Monthly roundup · AI · August 2026

AI startup funding, August 2026: Firmus Technologies's $2.0B Growth leads 117 rounds

By Millionrounds ResearchPublished 1 September 2026Updated 4 November 2026

We read 117 equity rounds in AI announced in August 2026, raising $14B between them: 53% of all the rounds we read that month and 58% of the money. The largest was Firmus Technologies's $2.0B Growth. The median seed round was $8.2M, against $7.0M over the last twelve months in AI; at Series A it was $40M. General Catalyst led the most rounds, with 3.

Equity rounds117in AI, 112 with an amount
Raised$14Bacross those rounds
Lead named82%of rounds say who led
Share of the month53%of rounds; 58% of the money

The biggest rounds

  1. 1Firmus TechnologiesGrowth · Australia$2.0B
  2. 2Thrive HoldingsGrowth · United States · led by SoftBank BB Corp, Altimeter$2.0B
  3. 3River AISeries A · United States · led by General Catalyst, AMP PBC$1.1B
  4. 4Valar AtomicsSeries B · United States · led by Sequoia Capital$1.0B
  5. 5LumilensSeries C · United States · led by Bain Capital Ventures, Spark Capital$700M
  6. 6LovableSeries C · Sweden · led by Menlo Ventures, Scaleup Europe Fund$400M
  7. 7HiggsfieldSeries B · United States · led by DST Global$400M
  8. 8GroqSeries A · United States · led by Disruptive$350M
  9. 9OlixGrowth · United Kingdom · led by Fundomo$312M
  10. 10VVoltaSeries A · led by Andreessen Horowitz, Altimeter$300M

Day by day

Equity rounds in AI announced each day of August. The busiest day was 4 August, with 16.

1 August31 August

By stage, against the year

Each stage's median this month beside its twelve-month median: the sector's own where we hold enough rounds for a benchmark, otherwise the one across all sectors.

Pre-seed19$2.2Mthis month$2.1M12 months here
Seed25$8.2Mthis month$7.0M12 months here
Series A28$40Mthis month$21M12 months here
Series B18$64Mthis month$55M12 months here
Series C9$100Mthis month$110M12 months here
Series D5$80Mthis month$147M12 months here
Growth11$220Mthis month$150M12 months here

The most active leads

Firms that led two or more of the month's rounds in AI.

Where

United States had the most AI rounds this month.

Against the month

  • Rounds, AI117
  • Rounds, all sectors220
  • Raised, AI$14B
  • Raised, all sectors$25B

The whole of August 2026

Other sectors in August

32 roundsFintech→24 roundsRobotics→21 roundsConstruction→18 roundsHealthcare→18 roundsSoftware→17 roundsEnergy→14 roundsLogistics→14 roundsBig Data & Analytics→13 roundsDefence Tech→12 roundsEnterprise Software→12 roundsCloud→11 roundsCleantech→11 roundsBiotech→11 roundsCybersecurity→10 roundsClimate Tech→