16 Silicon Valley Startups Raised $40.5B Last Week
Google plans to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic
Happy Monday!
Anthropic
Google plans to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, starting with an initial $10B at a $380B valuation, with the remaining $30B tied to performance milestones.
This builds on an already deep relationship; Google has invested $3B+ since 2023 and owns roughly 14% of the company. This funding follows a February 2026 Series G raise of $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation, driven by the high demand for its Claude AI models and agentic coding tools.
The AI race is about who can fund, supply, and control compute at scale. Google is doing all three… even if it means backing a direct competitor.
ComfyUI
Congrats to my friend Yoland Yan and his ComfyUI team for raising a $30M round at a $500M valuation led by Craft Ventures. The company is building the open-source generative AI workflow platform.
The company was born from a single GitHub repository and has since grown into a platform with 4 million users, 60,000+ community-built nodes, and 150,000 daily downloads. It has become the de facto standard for technical artists, creative studios, and ad agencies that demand precision and reproducibility in AI workflows.
Very cool to see an agency use ComfyUI to produce SVEDKA’s 2026 Super Bowl commercial, widely cited as the first primarily AI-generated Super Bowl ad.
Collov Labs
Collov Labs focuses on developing visual intelligence systems that utilize agentic AI to translate images and camera input into real-world actions.
The team was founded by Xiao Zhang (Stanford PhD), Kaicheng Zhou (ex-TikTok), and Rex Ying (Yale Professor). They currently have two products in the market, Collov AI and CozyAI, which assist users in environment design and the automation of manual creative workflows.
Interestingly, their go-to-market strategy is very similar to ManyCore, which recently completed an IPO in Hong Kong last week and is currently valued at $6B. I believe this is a team and technology worth watching closely.
Reliable Robotics
Founded by Robert Rose, ex-SpaceX and Tesla, Reliable Robotics is developing the Reliable Autonomy System (RAS) and just closed a $160M Series D. This is the first FAA-certified platform designed to enable fully automated flight, from taxi to landing, using existing airspace infrastructure. The goal is to significantly reduce the human error responsible for the majority of general aviation accidents.
Over 200+ system commitments from commercial and military partners is certainly impressive.
Last week a total of 16 startups raised $40.5B in funding, 3 exits:
$40.3B goes to 10 Enterprise startups
$5M goes to 1 FinTech startup
$16M goes to 1 Manufacturing startup
$160M goes to 1 Aviation startup
$24M goes to 1 Transportation startup
$5M goes to 1 Social Media startup
$4.8M goes to 1 BioTech startup
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Edith
X, LinkedIn
Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)
Enterprise
Anthropic (foundational model) raised $40B from Google
Omni (AI analytics platform) raised $120M Series C led by ICONIQ Growth
Orkes (AI workflow orchestration platform) raised $60M Series B led by AVP
NeoCognition (self-learning AI agents) raised $40M Seed led by Cambium Capital Partners, Walden Catalyst
ComfyUI (open-source AI for creative production) raised $30M led by Craft Ventures
Collov Labs (visual intelligence systems) raised $23M Series A led by Brightway Future Capital, Taihill Venture, Mindworks Capital, Matrix Partners
Petual (AI-powered audit and compliance platform) raised $20M Seed led by Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, Cowboy Ventures, and Elad Gil.
Spectrum Security (AI-powered threat detection platform) raised $19M Seed led by TechOperators Venture Capital
Archil (cloud filesystem for AI-native applications) raised $11M Series A led by Standard Capital
BuildForever (email management) raised $9.5M Seed led by A*, Abstract, Elad Gil, Felicis
FinTech
Astor (AI investment advisory platform) raised $5M Seed led by Monashees
Aviation Tech
Reliable Robotics Corp (autonomous aircraft systems) raised $160M Series D led by Nimble Partners
Transportation
Manufacturing
C-Infinity (AI for industrial design) raised $16M Seed led by Canaan Partners
Consumer
Bond (AI social app) raised $5M Seed led by Caffeinated Capital
BioTech
10x Science (AI-native protein characterization platform) raised $4.8M Seed led by Initialized Capital
IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)
Collective acquired Open Ledger (financial solution for solopreneurs)
Banneker Partners acquired ResFrac (reservoir simulation and hydraulic fracturing platform)
Thank you Edith for diving deep and covering us!!