Most founders count themselves fortunate if they go a couple years between each venture round. But in every cycle, there are a few outliers who fundraise much faster.
The past couple of years are no exception. Per Crunchbase data, there’s a sizable cohort 1 of companies that have gone all the way from Series A to Series C between 2023 and this year. Several have managed to scale all three stages in less than 12 months.
Heavily represented among the fastest fundraisers, unsurprisingly, are generative AI startups. But other areas are also producing rising stars, including vertical AI, fintech and spacetech.
Below, we look at some of the quickest serial fundraisers in these and other areas.
GenAI
In recent quarters, generative AI has been the single biggest area for venture funding by a long shot. So, naturally this is the space in which many of our fastest fundraisers compete.
Standouts include both generalists and startups focused on a particular medium, like code or audio.
Coding: AI coding startups have been particularly hot of late. This is evidenced by Anysphere’s $900 million Series C this summer, which came less than a year after the San Francisco company raised its Series A. AI software development platform Cognition was similarly speedy, closing a $400 million Series C this month, barely a year after its Series A.
Audio, video and imagery: Investors are also enthused about startups offering a richer AI audio and visual experience. To this end, Fal, focused on AI models for generative image, video and audio, has been closing rounds quickly, securing a $125 million July Series C just 10 months after its Series A. Voice AI startups are also in vogue, paving the way for 3-year-old voice AI platform ElevenLabs to get to Series C rapidly and see its valuation rise sharply.
Generalists: Developers of more general-purpose large language models are also still securing serial rounds at superfast rates. Elon Musk’s xAI is kind of the poster child for this practice, with at least $22 billion in known debt and equity financing since its inception in 2023. Three-year-old Perplexity has also been scaling at an impressive clip, as has Paris-based Mistral AI.
Vertical AI
Purveyors of AI-enabled enterprise software are also popular with venture capitalists lately.
Customer support is a particularly timely theme, and some fast fundraisers hail from this space, including Decagon, a conversational AI platform for customer service that closed its Series C this summer, about a year after securing its Series A. Parloa, a developer of AI agents focused on promoting customer loyalty, also picked up a big Series C — $120 million — in May, barely a year after its Series A.
Legaltech is another sector drawing considerable capital, and here the most oft-referenced startup name is Harvey, a 3-year-old developer of AI tools for legal professionals that has raised more than $800 million to date.
Fintech
Fintech is typically one of the larger sectors for startup investment. As such, we might expect to see some fast movers hail from this space.
And we did, with providers of business banking securing some of the fastest serial rounds. This includes Dublin-based NomuPay, a global payments platform for merchants; Mexico’s Kapital, which extends online banking services to businesses; and Dutch startup Finom, which provides business accounts for European freelancers and small enterprises.
Spacetech
Spacetech isn’t one of those industries where startups scale on the cheap, so it’s not a shocker to see companies in the sector raise serial rounds at a brisk clip.
In recent months, several fast fundraisers have closed on Series C rounds involving big checks. This includes satellite transport provider Impulse Space and space security-focused startup True Anomaly.
Meanwhile, 3-year-old Apex Space, which designs and builds satellite bus products, made it all the way to Series D this month, securing $200 million at a $1 billion valuation. Just five months earlier, Los Angeles-based Apex pulled in a $200 million Series C.
Other areas
Several other sectors also contributed some fast fundraisers of their own, albeit in slightly smaller quantities.
Robotics has also been a hot space of late, as demonstrated by the fundraising prowess of 3-year-old humanoid robot developer Figure, which just raised $1 billion in Series C financing.
And let’s not forget biotech. This includes 2-year-old Attovia Therapeutics, which has raised over $250 million to develop precision biologics for immune-mediated diseases.
For a broader view of our fast movers, we’ve pasted a list of 37 featured companies below.
Related Crunchbase list:
Related reading:
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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