VC Funding Top Ten — August 28, 2026: Sentient's $1.5B AI Round, Quantum Computing, Vertical AI

Overview

Friday afternoon, August twenty-eighth. Today's biggest check is a massive one-point-five billion dollars for AI powerhouse Sentient Machines, valuing the company at twenty-five billion dollars post-money. That deal leads a very active day in venture capital. We'll break down the top ten rounds, from AGI to the creator

In this show

• Friday afternoon, August twenty-eighth. Today's biggest check is a massive one-point-five billion dollars for AI powerhouse Sentient Machines, valuing the company at twenty-five billion dollars post-money. That deal leads a very active day in venture capital. We'll break down the top ten rounds, from AGI to the creator economy. With me are our Markets and World correspondents. Let's get to the numbers.
• Here's the snapshot for today. Across the ten largest rounds, total disclosed funding hit two-point-four-five billion dollars. The largest round, as mentioned, was Sentient Machines with its one-point-five billion dollar Series D. The hottest category was clearly AI, accounting for four of the top ten deals. We saw no notable IPO or M&A activity today. The story of the day remains that mega-raise by Sentient Machines, as they accelerate their push toward artificial general intelligence.
• Let's dive into that number one deal. Sentient Machines raised a staggering one-point-five billion dollar Series D, led by Sequoia Capital. The round sets a new post-money valuation of twenty-five billion dollars. The company is at the forefront of developing advanced artificial general intelligence, or AGI, models. This massive capital injection solidifies their leadership position in the global race to build AGI and will be used to aggressively scale their research and engineering teams. It's a clear signal that investors are betting big on foundational model builders.
• At number two, QuantumLeap secured a three hundred million dollar Series C at a four billion dollar valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz. QuantumLeap provides a cloud platform for quantum computing-as-a-service, aiming to democratize access to this powerful technology. The funding is earmarked for expanding their physical quantum computing hardware and making it more accessible for enterprises to tackle complex problems in fields like materials science and drug discovery. This move positions them as a key infrastructure player in the emerging quantum era.
• In the fintech space at number three, FinSecure raised one hundred fifty million dollars in a Series B led by Insight Partners. This brings the company's valuation to one-point-two billion dollars, officially granting it unicorn status. FinSecure offers an AI-powered platform for real-time fraud detection and prevention for financial institutions. With cyber threats becoming more sophisticated, investors are backing their predictive analytics capabilities. The capital will be used to enhance their machine learning models and expand their client base among banks and payment processors.
• Coming in at number four is HealthSphere, with a one hundred twenty million dollar Series B round led by General Catalyst. The deal values the healthtech company at nine hundred million dollars. HealthSphere operates a personalized health monitoring platform that uses data from wearable technology and AI to provide users with real-time health insights. This new capital will fuel the expansion of their platform's capabilities, aiming to integrate more biometric data points and partner with more healthcare providers to shift the focus from treatment to preventative care.
• The fifth spot goes to CodeWeaver, a developer tools company, raising an eighty million dollar Series A. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, which values the startup at four hundred million dollars. CodeWeaver is building an AI-powered code generation and assistance tool designed to make software developers more productive. The funding will be used to support more programming languages, deepen integrations with popular development environments like VS Code and GitHub, and scale their go-to-market team to capture the growing demand for AI-native developer tools.
• In climate tech, GigaFactory lands at number six with a seventy-five million dollar Series C led by Coatue, valuing the company at one-point-five billion dollars. GigaFactory builds and operates large-scale facilities for the direct air capture of carbon dioxide. This is a critical technology in the global effort to combat climate change. This investment will directly fund and accelerate the construction of their next-generation carbon capture plant, which promises higher efficiency and lower costs, a key step towards making the technology economically viable at scale.
• At number seven, we have enterprise SaaS company NexusFlow, which closed a sixty million dollar Series B. The round was led by Accel and values the company at five hundred million dollars. NexusFlow provides a workflow automation platform that helps enterprise teams streamline their processes without extensive coding. As businesses continue to seek efficiency gains, the demand for automation tools is surging. This funding will be used for further product development and to significantly scale their sales and marketing efforts to capitalize on this growing market.
• In the biotech sector, BioGenomix is number eight, raising a fifty million dollar Series A led by Flagship Pioneering. The round values the company at two hundred fifty million dollars. BioGenomix is another company leveraging AI, but for drug discovery and development with a focus on personalized medicine. By analyzing genomic data at an unprecedented scale, their platform aims to identify novel drug targets more efficiently. This investment will enable the company to advance its current pipeline of drug candidates and further expand its AI-driven discovery platform.
• Rounding out the list are two smaller but notable rounds. At number nine, CyberGuardian raised a forty million dollar Series A led by Kleiner Perkins for its AI-powered cybersecurity platform. And in the tenth spot, CreatorSphere, a platform for the creator economy, closed a twenty-five million dollar Seed round led by Forerunner Ventures. The CyberGuardian deal, valued at two hundred million dollars, targets advanced persistent threats, while CreatorSphere's funding, at a seventy-five million dollar valuation, will help it build out monetization tools for content creators.
• That's the top ten for today. Looking ahead, one thing to watch is the rise of 'vertical AI'. While general models like Sentient's attract huge checks, we're seeing a growing trend of startups building highly specialized AI for specific industries like law and finance. Expect to see more Seed and Series A funding for these focused companies in the coming months as they find strong product-market fit. That’s all for today’s deal flow. We'll be back tomorrow afternoon at three PM Pacific with the next top ten.