Which industries have the most hot money? An inventory of Q2 fundraising powerhouses.
Research firm CB Insights recently released a report on the global venture capital situation for Q2 2024. The data shows that AI startups had a particularly strong fundraising performance this quarter, with AI projects attracting $18.3 billion (approximately NT$593.5 billion) in investments, accounting for one-third of all funds raised.
In particular, xAI, founded by billionaire Elon Musk (see image above), is in a leading position, raising $6 billion on its own and currently valued at $24 billion.
“Investors believe that xAI will gain a competitive edge by integrating the networks and data of Musk’s companies. For example, Tesla can use xAI’s latest multimodal AI model, which includes visual capabilities, to further enhance the perception abilities of the Optimus humanoid robot.”
Looking at the second quarter of 2024, several heavyweight AI startups have emerged, leading to an overall upward trend in fundraising transaction volume. However, the overall number of transactions has been declining for nine consecutive quarters, indicating that funds are still concentrated in specific industries and specific startups.
With Stripe’s support, fintech fundraising performance slightly rebounds
In addition to the AI field, the fundraising performance in other industry sectors is average.
According to CB Insights data, fintech companies had a slightly better fundraising performance, with a total funding amount of $8.9 billion, a 19% increase from the previous quarter. This includes the announcement by US payment giant Stripe that it raised $694 million. At the time of the announcement, there was speculation about the possibility and timing of Stripe’s initial public offering (IPO).
Another company, AlphaSense, a market intelligence platform, raised $650 million at a valuation of $4 billion in its latest funding round and agreed to acquire competitor Tegus for $930 million.
Compared to the fintech sector, fundraising for retail tech companies has stagnated, and the performance of digital health companies has been less than ideal, with total funding declining by 26% to below $3 billion.
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Source:
CB Insights
Editor: Li Xiantai
This article is a collaborative reprint from:
Digital Times
