Top Foundational Model Raises (2026)
Chai Discovery, Runway, and Odyssey lead the biggest recent foundation-model funding rounds — see all 10 labs training their own models from scratch.
Published August 18, 2026 by Jacob Klionsky
- 01$400MSeries C
Chai Discovery, an AI-driven molecular design company, raised $400M in a Series C at a $3.8B valuation led by Index Ventures alongside Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Dimension.
- 02$315MSeries E
AI video generation startup Runway raised a $315M Series E led by General Atlantic with participation from Nvidia, Fidelity Management & Research, AllianceBernstein, Adobe Ventures, Mirae Asset, Emphatic Capital, Felicis, Premji, and AMD Ventures.
- 03$310MSeries B
Odyssey, a world model AI startup, raised $310 million in a Series B at a $1.45B valuation led by Natural Capital with participation from Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV and others.
- 04$300MSeries B
Visual-intelligence startup Black Forest Labs raised a $300M Series B led by AMP and Salesforce Ventures.
- 05$120MSeries C
Harmonic, an AI lab developing mathematical superintelligence, raised a $120 million Series C led by Ribbit Capital with Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Emerson Collective.
- 06$106MEquity
Protein-design startup Profluent Bio raised a $106 million financing round co-led by Altimeter Capital and Bezos Expeditions, with Spark Capital, Insight Partners and Air Street Capital participating.
- 07$100MSeries B
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, raised $100 million in a Series B co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures with participation from Amazon, Radical Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, Index Ventures, Quadrille Capital, and Red Bull Ventures.
- 08$50MSeed
Inception, a diffusion-model AI startup for code and text generation, raised a $50 million seed round led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Mayfield, Innovation Endeavors, Nvidia’s NVentures, Microsoft’s M12 fund, Snowflake Ventures, and Databricks Investment.
- 09$24MSeries A
Rime, a voice AI startup, raised $24 million in a Series A led by M13 Ventures with participation from Twilio Ventures, Corazon Capital, Unusual Ventures and other existing investors.
- 10$13MEquity
Resemble AI, an AI voice generation and deepfake detection company, raised $13.0M in strategic funding led by Wa’ed Ventures with participation from Google's AI Future Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, Javelin, and Ubiquity.
