AI companies announced 12 funding rounds of $100 million or more between 8 and 14 November that FourWeekMBA covered, and together they total $5.59 billion, by our arithmetic. That is 1.7 times the $3.32 billion from eight such rounds in the week before, which we tallied last Sunday.
The two largest, Mirendil’s $1 billion Series A and Mercor’s $750 million Series D, add up to $1.75 billion, about 31% of the total, also by our arithmetic. The median round of the 12 is $400 million, against $175 million the week before.
Business Pill · Concentration
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on concentration. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss these funding rounds.
The key insight: By our count, 12 AI funding rounds of $100 million or more announced from November 8 to 14 raised $5.59 billion, 1.7 times the week before; AI research tools and data took about 31%, and the median round was $400 million, by our arithmetic.
AI research tools and data, $1.75 billion. Mirendil, the San Francisco startup founded by two former Anthropic researchers, said on 12 November that it raised $1 billion in a Series A led by Kleiner Perkins and Clearlake Capital; the release does not state a valuation (our piece). Mercor, which supplies human experts to train and test AI models, said on 10 November that it raised a $750 million Series D at a $20 billion valuation, with NVIDIA among 13 named investors (our piece).
Chips and energy for compute, $1.22 billion. London chip start-up Fractile raised $720 million at a $7 billion valuation including the investment, the Financial Times reported on 11 November, and the UK government confirmed the deal the same day (our piece). Torus, a Salt Lake City energy-storage startup, raised $500 million in a Series C led by Magnetar, Bloomberg reported on 11 November, citing a Torus statement (our piece).
Robotics and industrial AI, $1.04 billion. Agile Robots raised $500 million in a round led by SoftBank Group that values the German robotics maker at $8.5 billion, Bloomberg reported on 12 November (our piece). Path Robotics said on 10 November that it raised $300 million in a Series E at a $2.45 billion post-money valuation, led by Georgian (our piece). Nominal, which sells a data and AI platform for hardware engineering and testing, announced a $240 million Series C at a $3 billion valuation on 9 November, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (our piece).
Defence, $1.0 billion. UFORCE, a defence-technology company founded in Ukraine and headquartered in London, announced a $700 million Series A at a $6 billion valuation on 12 November, co-led by Valor Equity Partners and the UK National Wealth Fund (our piece). Onodrim, a Dutch defence start-up launched by Palantir alumni, raised $300 million at a $1.3 billion valuation, according to the Financial Times as relayed by IPO Newsroom, which we reported on 9 November (our piece).
Agents and applications, $576 million. LangChain confirmed on 13 November that it raised $300 million at a $3 billion valuation (our piece). Blue J Legal raised a US$176 million financing led by JMI Equity at a US$700 million valuation, The Globe and Mail reported on 10 November; nearly US$100 million of it buys shares from employees and early investors (our piece).
Rox announced a $100 million Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation on 11 November, co-led by General Catalyst and March Capital (our piece).
Twelve AI funding rounds of $100 million or more announced from November 8 to 14 and covered by FourWeekMBA total $5.59 billion; AI research tools and data took about 31%, chips and energy 22%, robotics and industrial AI 19%, defence 18% and agents and applications 10%. Our arithmetic and our categories, from company announcements and reports (FT, Bloomberg, The Globe and Mail). OpenAI’s reported $15 billion and Applied Intuition’s talks are excluded.
What the Week Adds Up To
By our arithmetic, AI research tools and data took about 31% of the $5.59 billion, chips and energy about 22%, robotics and industrial AI about 19%, defence about 18%, and agents and applications about 10%. The categories are our own grouping.
Ten of the 12 rounds disclosed a valuation, and the median of those ten is $3 billion by our arithmetic; Mercor’s $20 billion is the highest. Mirendil and Torus gave none.
Count and size both rose. The week before had eight rounds of $100 million or more and a $175 million median; this week has 12 and a $400 million median, about 2.3 times higher, by our arithmetic.
What Is Not Counted
OpenAI’s $15 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, which CNBC reported on 12 November citing sources (our piece), is excluded as a frontier-lab round reported by sources; on its own it is about 2.7 times the 12 rounds combined, by our arithmetic. Applied Intuition’s round of at least $1.5 billion, which Bloomberg reported on 11 November as in talks (our piece), is excluded because it had not closed.
The count also leaves out funds, debt, joint ventures and corporate financings, and any round we did not cover. It counts the full Blue J round, of which about 45% was new money for the company, by our arithmetic.
The Structural Read
As we read the list, the money spread wider than the week before: the two largest rounds took about 31% of the total, against about 69% for the top two the week before, by our arithmetic.
As we read the categories, the largest share went to research tooling and training data, Mirendil’s $1 billion and Mercor’s $750 million, rather than to a frontier model maker.
As we read the exclusions, OpenAI’s reported $15 billion would be about 2.7 times the 12 rounds combined, but CNBC reported it citing sources and it is not in our total.
Mercor, on its round
“raised a $750 million Series D at a $20 billion valuation”
Three Implications
FOR FOUNDERS Ten of the 12 rounds disclosed a valuation, from Blue J’s US$700 million to Mercor’s $20 billion, as the companies or the outlets cited reported.
FOR INVESTORS Two of the 12, UFORCE and Onodrim, are defence companies, together $1 billion, by our arithmetic; UFORCE’s round was co-led by the UK National Wealth Fund.
FOR THE MARKET Applied Intuition was in talks to raise at least $1.5 billion, Bloomberg reported; it is not in our total because the round had not closed.
The analysis says: “The job of any operator, investor, or builder is to know which layer they are operating inside and which layer the binding constraint is rotating toward next.”
As we read it, this week’s largest rounds went to research tools and training data rather than to a model maker. The analysis does not discuss these funding rounds.
What Is Not Established
The list covers only rounds that FourWeekMBA reported, so it is not a complete count of the market. Two of the 12, Fractile and Onodrim, rest on reporting by the Financial Times; Fractile’s was confirmed by the UK government, and Onodrim’s was relayed by IPO Newsroom.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
AI Lost Its Central Banker, the Lab Oligopoly, and the Future of Open Source
This week’s issue: the Nvidia leadership change, read as the AI build-out losing its central banker: who now finances the GPU landlords, backstops the data centres and sponsors open models, and why two labs are becoming the bank.
Twelve AI rounds of $100 million or more that FourWeekMBA covered from 8 to 14 November add up to $5.59 billion, 1.7 times the week before, with a $400 million median and AI research tools and data taking the largest share, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. Each round’s amount, valuation, investors and date are from FourWeekMBA’s earlier pieces, linked above, which cite the companies and the outlets named. Totals, shares, the median and the categories are our arithmetic and our own grouping. This is not investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
