I’ve never had a major height spurt (I’ve been 5’4″ since middle school).
But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about growth spurts, because in the AI space, there’s a lot of them right now – capital has been pouring into a lot of real but simultaneously select companies very quickly throughout this year, and with that comes surprising jumps in valuations.
You may have heard of examples of companies that have been covered in a lot of digital ink. For example, Anthropic was valued at US$61.5 billion when it raised funds in March and is currently valued at US$183 billion; Cursor, which was valued at US$2.6 billion in 2024, is now valued at US$29.3 billion by investors after two rounds of financing.
Over the weekend, we posted a story Dig deeper into who’s growing fast this year, and it’s not just the OpenAI and Anthropics of the world. Companies that have raised two or more rounds of funding by 2025 include Reflection AI, OpenEvidence, Lila Sciences, Harmonic, Farr, Abridgedand double.
To be clear, this isn’t inherently a bad thing – typically, multiple funding rounds within a year indicate serious growth and traction. But I find myself worried about some factors in the equation: For example, as the bubble bursts and spending on artificial intelligence shrinks, startups valued in the tens of billions of dollars aren’t too big to fail. The sheer capital fact is that more money is flowing into these companies than was imagined during the dot-com boom.
But the venture capital game has always been one of big winners and big losers.
“In this environment, investors sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that every new AI model company is going to look like OpenAI or Anthropic,” said Tom Biegala, founding partner at Bison Ventures. wealth.
“They’re placing very high valuations on these companies, which is the option value on companies that become the next OpenAI or Anthropic,” Biegala said. But, he added, “a lot of them won’t necessarily grow to those valuations…and you’re definitely going to see some losses.”
I’ve never experienced a growth spurt, but my brother told me it can be very painful.
Crystal ball summons… It’s that time of year: The crystal ball is back! Every year, we ask Term Sheet readers what they think about the future and publish it in early January. So, folks: please send me your predictions for 2026, especially if they’re weird, brutally honest, or brutally nerdy, I want to hear about them (they can be posted in the term sheet). Just send your predictions to the email below and include “Crystal Ball” in the subject line so I don’t miss them.
See you tomorrow,
Ellie Garfunkel
X:@agarfinks
e-mail:alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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venture capital deals
– blackforestlaboratoryAn artificial intelligence image generation and editing model based in Freiburg, Germany, raised $300 million in Series B funding. AMP and salespersonventure capital Lead this round.
– gravityroboticsis a Zurich, Switzerland-based heavy machinery automation platform that raised $23 million in funding IQcapital and zakuaventure capital.
– SterlingXis an advanced drone operations and data intelligence company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, which has raised $11 million in seed funding. RCMprivatemarketfund Lead this round and join Rutherstechnology, ONE9and angel investors.
– mini faucetis a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence mobile development platform that raised $4.2 million in seed funding. moxieventure capital and Wednesday Lead this round and join Evo, Tectonventure capital, friendsStart a businesscapitaland others.
– LankertBrno, Czech Republic-based AI visibility platform has raised £1 million ($1.3 million) in pre-seed funding. lighthouseventure capital Lead this round and join GI21capital.
quit
– sajed,Depend on silverlakeagreed to acquire a majority stake in shineis a small business financial co-pilot platform located in Copenhagen, Denmark, from investment companytechnologyPartners. Financial terms were not disclosed.