Private Markets: Cerebras raises $1B in pre-IPO funding round

The AI Chip Cerebras has raised $1.1B in its most recent funding ahead of one of the most anticipated IPOs, even if a date for going public has yet to be announced.

Some of the biggest capital raises by private companies this week include

• Cerebras – The AI chip company said Tuesday that it’s raised $1.1B in new funding at a valuation of $8.1B as it tries to take on Nvidia (NVDA), the world’s most valuable company, in the booming market of artificial intelligence chips, according to CNBC‘s Jordan Novet. The AI chipmaker filed to go public exactly a year ago. The company has yet to take the plunge, but has now bought itself more time to stay private, the author notes.
• Flying Tulip – The full’stack onchain exchange said it has raised $200M in a private funding round. The company also announced that it will open an onchain public sale of tis $FT token at the same valuation. Publicly traded companies in the space include Coinbase (COIN), Bullish (BLSH), and Circle Internet (CRCL).
• Vercel Nabs – The company behind v0, Next.js and the AI Cloud said it secured $300M meaningfully oversubscribed Series F funding round, at a post-money valuation of $9.3B. Accel and GIC co-led the investment round. Publicly traded companies in the space include Fastly (FSLY) and Cloudflare (NET).
• Star Therapeutics – The clinical stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing best-in-class antibodies for bleeding disorders and other diseases announced an oversubscribed $125M Series D financing, co-led by Sanofi Ventures and Viking Global Investors. Publicly traded companies in the space include Sangamo Therapeutics (SGMO), Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS), and Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA).
• Quo – OpenPhone, the business phone solution for small and growing businesses rebranding itself as Quo, secured $96M in go-to-market growth investment from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund and an additional $9M in equity from existing investors. Publicly traded companies in the space include Twilio (TWLO), 8×8 Inc. (EGHT), and RingCentral (RNG).

Unicorns to watch this week:

• Eve Nabs – The AI platform for Plaintiff Law Firms announced it has raised $103M in Series B funding at over a $1B valuation. Publicly traded companies in the space include Thomson Reuters (TRI) and Relx (RELX).
• Zerohash – The crypto and stablecoin infrastructure platform announced a $104M Series D-2 raise. The new raise brings zerohash’s total funding to $275M and gets the company to a valuation of $1B. Publicly traded companies in the space include Coinbase, PayPal (PYPL), and Circle Internet.
• PostHog – The SaaS company has just raised $75M, with its valuation jumping to $1.4B. Publicly traded companies in the space include Amplitude (AMPL).
• Innovaccer – The healthcare-AI company is currently valued at about $3.45B. Rather than pursuing an IPO, Innovacer is doing secondary funding rounds and making acquisitions. Publicly traded companies in the space include UnitedHealth (UNH), IBM (IBM), and Oracle (ORCL).
• Thinking Machines Lab – The AI foundation model startup founded by Mira Murati, former CTO at OpenAI, raised a seed round of about $2B, valuing it at around $10B. Publicly traded companies in the space include Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Nvidia (NVDA).

IPOs to watch: 

• Ethos (LIFE) – The life insurance technology company announced that it filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of its Class A common stock. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.
• Lendbuzz (LBZZ) – The company is offering an undetermined number of shares of its common stock and the selling stockholders identified in this prospectus are offering additional shares of common stock, according to an initial public offering prospectus filed with the SEC.
• Alliance Laundry Systems (ALH) – The company announced that it has publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. SEC relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. Alliance Laundry Systems intends to list its common stock on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “ALH.”
• Sea Forrest International (SFTI) – The company has filed for an initial public offering of 3.75M Class A shares and anticipates that the initial public offering price of the Class A shares will be between $4.00 and $4.50 per share. The prospectus filed with the SEC stated in part, “The company is headquartered in Singapore and through the subsidiaries SF (Engineering) and SF (Power), are involved in engineering design and consultancy services in energy management and clean energy systems, and wholesale of marine equipment and accessories, ship and offshore structure repairs and modification while afloat, relating to offshore maintenance, repairs, and overhauling services.”

“Private Markets” is The Fly’s recurring series of stories on the latest moves in the private sector, largest unicorn companies and initial public offerings to watch. Fly subscribers, add $PRIVATE to your portfolio for alerts on breaking news in the startup and venture capital space.