowitz<\/a> and Carlyle<\/a> led the equity financing, which set a $13 billion valuation for the Torrance, California-based company.<\/p>\n

2. Etched<\/a>, $700M, semiconductors:<\/strong> San Jose, California-based Etched, a developer of inference clusters to accelerate AI computing, secured $700 million in a new funding round led by Jane Street<\/a> and joined by a long list of prominent investors. The financing set a $21 billion valuation for the 4-year-old company.<\/p>\n

3. Higgsfield<\/a>, $400M, AI video tools:<\/strong> AI video- and image-creation platform Higgsfield closed on $400 million in Series B financing at a $5.4 billion valuation. DST Global<\/a> led the round for the San Francisco-based company, with the financing drawing at least 18 investors.<\/p>\n

4. Groq<\/a>, $350M, data centers:<\/strong> Groq, an operator of 13 data centers across the globe, pulled in $350 million in a new fundraise led by Disruptive<\/a>, with planned participation from Nvidia<\/a>.The fundraise, which values the San Francisco-based company at $3.5 billion, comes on the heels of a $650 million round<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n

5. Wispr Flow<\/a>, $280M, voice-to-text AI:<\/strong> Wispr Flow, a provider of an AI-powered voice-to-text tool called Flow, picked up $280 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation. Menlo Ventures<\/a> led the financing, joined by a long list of new and existing investors.<\/p>\n

6. Muon Space<\/a>, $250M, satellites:<\/strong> Muon Space, a designer, builder and operator of satellite constellations, closed on $250 million in Series C funding led by Eclipse<\/a>. The Mountain View, California-based company also recently opened a manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, designed to produce up to 500 satellites annually by 2027.<\/p>\n

7. Also<\/a>, $150M, micromobility:<\/strong>\u00a0 Also, a Rivian<\/a> spinout that makes electric bikes and small four-wheeled micromobility vehicles, secured $150 million in Series D funding led by Prysm Capital<\/a>. The Palo Alto, California-based startup said the financing will go in part toward accelerating development of its autonomous vehicle platform.<\/p>\n

8. Velaura AI<\/a>, $110M, AI computing:<\/strong> Velaura AI, a developer of AI compute infrastructure focused on ultra-low-power silicon and software technologies, picked up $110 million in Series A funding. Seligman Ventures<\/a> led the financing, which set a valuation of over $1 billion for the Silicon Valley-based startup.<\/p>\n

9. Rillet<\/a>, $100M, agentic finance:<\/strong> Rillet, a developer of AI-powered enterprise resource planning tools, landed $100 million in Series C funding led by Iconiq Capital<\/a>. The round, which sets a $1 billion valuation for the San Francisco company, is Rillet\u2019s third financing in the past year.<\/p>\n

10. Happy Health<\/a>, $75M, sleep testing:<\/strong> Happy Health, and Austin-based developer of a ring device for diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea, raised $75 million from Arch Venture Partners<\/a> and OpenLoop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Methodology<\/h2>\n

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Aug. 15-21. Although most announced rounds are in the database, there may be a small time lag, as some rounds are reported late in the week.<\/p>\n

Illustration: Dom Guzman<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2026 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. This is a weekly feature that runs down the week\u2019s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week\u2019s biggest funding deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explore","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}