Technology Private Placement and M&A Transactions Review Week Ending March 9, 2025

Anthropic: The company raised $3.5 billion of Series E venture funding in a deal led by Lightspeed Venture Partners on March 3, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $58 billion. Jane Street, Salesforce Ventures, Cisco Investments, Menlo Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, MGX, D1 Capital Partners and Fidelity Management & Research Company and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a large language model platform designed for business-critical use cases.

Shield AI: The company raised $240 million of Series F1 venture funding in a deal led by Hanwha Aerospace Company and L3 Harris Technologies on March 6, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $5.1 billion. Stack Capital Group, Fabrica Ventures, 2468 Ventures, AJI Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, US Innovative Technology Fund, Bossa Invest, Inflection Ventures, Other People’s Capital and Washington Harbour also participated in the round. The company is a defense technology business that provides an AI-powered drones, and a modular autonomy software platform for rapid development and deployment to intelligent machines.

Beast Games: The company closed on $200 million of an undisclosed targeted amount of venture funding on March 8, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $4.8 billion. The company is an operator of a content creation business that offers a wide range of reality competition series.

Reflection AI: The company raised $105 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by CRV and Lightspeed Venture Partners on March 7, 2025. The company is a developer of AI technology designed to build coding agents for superintelligent autonomous systems.

GRAID Technology: The company raised $30 million of Series B venture funding in a deal led by CTBC Financial Holdings and Yuanta Venture Capital on March 4, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $96 million. Delta Electronics, Harbinger Ventures and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is an operator of a storage technology business that offers tools for data-intensive applications.

Firsthand: The company raised $26 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Radical Ventures on March 5, 2025. Aperiam Ventures, Crossbeam Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Bob Lord, Brian O’Kelley and David Rosenblatt also participated in the round. The company is an operator of an artificial intelligence agent platform intended to help marketers and publishers engage with consumers online.

Auxia: The company raised $23.5 million in Series A venture funding in a deal led by VMG Partners on March 4, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $51.5 million. MUFG Innovation Partners, Stage 2 Capital, Rittenhouse Ventures, Vela Partners, Incubate Fund US, Lorraine Twohill, Arjan Dijk, David Fischer, and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of an agentic customer journey orchestration platform designed to help enterprises orchestrate intelligent, one-on-one customer interactions with artificial intelligence agents.

LlamaIndex: The company raised $18.9 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Norwest Venture Partners on March 4, 2025, putting the company’s pre-money valuation at $70 million. Greylock also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a central interface toolkit designed to augment LLM applications with external data.

Zocks: The company raised $13.8 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Motive Partners on March 6, 2025. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Expanse Venture Partners, Entrée Capital, and 14Peaks Capital also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a communication management platform designed to capture industry-specific insights from client conversations.

CoreWeave: The company raised $10 million of venture funding from Stack Capital Group on March 5, 2025. The company is a developer of a cloud infrastructure platform designed to provide computing resources for artificial intelligence and machine learning models.

welevel: The company raised $5.7 million of venture funding in a deal led by BITKRAFT Ventures on March 6, 2025. Goodwater Capital, Chris Carvalho, Daniel Weinand, Heiko Hubertz, Kun Gao, Mario Götze, Nate Mitchell, Ralf Reichert, BMWK and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of survival and city-builder immersive games.

Mode: The company raised $5.3 million of venture funding from KDDI Asia Pacific, Canon Marketing Japan and Kirin Health Innovation Fund on March 7, 2025. Safie Ventures also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a data integration platform designed to collect and apply real-world sensor data to businesses.

FanUp: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding in a deal led by 9.58 Ventures and Tru Skye Ventures on March 4, 2025. Other undisclosed investors also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a fantasy sports and pop culture contest application.

Looria: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding in a deal led by VI Partners on March 7, 2025. AIX Ventures and Fyrfly Venture Partners also participated in the round. The company is a developer of a web scraping guide platform designed to turn unstructured data into insights.

Stability AI: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding from WPP on March 5, 2025. The company is a developer of a generative artificial intelligence tool designed to create images based on text input.

Weights & Biases / CoreWeave: The company reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by CoreWeave for $1.7 billion on March 4, 2025. The company is a developer of a dataset optimization system designed to build software tools for deep learning practitioners.

Blis Global / T-Mobile US: The company was acquired by T-Mobile US for $175 million on March 3, 2025. The company is a developer of a digital advertising platform intended for brands and media agencies.

Mau5trap Recordings / Create Music Group: The catalogues of Mau5trap Recordings were acquired by Create Music Group, via its financial sponsors GoldState Music and Flexpoint Ford, through a $55 million LBO on March 5, 2025. The company is an operator of an independent record label.

Spectra7 Microsystems / Parade Technologies: The company reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by Parade Technologies for $8.3 million on March 7, 2025. Spectra7 Microsystems Inc is a high-performance analog semiconductor company delivering high bandwidth, speed, and resolution for electronics manufacturers in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, data centers, and other connectivity markets.

8ball Music / Universal Music Group: The company was acquired by Universal Music Group for an undisclosed amount on March 7, 2025. The company is an operator of a music business focused on recording, publishing, and merchandising services.

audEERING / Agile Robots: The company was acquired by Agile Robots for an undisclosed amount on March 3, 2025. The company is a developer of intelligent audio analysis algorithms created to detect emotions and health information from a person’s voice.

Auto Labs / Kenect: The company was acquired by Kenect, via its financial sponsor PSG, through an LBO on March 6, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is an operator of an AI-powered CX platform for the automotive industry.

BB Media / Fabric: The company was acquired by Fabric, a subsidiary of Xytech, for an undisclosed amount on March 3, 2025. The company is an operator of a global media and entertainment data science business intended to analyze prices, plans, and commercial alliances.

Cequel Media / Billups: The company, a subsidiary of Posterscope was acquired by Billups for an undisclosed amount on March 5, 2025. The company is a provider of out-of-home marketing and advertising services based in New York.

Digg / True Ventures and Seven Seven Six: The company was acquired by True Ventures and Seven Seven Six through an LBO on March 5, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is a provider of a news aggregator platform designed to curate a relevant and compelling mix of technology, sports, entertainment, humor, and political content.

Emcore / Cartridge Actuated Devices: The company was acquired by Cartridge Actuated Devices, via its financial sponsors Launch Point Partners and Charlesbank Capital Partners, through a public-to-private LBO on March 5, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. EMCORE Corp is a provider of sensors and navigation systems for the aerospace and defense market.

Freshreview / GaragePlug: The company was acquired by GaragePlug for an undisclosed amount on March 3, 2025. The company is a developer of a SaaS-based review management software designed to improve the online reputation of businesses.

Iterpro / International Sports Group: The company was acquired by International Sports Group for an undisclosed amount on March 7, 2025. The company is a developer of a sports data management software designed to provide data-driven coaching.

Lotame / Publicis Groupe: The company reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by Publicis Groupe for an undisclosed amount on March 6, 2025. The company is a developer of a cross-device data management platform designed to collect, organize, and activate data for digital marketers.

Mad Street Den / M2P Fintech: The company was acquired by M2P Fintech for an estimated $15 million on March 4, 2025. The company is a developer of a cloud-based artificial intelligence platform designed to build models of generalizable intelligence.

See-Saw Films / Mediawan: The company was acquired by Mediawan, via its financial sponsors Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, The Raine Group, Bpifrance, ESAS Holding and Groupe MACSF, through an LBO on March 6, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The company is an operator of a production house for international films and television based in London, England.

StoryFile / Key 7 Investment: The company was acquired by Key 7 Investment for an undisclosed amount on March 3, 2025. The company is a developer of a conversational video interactive platform for  storytellers.

Source: Pitchbook Data, Inc.