Private Markets: Microsoft, Nvidia to invest in Anthropic

Microsoft, Nvidia and Anthropic announced new strategic partnerships. Meanwhile, prediction market operator Kalshi has reportedly raised another $1B in funding at a $11B valuation.

This week’s private company news:

• Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA) and Anthropic announced new strategic partnerships. “Anthropic is scaling its rapidly-growing Claude AI model on Microsoft Azure, powered by Nvidia, which will broaden access to Claude and provide Azure enterprise customers with expanded model choice and new capabilities,” the companies said in a blog post. Anthropic has committed to purchase $30B of Azure compute capacity and to contract additional compute capacity up to one gigawatt. As part of the partnership, Nvidia and Microsoft are committing to invest up to $10B and up to $5B respectively in Anthropic. “For the first time, Nvidia and Anthropic are establishing a deep technology partnership to support Anthropic’s future growth…Microsoft and Anthropic are also expanding their existing partnership to provide broader access to Claude for businesses,” the companies added.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s xAI is in advanced talks to raise $15B in new equity at a $230B valuation, The Wall Street Journal’s Becky Peterson and Berber Jin report, citing people familiar with the plans. This new valuation would be a significant increase from the $113B valuation disclosed after xAI acquired X in March. The terms of the new fundraising were disclosed to investors by Musk’s wealth manager, Jared Birchall, on Tuesday night, the people say.
• Artificial intelligence startup AGI, Inc is in talks to raise $50M at a $500M valuation, people familiar with the matter told Forbes. The company, which previously raised $10M from Menlo Ventures, is aiming to develop AI assistants that can use devices on behalf of humans, Forbes’ Anna Tong reports. Beyond this, sources told Forbes that AGI, Inc has told investors it’s begun partnership discussions with a number of big device manufacturers. Samsung (SSNLF), Lenovo (LNVGY) and Xiaomi (XIACY) are among the companies exploring its “agentic” AI technology which would power AI assistants capable of performing actions more complex than current assistants like Siri and Google (GOOGL) Assistant.

Some of the biggest capital raises by private companies this week include:

• Kalshi – The prediction market operator has raised another $1B in funding at a $11B valuation, a person familiar with the deal told TechCrunch‘s Marina Temkin. The latest fundraising round – led by the company’s returning investors Sequoia and CapitalG – comes less than two months after the startup announced its previous fundraise of $300M at a $5B valuation, the report noted. Other investors in Kalshi include Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Anthos Capital, and Neo, TechCrunch added.
• Luma AI – The AI company building multimodal AGI announced it secured $900M in Series C funding led by HUMAIN, a PIF company. Publicly traded companies in the space include Adobe (ADBE), Autodesk (ADSK), and Unity Software (U).
• Suno – The music company built to amplify imagination powered by the world’s most advanced AI model said it has closed a $250M Series C round at a $2.45B post-money valuation. The funding round was led by Menlo Ventures. Publicly traded companies in the space include Warner Music Group (WMG), Sony (SONY), and SoundHound AI (SOUN).
• Aspen Neuroscience – The clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering autologous regenerative therapies announced it raised $115M. The Series C round was co-led by OrbiMed, ARCH Venture Partners, Frazier Life Sciences, and Revelation Partners, with participation from existing investors including Medical Excellence Capital, S32, Axon Ventures, LYFE Capital, and LifeForce Capital, among others. New investors include Kite, a Gilead Company (GILD), Balyasny Asset Management, Cormorant Asset Management, Prebys Ventures, and others.
• Profluent – The company, a leader in frontier AI for protein design, said it secured $106M in a financing round co-led by Altimeter Capital and Bezos Expeditions, with participation from existing investors including Spark Capital, Insight Partners, and Air Street Capital. Publicly traded companies in the space include Schrodinger (SDGR), Recursion Pharmaceuticals (RXRX), and Relay Therapeutics (RLAY).

Unicorns to watch this week:

• Reflection.AI – The AI/Open source model developer has an estimated valuation of $8B. Publicly traded companies in the space include Nvidia (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Microsoft (MSFT).
• Fireworks AI – With an estimated valuation of $4B, the AI app builder’s customer base grew 10 times in 2024. Publicly traded companies in the space include Amazon (AMZN), Snowflake (SNOW), and Palantir (PLTR).
• LangChain – The AI agent deployment has a valuation of $1.25B. Publicly traded companies in the space include C3.ai (AI) and IBM (IBM).
• Base Power – The residential battery systems company is a new entrant to unicorn board, having recently reached a $1B valuation. Publicly traded companies in the space include Tesla (TSLA), Enphase (ENPH), and SolarEdge (SEDG).
• Tempo – The blockchain payments company was valued at $5B in the latest funding round. Publicly traded companies in the space include Coinbase (COIN), Block (XYZ), and PayPal (PYPL).

IPOs to watch:

• Grayscale Investments – The company filed a prospectus for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “GRAY.” Grayscale says it is the largest digital asset-focused investment platform in the world, with $35B in assets under management as of September 30.
• Klook Technology – The company identifies itself as “the largest pan-regional experiences platform in Asia-Pacific” by gross transaction volume in 2024. It announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form F-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of American Depositary Shares representing its ordinary shares.
• Speed Group (SPED) – The company filed a prospectus for 2.5M share initial public offering. It expects the IPO price to be in the range of $4.00 to $5.00 per. The company’s operating subsidiary, Speed Logistics, is an e-commerce logistics provider providing end-to-end logistics solution in Hong Kong, Europe and North America. The services include warehousing, customs clearance, air transportation, and final delivery from the European airports. For the years ended June 30, 2024 and 2025, Speed’s revenues were $17.9M and $22.64M, respectively.
• Medline (MDLN) – The provider of medical-surgical products and supply chain solutions filed a prospectus for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq.
• Lendbuzz (LBZZ) – The company is offering an undetermined number of shares of its common stock and the selling stockholders identified in this prospectus are offering additional shares of common stock, according to an initial public offering prospectus filed with the SEC.

“Private Markets” is The Fly’s recurring series of stories on the latest moves in the private sector, largest unicorn companies and initial public offerings to watch. Fly subscribers, add $PRIVATE to your portfolio for alerts on breaking news in the startup and venture capital space.