Sector Snapshot: US Semiconductor Startup Funding Hits Record High

The pace of big funding rounds continued to hold up at brisk levels this past week, led by a $1.4 billion financing for “robot brain” developer Skild AI. More big rounds went to startups in sectors including AI chips, brain-computer…

Overall, investors put $18 billion into seed- through growth-stage rounds for companies in Crunchbase security and privacy categories last year. That’s up about 26% from 2024, with particularly pronounced growth at early stage.

Global venture funding to fintech startups climbed in 2025 to its highest level in several quarters, boosted by later-stage deals, Crunchbase data shows.

Skild AI, a robotics company building an “omni-bodied” brain to operate any robot for any task, announced Wednesday that it has raised $1.4 billion, tripling its valuation to over $14 billion.

In total, investors poured $67.5 billion into reported seed- through growth-stage rounds for companies across Asia in last year, per Crunchbase data. That’s a decline of about 6% from 2024, and the lowest annual total in five years.

Latin America startup investment climbed by 14.3% in 2025, driven by a boost in both early- and late-stage funding, Crunchbase data shows.

Flip, a startup that claims to offer an Amazon Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively.

Rain, which is building infrastructure for payments with stablecoins, has raised $250 million in a Series C funding round led by Iconiq. Its post-money valuation is $1.95 billion, up 17x from last March.