Using CrunchBase data, this roundup details prominent US startup funding rounds reported in September 2026, including each company’s round stage, industry focus, founders, founding year, lead investors listed for the round, and total equity funding raised to date.
US funding rounds: notable deals and company details
Groq (San Jose) — Series A. Groq provides a platform and hardware infrastructure optimized for AI inference workloads. Founded by Doug Wightman and Jonathan Ross in 2011, Groq has raised $2.8B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Disruptive, NVIDIA, and Open Field Capital. Industry: AI Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Electronics, Machine Learning, Semiconductor.
Base Power (Austin) — Series D. Base Power supplies home battery systems, electricity services, and residential energy management. Founded by Justin Lopas and Zachary Dell in 2019, Base Power has raised $2.3B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Addition, Altimeter Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, CapitalG, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and others. Industry: Battery, Clean Energy, Energy, Energy Management, Energy Storage.
Form Energy (Somerville) — Series G. Form Energy develops grid-scale batteries and other energy-technology solutions to support the clean-energy transition. Founded in 2012 by Marco Ferrara, Mateo Jaramillo, Ted Wiley, William Woodford, Yet Chiang, and Yet-Ming Chiang, Form Energy has raised $2.0B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Blindspot Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Coatue, Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price and others. Industry: Battery, Clean Energy, Energy Storage, Manufacturing, Software.
Etched (San Jose) — Series D. Etched is an AI chip company designing hardware systems optimized for AI model inference. Founded by Chris Zhu, Gavin Uberti, and Robert Wachen in 2017, Etched has raised $1.6B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, Argo, Bain Capital Ventures, Blackstone, Jane Street Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Neo, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and others. Industry: AI Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Computer, Hardware, Manufacturing, Semiconductor.
Whatnot (Los Angeles) — Series G. Whatnot operates a live shopping marketplace with interactive livestreams, auctions, and storefronts. Founded by Grant LaFontaine and Logan Head in 2015, Whatnot has raised $1.5B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Alkeon Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bond, CapitalG, DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Wellington Management and others. Industry: Collectibles, Consumer, E‑Commerce, Marketplace, Online Auctions.
Valar Atomics (El Segundo) — Series B. Valar Atomics develops nuclear energy systems for industrial-scale power and energy-derived products. Founded by Isaiah Taylor in 2018, Valar Atomics has raised $1.5B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Apandion, Atreides Management, Conviction, Dream Ventures, Point72, Riot Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Valor Equity Partners and others. Industry: Energy, Nuclear, Oil and Gas, Power Grid.
Castelion (Torrance) — Series C. Castelion is a defense technology company that develops and manufactures weapons systems for the U.S. military. Founded by Andrew Kreitz, Bryon Hargis, Haffiz Bachok, and Sean Pitt in 2018, Castelion has raised $1.2B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Altimeter Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price and others. Industry: Aerospace, Government, Manufacturing, Military, National Security.
River AI (Palo Alto) — Series A. River AI offers an API for fine‑tuning and reinforcement learning to build and serve personalized AI models. Founded by Dmytro Soboliev, Ievgen Soboliev, and Igor Babuschkin in 2021, River AI has raised $1.1B in total equity funding. Investors in the round include AMD Ventures, AMP PBC, General Catalyst, NVIDIA, Temasek, and Y Combinator. Industry: AI Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Developer APIs, Generative AI, Machine Learning.
Oxide Computer Company (Emeryville) — Series D. Oxide Computer Company delivers unified hardware and open‑source software for hyperscaler‑class cloud computing on‑premises. Founded by Bryan Cantrill, Jessie Frazelle, and Steve Tuck in 2015, Oxide has raised $839M in total equity funding. Industry: Cloud Computing, Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud Storage, Embedded Systems, Hardware, IT, Software.
Lumilens (San Jose) — Series C. Lumilens develops photonic interconnects for scaling AI compute infrastructure. Founded by Ankur Singla, David Friedman, Ritesh Kapahi, and Samuel Liu in 2019, Lumilens has raised $836.5M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Addition, Alkeon Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, HarbourVest Partners, JP Morgan, Qualcomm Ventures, Seif Capital, Spark Capital and others. Industry: AI Infrastructure, Industrial Automation, Manufacturing, Optical Communication, Semiconductor.
Atlantic Alumina (Gramercy) — Venture. Atlantic Alumina manufactures aluminum products. Founded in 2010, it has raised $800M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Pinnacle Asset Management and the U.S. Department of War. Industry: Industrial, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing.
Generalist AI (San Mateo) — Series B. Generalist AI develops AI and robotics technologies to enable robots to perform physical tasks in real‑world environments. Founded by Andrew Barry, Andy Zeng, and Pete Florence in 2019, Generalist AI has raised $753.0M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include 8VC, Bezos Expeditions, Fei‑Fei Li, Hanabi Capital, NVIDIA, Radical Ventures, Spark Capital, and Union Square Ventures. Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Robotics.
Source Foundry (San Francisco) — Venture. Source Foundry focuses on semiconductor manufacturing and chip fabrication for AI infrastructure. Founded by Abdelmalek Abid and Joe Berg in 2020, Source Foundry has raised $700M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Situational Awareness. Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Manufacturing, Semiconductor.
Higgsfield (San Francisco) — Series B. Higgsfield provides AI tools for creating and editing images and videos. Founded by Alex Mashrabov, Mahi De Silva, and Yerzat Dulat in 2021, Higgsfield has raised $538M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Accel, AI Capital, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Menlo Ventures, Mirae Asset Capital, Tribe Capital and others. Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Social Media, Video Editing.
Gatik (Santa Clara) — Series D. Gatik develops autonomous trucking technology and offers driverless middle‑mile logistics services. Founded by Apeksha Kumavat, Arjun Narang, and Gautam Narang in 2012, Gatik has raised $504.7M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Alumni Ventures, ARK Investment Management, Intact Private Capital, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Millennium Management, and Qatar Investment Authority. Industry: AI, Automotive, Autonomous Vehicles, Freight Service.
Starcloud (Redmond) — Series A. Starcloud develops space‑based data‑center infrastructure for computing and data processing beyond Earth environments. Founded by Adi Oltean, Ezra Feilden, and Philip Johnston in 2019, Starcloud has raised $443.9M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Benchmark, Cedar Capital, Cisco Investments, EQT, NVIDIA and others. Industry: Aerospace, AI Infrastructure, Cloud Computing, Data Center, Manufacturing, Space Travel.
Horizon3.ai (San Francisco) — Series E. Horizon3.ai provides an autonomous penetration‑testing platform to help organizations find and fix security vulnerabilities. Founded by Anthony Pillitiere and Snehal Antani in 2015, Horizon3.ai has raised $428.5M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Acrew Capital, Craft Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Qualcomm Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, SignalFire, PSG Equity and others. Industry: AI, Cyber Security, Enterprise Software, Machine Learning, Network Security.
Owner (Palo Alto) — Series D. Owner builds tools for local restaurant owners to boost sales and online presence. Founded by Adam Guild and Dean Bloembergen in 2013, Owner has raised $422.2M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Headline, Jack Altman, Meritech Capital Partners, and Redpoint. Industry: AI, Restaurants, SaaS, Software.
Mariana Minerals (Houston) — Series B. Mariana Minerals develops mineral projects using technology to supply critical minerals for energy, AI, and defense applications. Founded by Baker Tilney, Juan Lozano, and Turner Caldwell in 2020, Mariana Minerals has raised $395M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, BHP Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Greenoaks, Khosla Ventures, StepStone Group and others. Industry: AI, Mineral, Mining.
Muon Space (Mountain View) — Series C. Muon Space designs, builds, and operates satellite constellations for national security, civil, and commercial applications. Founded in 2016 by Dan McCleese, Jonathan Dyer, Pascal Stang, Paul Day, and Reuben Rohrschneider, Muon Space has raised $386.2M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include ACME Capital, Activate Capital Partners, Eclipse, Google, I Squared Capital, Radical Ventures, Wellington Management and others. Industry: Aerospace, Information Services, Information Technology.
Neros Technologies (Los Angeles) — Series C. Neros Technologies develops and manufactures advanced unmanned aerial systems for defense applications. Founded by Olaf Hichwa and Soren Monroe‑Anderson in 2018, Neros has raised $369.5M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Allen & Company, American Strategic Technology Fund, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, Valor Equity Partners and others. Industry: Aerospace, Drones, Robotics, Software.
Wispr Flow (San Francisco) — Series B. Wispr Flow offers AI‑powered voice dictation and interaction tools for voice‑based writing and meeting transcription. Founded by Sahaj Garg and Tanay Kothari in 2017, Wispr Flow has raised $361.6M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include 8VC, Menlo Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Neo, Peak XV Partners and a group of individual athlete and celebrity investors. Industry: Apps, AI, Machine Learning, Productivity Tools, Software.
Instinct (San Francisco) — Series B. Instinct is an AI startup developing artificial intelligence technology. Founded by Noah Shinn in 2021, Instinct has raised $325M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Benchmark and Index Ventures. Industry: Artificial Intelligence.
Volta (Palo Alto) — Series A. Volta is a vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform. Founded by Ricard Boada and Sofia Gumuzio in 2021, Volta has raised $300M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Altimeter Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Azora, Matter Venture Partners, Michael Dell, and NVIDIA. Industry: Information Technology, Infrastructure, Internet.
Sonablate (Charlotte) — Venture. Sonablate uses HIFU technologies in a device to treat urological indications. Founded in 1999, Sonablate has raised $205M in total equity funding. Investors in the round include Eleven Ventures. Industry: Health Care, Medical Device.
The companies and details above reflect the information provided from CrunchBase for the reported September 2026 rounds, including round stage, founders, investors and cumulative equity funding to date.
