VC Funding Top Ten — September 23, 2026: AI Dominance, Heidi's $340M, Enterprise AI

Overview

Wednesday, September 23rd. Wall Street's term-sheet machine printed ten major rounds today, with today's biggest check going to Heidi in a massive $340 million raise. That deal gives the healthcare AI firm a $900 million post-money valuation. Total disclosed funding today topped three-quarters of a billion dollars, con

In this show

• Wednesday, September 23rd. Wall Street's term-sheet machine printed ten major rounds today, with today's biggest check going to Heidi in a massive $340 million raise. That deal gives the healthcare AI firm a $900 million post-money valuation. Total disclosed funding today topped three-quarters of a billion dollars, continuing a strong week for venture capital. Here with me to break it all down are our Markets and World analysts. The story of the day remains the absolute dominance of artificial intelligence in the funding landscape, a trend we see clearly in today's top ten.
• Let's look at the broader market snapshot. Total disclosed capital reached $754.3 million across 10 rounds. The largest, as mentioned, was Heidi's $340 million Series C. The hottest category remains AI, which captured an incredible eight of the top ten deals. In M&A, German legal publisher C.H.BECK acquired a majority stake in Noxtua, valuing the Legal-AI startup at over one hundred million euros. The story of the day is clear: AI's gravity in the venture world is only increasing, pulling in the lion's share of capital from seed stage to growth equity.
• Diving into our number one spot, Heidi's $340 million Series C was led by Blackbird and General Catalyst. The company's AI platform automates clinical documentation and other administrative burdens for doctors. This round is significant as it's split between a $100 million Series C and a $240 million growth investment, nearly doubling Heidi's valuation from just eight months ago. The capital is earmarked to expand its AI from a simple scribe into a comprehensive clinical AI partner, a much larger total addressable market.
• At number two, enterprise AI firm Brahma AI secured $150 million in a growth equity round led by Multiples, hitting a two billion dollar valuation. Brahma develops AI-native solutions for managing and analyzing audiovisual content for major industries like media, sports, and healthcare. What's telling is the market's appetite: the company reports it has already received an additional $100 million in investor demand beyond the closed round. This signals massive confidence in its enterprise content intelligence and visual AI technology stack.
• The third largest round today goes to micro1, which raised $100 million in a Series B that catapults the company to a staggering $4 billion valuation. The lead investor was not disclosed. micro1 operates in a critical part of the AI supply chain, providing the high-quality training data that AI labs depend on to build their models. With the entire industry scaling up, the demand for pristine, well-labeled data is exploding. This funding round places micro1 at the very top of a foundational and highly lucrative category.
• Coming in at number four is Firecrawl's $75 million Series B, led by Smash Capital. Firecrawl provides a developer platform for building AI agents that can crawl websites and structure the data they find. This is infrastructure for a new generation of AI applications. With an existing base of over 1.5 million developers, the company plans to use the funds to launch and expand 'Alexandria,' a new product aiming to create a comprehensive library of the world's knowledge, specifically for AI agents to learn from.
• Moving down the list, we see two notable deep tech deals outside of pure software. At number five, StandardX raised £10 million in a seed round to produce rare isotopes for medical and fusion energy applications. And at number six, American Supercritical's $8 million pre-seed will fund its work to commercialize supercritical CO2 for power generation. These rounds show that even in an AI-dominated landscape, investors are still writing checks for hard-tech innovations in critical sectors like cancer care and fusion energy.
• The intersection of AI and climate tech is highlighted in our seventh deal, as Metris secured $5 million in a seed round. The company provides an AI-powered asset management platform specifically for the renewable energy sector, helping operators optimize performance of solar and wind farms. The funding, co-led by PT1 Ventures and Octopus Ventures, will be used to enhance the platform's AI and machine learning capabilities and to support its European expansion as the continent's green energy grid grows more complex.
• At number eight, generative AI startup F13 raised $5 million in a pre-seed round led by Credo Ventures and Point Nine Capital. F13 is developing AI models that can generate precise and, crucially, editable vector graphics from text and image prompts. This technology targets a key pain point for designers and engineers who need scalable, high-fidelity graphics. In a sign of strong conviction from its backers, the company reportedly raised the round without a pitch deck, letting the early-stage technology speak for itself.
• Next up is Sol's $4 million seed round, led by a syndicate including General Catalyst and Nexus Venture Partners. Founded by former executives of Cred, Sol is building an AI platform to automate the entire workflow around email. It goes beyond simple reply drafting to handle research, document creation, and scheduling based on email content. The goal is to create an AI that doesn't just manage your inbox, but proactively executes the tasks and commitments contained within your emails, a powerful vision for productivity.
• Rounding out our top ten is Xisiid Intelligence, an AI neo-lab that raised 25 million RMB in a seed round. The company is developing what it calls a Brain-Inspired Self-Evolving Foundation System. The goal is to create AI that can learn from real-world tasks and reliably complete complex professional workflows. This represents a research-heavy push to move beyond current large language models, which can struggle with multi-step, high-stakes tasks. It's a bet on a new paradigm for more capable and reliable artificial intelligence.
• And finally, one thing to watch is The Rise of Jumbo Series A Rounds. So far in 2026, we've seen a record number of Series A deals exceeding $100 million, with a huge portion flowing into AI. This trend suggests a major shift in early-stage venture capital. Investors are no longer just seeding ideas; they are placing larger bets on early-stage AI companies they believe have a clear path to market dominance. It's reshaping the founder journey and raising the stakes for everyone. That's our show. We'll be back tomorrow afternoon at three PM Pacific with the next deal flow.