Financing Weekly | Stripe Acquires AI Company OpenRouter for Over $7 Billion; AI Chip Company Etched Raises $700 Million

Highlights of This Issue

Last week, the primary market for AI and robotics continued to maintain high activity, with funds mainly flowing into AI chips, data centers, computing infrastructure, and high-growth AI applications.

AI chip company Etched completed a $700 million financing round, achieving a valuation of $21 billion; DataVita, Groq, Starcloud, and Muon Space all secured hundreds of millions in financing. Meanwhile, AI application companies such as Higgsfield, Wispr, and Rillet also received significant funding, with AI video platform Higgsfield raising $400 million, bringing its valuation to $5.4 billion.

The robotics and Physical AI sectors are also active. SoftBank invested $200 million in construction robotics company Gravis Robotics, while domestic companies such as ZK Fifth Epoch, Moudian Intelligent, and Current Robotics disclosed new rounds of financing in the hundreds of millions.

Additionally, mergers and acquisitions in the AI industry are accelerating, with Stripe planning to acquire model aggregation platform OpenRouter for over $7 billion, and OpenAI acquiring the team behind real-time database InstantDB, as leading tech companies enhance their AI application and Agent infrastructure capabilities through acquisitions.

In terms of crypto financing, according to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 5 investment events in the global blockchain from August 10 to August 16, with a total funding scale exceeding $27.5 million. The summary is as follows:

• The DeFi lending credit delegation protocol twyne completed a $2.5 million seed round, co-led by cyber Fund and Ethereal Ventures;
• Privacy blockchain project Beldex raised $8 million, led by Sigma Capital;
• Institutional-level on-chain financial infrastructure developer Blueprint Finance completed strategic financing, led by Polychain Capital;
• NeoSoul completed $11 million in Pre-A financing, with participation from MH Ventures, Amber Group, and others;
• AI + prediction market project Fortune Protocol completed multiple rounds of financing, with a total amount exceeding $4 million.

Crypto Financing

DeFi

DeFi Lending Protocol twyne Completes $2.5 Million Seed Round
The DeFi lending credit delegation protocol twyne has completed a $2.5 million seed round, co-led by cyber Fund and Ethereal Ventures, with participation from Euler, Daedalus, and several individual investors. Twyne focuses on the "idle credit" issue in the lending market by constructing a credit delegation layer that entrusts the borrowing limits originally tied to collateral depositors to parties with genuine borrowing needs, thereby improving overall credit utilization and market capital efficiency. This protocol aims to bridge the gap between the collateral side and the credit side, optimizing the credit allocation mechanism in the DeFi lending market.

Infrastructure

Privacy Blockchain Project Beldex Completes $8 Million Financing, Led by Sigma Capital
Privacy blockchain project Beldex announced the completion of $8 million in financing, led by Sigma Capital, with participation from NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund, and EAK Ventures. Beldex is exploring the use of its privacy technology to protect the identity, payment, communication, and data processing of AI agents, including privacy-preserving AI identities, encrypted AI communications, confidential payments, secure AI execution, as well as research on technologies such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and secure memory. The new funds will be used for developer tools, privacy applications, protocol security, AI infrastructure development, and ecosystem expansion.

Blueprint Finance Completes Strategic Financing, Led by Polychain Capital
Institutional-level on-chain financial infrastructure developer Blueprint Finance announced the completion of strategic financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Bullish, Keyrock, BitGo, FalconX, G-20, Flowdesk, JPEG Trading, Sentient Capital, Andes, and 2Square. Blueprint Finance is the core developer of Concrete, a full-stack treasury infrastructure aimed at institutions, protocols, and asset managers for launching, managing, and configuring capital through complex on-chain strategies, integrating execution, accounting, risk control, rebalancing, and protocol into a unified treasury system. This round of financing will support its continued expansion of Concrete and promote cooperation with protocols, asset issuers, networks, and institutional allocators to build treasury that supports on-chain yield products and acts as core liquidity infrastructure. In addition to treasury infrastructure, Blueprint Finance is also expanding the Concrete ecosystem, launching on-chain financial primitives such as AssetCX and concUSD.

Web3 + AI

NeoSoul Completes $11 Million Pre-A Financing, Accelerating AI Economy Layout
NeoSoul announced the completion of $11 million in Pre-A financing. Participating institutions include MH Ventures, Amber Group, ArkStream Capital, 0G Foundation, Kirin Capital, CatcherVC, and New Oak International. The funds will be used to further advance NeoSoul's construction in agent trading products and AI economic infrastructure.

According to reports, NeoSoul is an emerging AI economic market infrastructure on the BNB Chain and 0G ecosystem, dedicated to accelerating the construction of the AI economy. NeoSoul enables agents to collaborate, compete, and create value through harness engineering. This round of financing follows the launch of NeoTrade. NeoTrade is an agent trading workstation launched by NeoSoul, allowing traders to configure AI trading agents, enabling agents to make autonomous decisions and trades.

Prediction Market

Fortune Protocol Announces Completion of Multiple Rounds of Financing, Totaling Over $4 Million
AI + prediction market project Fortune Protocol officially disclosed the latest financing information. The project has previously completed multiple rounds of financing, including Seed and Pre-A rounds, with a total amount exceeding $4 million. It is reported that participating institutions include K24 Ventures, CGV FoF, MH Ventures, Mapleblock Capital, and others. Fortune Protocol stated that this round of funding will mainly be used to promote the technical upgrade of Fortune AI Agent, integrate and expand prediction market liquidity, and build the ecosystem.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Cypherpunk Mining Acquires Winklevoss Assets to Become Largest Zcash Mining Company
Cypherpunk Mining announced its official launch, with its 4.2 Gsol/s Equihash computing power deployed in the U.S. making it the largest Zcash miner globally. The company signed an asset acquisition agreement with Winklevoss Capital for $33.333 million, receiving its previously deployed Bitmain Z15 Pro mining fleet across the U.S., currently producing about 7,800 ZEC per month and achieving cash flow. Cypherpunk claims that Zcash mining currently generates about twice the revenue per unit of electricity compared to AI data center hosting and three times that of Bitcoin mining, with capital expenditures for equipment far lower than AI infrastructure. The company is debt-free and plans to gradually vertically integrate into data centers and power assets.

Selected Financing in AI & Robotics

Computing & AI Infrastructure

AI Chip Company Etched Raises $700 Million in Financing Led by Jane Street, Valuation Reaches $21 Billion
AI chip startup Etched raised $700 million in a financing round led by Jane Street, achieving a valuation of $21 billion. Etched has signed Jane Street as its first customer and has begun shipping chips.

AI Data Center Operator DataVita Completes Over $400 Million Financing, ING and Others Participate
AI data center operator DataVita announced the completion of £300 million (approximately $406 million) in financing, with participation from ING, ABN AMRO, Spain's Santander Bank, the Scottish National Investment Bank, and Siemens Financial Services. The new funds will be used for the AI data center park, and a 15-year data center lease has been signed with AI cloud service provider CoreWeave.

AI Chip Startup Groq Raises $350 Million, Valuation Drops to $3.5 Billion
AI chip startup Groq completed $350 million in financing, but its valuation dropped to $3.5 billion, about half of its valuation a year ago. This round of financing was led by a Dallas-based investment firm, Disruptive, with Nvidia also participating. Groq, founded in 2016, was once seen as a significant competitor to Nvidia in the AI chip field, focusing on developing dedicated hardware for AI computing. The company is currently transitioning to become an AI data center operator, focusing on serving AI model inference needs.

Space Computing Startup Starcloud Completes $250 Million New Round of Financing, Nvidia Participates
Space computing startup Starcloud announced the completion of a new round of financing totaling $250 million, led by Manhattan West Ventures, with participation from Nvidia, Cisco, Benchmark, EQT, and others, with Nvidia investing approximately $25 million in this round. The new funds will be used to expand satellite manufacturing facilities and advance the development of the next-generation orbital data center satellite Starcloud-3.

Starcloud revealed that it has deployed Nvidia H100 data center GPUs in orbit and completed model training based on these GPUs. Currently, most space computing projects use edge computing chips, while Starcloud is working with Nvidia to provide test data for the Vera Rubin Space-1 GPU, designed specifically for space environments. Starcloud's CEO Philip Johnston has also stated plans to mine Bitcoin in space.

AI Space Technology Company Muon Space Completes $250 Million Series C Financing, Google Participates

AI space technology company Muon Space has announced the completion of a $250 million Series C funding round, led by Eclipse Capital, with participation from Google, Salesforce Ventures, Galvanize, Wellington Management, I Squared Capital, Woven Capital, as well as Radical Ventures and Congruent Ventures.

The new funds will be used to accelerate the production of large-scale satellite constellations, expand dual-use spacecraft platforms, and enhance on-orbit AI computing power, in collaboration with SpaceX Starlink to provide real-time ultra-high bandwidth satellite connectivity.

AI chip design company Velaura AI has completed a $110 million Series A funding round, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion.

Velaura AI, an artificial intelligence chip design company, announced the completion of a $110 million Series A funding round, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Seligman Ventures led the round, with participation from Capricorn Investment Group, Samsung Catalyst Fund, StepStone Group, and Maverick Silicon. The company primarily develops low-power chips and software technology for data centers and physical AI applications, including robotics and autonomous systems. The new funds will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of its AI products and to hire engineers and customer service personnel. It is reported that the company is in talks with three of the four major cloud service providers and hopes to develop them into potential clients, but declined to disclose which three.

Multi-chip AI computing scheduling platform Callosum has completed $100 million in funding, led by Atomico.

Callosum, a multi-chip AI computing scheduling platform, announced the completion of $100 million in funding, led by Atomico, which had previously invested in the company’s Plural, along with participation from DCVC and the UK Sovereign AI Fund. The new funds will support the construction of an "intelligent scheduling layer" that connects AI applications with underlying computing power, breaking down different tasks in AI workloads and automatically matching each task to the most suitable model and chip, allowing enterprises to reduce costs and improve performance without dealing with underlying complexities.

Data and Development Tools

Enterprise AI data platform Prevalent AI has completed $22 million in funding, with participation from IGP.

Enterprise AI data platform Prevalent AI announced the completion of $22 million in funding, with participation from Los Angeles investment firm Integrity Growth Partners (IGP). Founded in 2017, the company focuses on developing AI-driven data platforms that connect and integrate data from multiple systems within enterprises, helping businesses build continuously updated "sovereign knowledge graphs" and supporting the deployment of AI Agents and automated systems.

Cutting-edge data research lab idler has completed $9 million in seed funding, led by Paradigm.

Cutting-edge data research lab idler announced the completion of $9 million in seed funding, led by Paradigm’s Alpo and Frankie, with participation from Y Combinator, Long Journey VC, and angel investors including marrc, catheryn_li, dcposch, Janine Leger, Lynett Capital, feross, and nur_daulet_.

Idler positions itself as a cutting-edge data research lab, and this round of funding will be used to build evaluation systems, benchmark tests, and reinforcement learning environments for leading global frontier labs to train and measure their model performance.

AI Applications & Agents

AI video generation platform Higgsfield has raised $400 million from Goldman Sachs, Intel, and others, with a valuation of $5.4 billion.

AI video generation platform Higgsfield has raised $400 million from investors including DST Global, Goldman Sachs, Liberty Global, and Intel, bringing the company’s valuation to $5.4 billion. As the company further expands its enterprise subscription business, this two-year-old startup is accelerating its commercialization process. This funding round comes just eight months after Higgsfield’s previous funding round.

Founded by former Snapchat executive Alex Mashrabov, the company raised $80 million at a valuation of $1.3 billion, as enterprise adoption of its AI technology was steadily increasing. Higgsfield is set to launch in 2025, and its annualized revenue reached $700 million in August this year, compared to just $20 million a year ago. Currently, Higgsfield has over 30 million users across 238 countries and regions, with the United States being its largest market.

AI voice tool Wispr has completed $280 million in Series B funding, led by Menlo Ventures.

AI voice tool Wispr has completed $280 million in Series B funding, with a post-funding valuation of $2 billion. This round was led by Menlo Ventures, with follow-on investments from existing shareholders Notable Capital, NEA, Neo Ventures, 8VC, and MVP Ventures, as well as new institutions including Acrew, Forerunner, Goodwater, Peak XV, Together Fund, and PLUS Capital. The company has raised a total of $361 million, which will be used to expand products such as voice transcription and meeting minutes, and to launch a new voice model called Canto, claiming to reduce the error rate from about 30% to below 10%, while increasing its presence in markets like India and the UK and collaborating on hardware.

AI accounting startup Rillet has completed $100 million in Series C funding, with a valuation of $1 billion.

AI-native accounting platform Rillet announced the completion of $100 million in Series C funding, with a valuation of $1 billion. This round was led by ICONIQ, with follow-on investments from existing shareholders Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Oak HC/FT, and participation from new investors Bain Capital Ventures and Battery Ventures. The company has raised over $200 million in total funding. Rillet positions itself as the first truly AI-native accounting platform, aiming to replace traditional manual accounting processes with AI Agents that can handle hundreds of operations simultaneously and generate complete audit trails. It currently serves over 600 clients, including leading AI companies like Neuralink and Mercor, with about 40% of its clients coming from outside the tech industry.

Robotics

SoftBank invests $200 million in construction robotics startup Gravis Robotics.

SoftBank Group has invested $200 million in Swiss construction robotics startup Gravis Robotics, completing its Series A funding. Gravis originated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and primarily develops autonomous driving software and hardware for earth-moving construction equipment, enabling heavy machinery to operate autonomously and allowing remote supervision of robotic fleets.

Embodied intelligence company Zhongke Fifth Epoch has completed Series A1 and A2 funding rounds, totaling over 1 billion yuan.

According to the STAR Market Daily, embodied intelligence company Zhongke Fifth Epoch has recently completed Series A1 and A2 funding rounds, with a total financing amount exceeding 1 billion yuan. The A1 round was jointly invested by Xigaotou, the Bank of China’s Zhongyin AIC Fund, and Sanfeng Investment; the A2 round was jointly invested by Xinneng Venture Capital, Zhongyin AIC Fund, Zhongshan Venture Capital, Hongruida Investment, Boyan Technology, and Jinchuan Investment (Zhejiang Province New Energy Vehicle Sub-fund).

Embodied intelligence company Moudun Intelligence has completed nearly 500 million yuan in Pre-A+ funding.

Moudun Intelligence has officially completed nearly 500 million yuan in Pre-A+ funding. This round was led by major state-owned funds including Shenbao Yiben Fund, Dongfang Securities, and Shaanxi High-tech Industry Investment Co., Ltd., with participation from industrial investors Anyu Fund, Tianmeng Investment, and Jianyuan Tianhua, as well as existing shareholders Chuanghehui Capital, Xuhui Capital, and Gengxin Capital. As a result, Moudun Intelligence's valuation has increased more than tenfold in the first half of the year, making it one of the fastest-growing embodied brain companies in the industry.

Humanoid intelligence company Current Robotics has disclosed cumulative financing of hundreds of millions, with participation from Baidu and others.

Humanoid intelligence company Current Robotics (Yuanliu) has disclosed its financing progress for the first time: the company has completed seed, angel, and Pre-A funding rounds, with cumulative financing reaching hundreds of millions of yuan. Investors include BV Baidu Ventures, Hillhouse Capital, Oasis Capital, Monolith Lisi Capital, Qianhai Ark, Fosun Chuangfu, Junshan Capital, and other financial investment institutions, as well as industrial partners such as Zhiyuan Robotics, Xinghai Map, and Jike Technology. The financing funds will mainly be used to advance the large-scale collection of human body data and focus on the research and development of core technologies such as full-body dexterous manipulation prototypes and interactive world models.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Stripe to acquire AI company OpenRouter for over $7 billion.

Sources reveal that payment service provider Stripe has finalized an agreement to acquire AI startup OpenRouter for over $7 billion. The final price of the acquisition may still fluctuate. OpenRouter provides developers with a unified API aggregation platform, allowing access to hundreds of different open-source and closed-source AI large language models through a single interface.

OpenAI acquires real-time database InstantDB team to strengthen AI agent infrastructure.

OpenAI has acquired the team behind the real-time database platform InstantDB, which previously served over 17,000 users and 400,000 applications, processing approximately 2.5 billion transactions. InstantDB offers backend-as-a-service (BaaS) products to help developers manage real-time data synchronization. Existing users must migrate their cloud-hosted applications by August 31, 2027, and the open-source code will continue to be available for self-deployment. InstantDB was a Y Combinator 2022 incubation project, and the founding team will join OpenAI to strengthen the infrastructure for AI agent applications, as its AI agents require persistent state management, real-time data read/write, and concurrent conflict handling capabilities, aligning with InstantDB's focus on real-time data synchronization infrastructure.

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