Shield AI and Zipline Lead the Week's Biggest US Start-Up Rounds With $3.5 Billion

The 11 companies in Crunchbase's top 10, which included a tie for tenth place, raised about $5.7 billion in equity between them. Most of it went to defence, autonomy and space, with smaller sums for AI infrastructure, agentic software and robotics.

Shield AI, the San Diego company that makes autonomy software for military aircraft along with simulation tools, secured $2 billion in equity and $500 million in debt. The equity included a $1 billion Series H led by Disruptive and Innovation X Capital and a $1 billion structured equity investment from funds managed by Blackstone, while JPMorganChase led the debt. Crunchbase said Shield AI is also acquiring radar maker Echodyne in a deal valued at $5.3 billion.

Zipline raised $1.5 billion at a post-money valuation of $21.5 billion in a round led by Paradigm, WCM Investment Management and Layer Global. The South San Francisco company plans to spend the money on expanding US manufacturing and hiring as it builds a national drone delivery network.

Space companies took the next two places. Austin-based CesiumAstro, which builds satellites and space and defence communications systems, closed a $730 million Series D at a valuation above $4.5 billion, led by Janus Henderson, plus $100 million in debt through the Export-Import Bank of the United States and JP Morgan. Northwood Space, a three-year-old maker of satellite ground infrastructure in Torrance, California, raised a $375 million Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ Growth, about nine months after its Series B.

The largest pure AI deal went to Applied Compute, whose cloud platform lets companies train and run large models. It raised $350 million at a $3.25 billion valuation in a round led by Elad Gil, with Nvidia among the investors. The San Francisco company, which launched 18 months ago, said its annual recurring revenue has passed $100 million.

Further down the list, electric truck developer Harbinger raised a $240 million Series D led by Tiger Global, Capricorn Investment Group and Ridgeline. Sentra, which sells agentic data security tools and is based in New York and Tel Aviv, took $150 million in a strategic investment led by Capital One Ventures. Traversal, which builds AI agents for site reliability engineering, raised $120 million at a $1 billion valuation from Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint and Khosla Ventures. Chicago-based Ocient, an agentic AI provider focused on data analytics, raised a $100 million Series C.

Two companies tied for tenth with $75 million Series B rounds: Tutor Intelligence, a Watertown, Massachusetts, robotics start-up training robot foundation models, in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, and Kalepa, which sells AI tools to insurers, at a $470 million valuation in a round led by Updata Partners.

Crunchbase's list covers rounds announced by US-based companies from October 31 to November 6, and the company noted that some deals reported late in the week may not yet appear in its database.