Kling AI's $2.8B Round Leads July's $20B Startup Funding Surge

Beijing-based Kling AI raised $2.8 billion in July, the largest single startup funding round of the month, in a venture deal backed by an investor syndicate spanning Tencent, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu, Qiming Venture Partners, Legend Capital and Shenzhen Capital Group. The two-year-old generative AI creative studio, founded in 2024, builds AI-powered tools for generating images and videos and has now raised $2.8 billion in total equity funding, according to AlleyWatch's monthly ranking compiled with data from Crunchbase.

Munich defense AI maker Helsing claimed the number two spot with a $1.8 billion Series E. Founded in 2021 by Gundbert Scherf, Niklas Köhler and Torsten Reil, Helsing develops AI software, autonomous systems and defense technologies for military and government customers. The round drew Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, JPMorgan Chase & Co., CPP Investments, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, ICONIQ Capital and Prima Materia. Helsing has raised $3.3 billion to date.

Houston-based Joulent matched that figure with a $1.8 billion venture round from a single investor: National Grid Ventures. Joulent builds large-scale energy systems delivering firm baseload power and grid integration for AI data centers and industrial loads. Its total equity funding now stands at $1.8 billion.

Travis Kalanick's robotics venture Atoms ranked fourth, raising $1.7 billion. Founded in 2016 by Kalanick and Sky Dayton, the Los Angeles company develops industrial robotics and physical AI systems. Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures backer A*, Abstract, Bain Capital Ventures, Uber and SV Angel participated. Atoms has raised $3.0 billion cumulatively.

Fireworks AI, the Redwood City platform for building and scaling applications on open-source models, closed a $1.5 billion Series D. Founded in 2022 by a six-person team including Lin Qiao, Dmytro Dzhulgakov and James Reed, Fireworks AI drew Benchmark, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, NVIDIA, Index Ventures, Insight Partners, TCV, Bessemer Venture Partners and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. Its total funding reached $1.8 billion.

Two companies raised $1.2 billion each. Ant International, the Singapore digital payments and fintech company founded in 2023, took its entire $1.2 billion Series A from Alibaba Group and Ant Group. Gilching-based Quantum Systems, which builds AI-powered eVTOL drones for defense, security and surveying, raised a $1.2 billion Series D from Advent International, Blackstone, Airbus Defence & Space, A.P. Moller Holding, Balderton Capital, Bond, Fidelity, HV Capital and Wellington Management. Quantum Systems has now raised $1.8 billion since 2015.

SambaNova raised $1.0 billion in a Series F. The Palo Alto AI inference company, founded in 2017 by Christopher Re, Kunle Olukotun and Rodrigo Liang, drew Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, BlackRock, Temasek-linked investor QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority, Intel Capital, T. Rowe Price and Battery Ventures. Its cumulative funding totals $2.5 billion.

Together AI followed with an $800 million Series C. The San Francisco cloud platform for training, fine-tuning and deploying generative AI models — founded in 2022 by Ce Zhang, Chris Re, Percy Liang, Tri Dao and Vipul Ved Prakash — raised from Vista Equity Partners, NVIDIA, General Catalyst, Aramco Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Lux Capital and Schneider Electric, bringing total funding to $1.3 billion.

Stockholm's Neko Health secured $700 million in a Series C notable for its breadth of individual backers: Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, Alexis Ohanian, Ariel Emanuel, Jimmy Iovine, Maria Sharapova and Thierry Henry invested alongside General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lakestar, Atomico, BDT & MSD Partners and Katie Haun. The preventive-health scanning company, founded in 2018 by Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, has raised $1.0 billion to date.

Marc Lore's Wonder raised $650 million in a Series D led by Accel, Google Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, AllianceBernstein and ARK Investment Management, pushing the food platform's total to $3.1 billion. Spain's Multiverse Computing raised €500 million for AI model compression and quantum-inspired optimization, with HP, Orange Ventures, Santander Alternative Investments and Tikehau Capital in the syndicate, bringing total funding to €735.5 million.

Rounding out the list: Antora Energy ($550 million Series C, with John Doerr and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, total $750 million); K2 Space ($500 million Series D for high-power satellite platforms, total $925.5 million); Munich fusion company Proxima Fusion (€411 million Series B with Google, DST Global and RWE, total €598.5 million); Meshy AI and Chai Discovery ($400 million each); Antares ($370 million for transportable nuclear microreactors); AdvanCell ($315 million for cancer radiopharmaceuticals); and four companies at $300 million — Etched, Xsight Labs, Walden Robotics and Oratomic.

The month's deals concentrated capital in AI infrastructure, defense and energy — with Kling AI's mega-round showing that Chinese generative AI platforms can still command multi-billion-dollar domestic syndicates.