Technology Private Placement and M&A Transactions Review Week Ending August 3, 2025

OpenAI: The company raised $8.3 billion of venture funding in a deal led by Dragoneer Investment Group on August 1, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $291.7 billion. Microsoft, Fidelity, Reliance Industries, SaxeCap, East River Venture Partners, Blackstone, TPG, Helios Ventures, Coatue Management, MGX, Altimeter Capital Management, Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Orange DAO, Morrison Seger, Pari Passu Venture Partners, HiJoJo Partners, Tides Ventures, Orbita Verticale, Beyond Capital, Small World Capital, Futurum Capital, BOND Capital, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Rosecliff Venture Partners, The User Syndicate, T. Rowe Price Group, D1 Capital Partners, Pittco Management, Banca Investis, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Washington Harbour, Magnetar Capital and SoftBank Group also participated in the round. The company is a developer of machine learning systems designed for general-purpose artificial intelligence applications.

Genesys: The company entered into a definitive agreement to receive $1.5 billion of development capital from Salesforce Ventures and ServiceNow Ventures on August 1, 2025. The company is a developer of enterprise and customer engagement software intended for organizations to deliver proactive, predictive, and hyper-personalized experiences.

Grammarly: The company raised $672.4 million of venture funding in the form of options and warrants from Renegade Partners and other undisclosed investors on July 29, 2025. The company is a developer of writing assistance technology designed to help people with real-time support to write more clearly and effectively.

Replit: The company raised $250 million of venture funding in a deal led by Prysm Capital on August 1, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $2.75 billion. The company is a collaborative software development platform that enables developers to build, share, and ship functional live apps. Replit additionally offers AI-assisted cloud-native software development with millions of pre-fetched package files and a run-to-live experience.

Observe: The company raised $156 million in Series C venture funding in a deal led by Sutter Hill Ventures on July 30, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $692 million. Capital One Ventures, Snowflake Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of an enterprise SaaS observability platform that leverages AI to help businesses analyze and troubleshoot their applications and infrastructure. Observe ingests data from various sources, stores it in a cost-effective data lake, and provides insights through a single, user-friendly interface.

Carbyne: The company raised $100 million of Series D venture funding in a deal led by AT&T Ventures on August 1, 2025. Cox Enterprises, Global Medical Response, Axon Enterprise, Silicon Valley Bank, Valor Equity Partners, General Global Capital, TALC Investment, Founders Fund, FinTLV Ventures, Hanaco Ventures, Socium Ventures, Sandiip Bhammer, Elsted Capital Partners, Hercules Capital and Rokos Capital Management also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a real-time communication platform designed to provide public safety technology for emergency response infrastructure.

Showrunner: The company raised $50 million of Series B venture funding in a deal led by Amazon.com on July 30, 2025. The company is a developer of a generative AI-based content creation platform designed for prompt-based production of animated shows.

Cline: The company raised $32 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Emergence on July 31, 2025. Pace Capital, 1984 Ventures, Essence Venture Capital, Cox Exponential, Jared Friedman, Eric Simons, Logan Kilpatrick, Theo Browne and Addy Osmani also participated in the round. The company is a developer of an AI-powered coding assistant platform designed to help users facilitate communication between the editor and the AI model provider.

MyPrize: The company raised $21 million of venture funding from Dragonfly Capital, Boxcar Partners, and other undisclosed investors on July 31, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $229 million. The company is a developer of an online crypto casino gaming platform designed to offer multiplayer games.

Astrocade: The company raised an estimated $20 million of Series A venture funding from undisclosed investors on July 30, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $63 million. The company is a developer of an AI-powered social gaming platform intended to create, iterate, remix and share games with friends and a global community.

Knit: The company raised $16.1 million in Series A venture funding in a deal led by GFT Ventures and Sound Ventures on July 31, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $58.9 million. Revolution, Silicon Road, Visible Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, David Kirk, Gokul Rajaram, and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of an AI-powered insights platform designed to help brands gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience.

PlayerZero: The company raised $15 million in Series A venture funding in a deal led by Foundation Capital on July 30, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $60 million. Green Bay Ventures, Dylan Field, Andrew Houston, and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of an artificial intelligence software intended to understand the relationship between code written, and the customer and operational impact.

Deep Cogito: The company raised $13 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Benchmark Capital Holdings on August 1, 2025. The company is a developer of large language models designed to build general superintelligence.

Apera AI: The company raised an undisclosed amount of Series A venture funding in a deal led by BDC Capital on July 28, 2025. Lobby Capital, Flying Fish Ventures and J-Ventures also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a vision software designed for factory automation to provide robots with human-like intelligent vision and high reliability.

Arcee AI: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding in a deal led by Prosperity7 Ventures and M12 on July 30, 2025. Wipro Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, Guidepoint, Samsung NEXT Ventures and JC2 Ventures also participated in the round. The company is a developer of large language models designed to accelerate the deployment of AI across enterprise applications.

Quick Custom Intelligence: The company received an undisclosed amount of development capital from Second Curve Partners on July 30, 2025. The company is a developer of analytics and operational software designed for casinos and resorts.

Trovio.: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding from Cintrifuse Capital in August 2025. The company is a developer of a digital platform designed to facilitate direct engagement between experts, influencers, and their audiences.

YearOne: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding in a deal led by Accenture Ventures on July 31, 2025. The company is a developer of an AI-powered orchestration platform designed to help organizations elevate the design and delivery lifecycle of digital products.

Ziply Fiber / Bell Canada: The company was acquired by Bell Canada, a subsidiary of BCE, for CAD 7 billion on August 1, 2025. The company is a provider of fiber optic internet services across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Acumatica / Vista Equity Partners: The company, a subsidiary of Industrial and Financial Systems, was acquired by Vista Equity Partners through an estimated $2 billion LBO on July 28, 2025. The company is a developer of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software designed for growing midmarket companies across various industries.

Eleventh Hour Games / Krafton: The company was acquired by Krafton for $96 million on July 28, 2025. The company is an independent game development studio known for creating the action RPG, Last Epoch.

NewsWhip / Sprout Social: The company was acquired by Sprout Social for $55 million on July 30, 2025. The company is a developer of a content analytics platform designed to transform data from stories, videos, and social posts into actionable insights.

ONExia / Doosan Robotics: The company was acquired by Doosan Robotics, a subsidiary of Doosan, for approximately KRW 35.6 billion on July 28, 2025. The company is a distributor of custom machine building and robotics integrator products for manufacturing process automation.

Cinelease / Zello Growth: The company, a subsidiary of Herc Holdings, was acquired by Zello Growth through an LBO on August 1, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is a supplier of rental motion-picture lighting and grip equipment to the television, feature film, commercial, music video, and event industries.

DroneSense / Versaterm: The company was acquired by Versaterm, via its financial sponsor Banneker Partners, through an LBO on July 30, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is a developer of a drone software platform designed for public safety and critical infrastructure operations, offering drone program management, real-time situational awareness, and secure data management.

iMemories / Ancestry: The company was acquired by Ancestry, via its financial sponsors Blackstone, Frazier Group, Alta Global Ventures and GIC Private, through an LBO on July 30, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is a developer of a web platform for digitizing, storing and sharing personal videos and photos.

Loris / ContentSquare: The company reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by ContentSquare for an undisclosed amount on July 30, 2025. The company is a developer of a conversational artificial intelligence platform intended for companies to navigate hard conversations.

Milk Visual Effects / PhantomFX: The company reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by PhantomFX for an undisclosed amount on July 30, 2025. The company is an operator of a visual effects (VFX) company intended for episodic television and feature films.

Scale Computing / Acumera: The company was acquired by Acumera, via its financial sponsors Brookfield Oaktree Holdings and Peak Rock Capital, through an LBO on July 31, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is a developer of a cloud-based data storage platform designed to offer edge computing, virtualisation, and hyper-converged services to clients.

VizExplorer / Quick Custom Intelligence: The company was acquired by Quick Custom Intelligence for an undisclosed amount on July 28, 2025. The company is a developer of data analytics software intended to serve the casino gaming industry.

Wavely / Evergreen: The company was acquired by Evergreen for an undisclosed amount on August 1, 2025. The company is a developer of artificial intelligence-powered IoT sensors designed to classify and analyze sounds.