Tenstorrent's $1.5B Series E Dominates $1.76B Crypto Funding Week

Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion Series E absorbed roughly 85.1% of the $1.7626 billion in crypto-linked venture funding announced across eight deals between October 17 and 23, 2026. The AI computing company closed the round on October 19 at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation, according to the weekly tally compiled from Crypto Fundraising, DeFiLlama and DropsTab, cross-checked against company announcements and investor disclosures. No other deal in the period came close: Whop's $200 million Series D was the second-largest transaction.

The weekly total carries caveats worth noting. It counts financing announcements, not closings — some deals completed earlier — and excludes valuations, cumulative fundraising figures and previously announced offerings. Read it as a measure of disclosed news, not cash moved.

What will Tenstorrent do with $1.5 billion?

Trace Capital and Innovation X led the Series E. Tether Investments participated, confirming its stake on October 20, alongside ARK Invest, Morgan Stanley, Sandisk, T. Rowe Price and Fidelity Management & Research Company.

Tenstorrent said the proceeds will fund large-scale deployment of its Galaxy servers and development of AI and CPU designs licensed to chipmakers. The company operates from Santa Clara and Austin. The takeaway: Tether, best known for stablecoins, is now a direct shareholder in a US semiconductor designer — but the company disclosed no revenue figures to anchor the $6.2 billion valuation.

How big is Whop after its $200 million Series D?

Whop raised $200 million on October 21 in a Series D led by Sequoia and Shopify Ventures, valuing the commerce platform at $5.1 billion — nearly $1 billion per $200 million raised, measured against earnings the company did not disclose.

Whop said the capital will fund international expansion plus research and development in payments and advertising. The platform sells digital products, subscriptions, software access and online services, with stablecoin payment capabilities linking it to crypto infrastructure.

One clarification from the data: Tether made a separate $200 million strategic investment in Whop in February at a $1.6 billion valuation. Only the October round counts in this week's total, so the valuation has risen more than threefold in eight months — a jump Whop's announcement did not explain.

Which smaller deals filled out the week?

Tether appeared in three transactions, extending its reach across banking, payments and Latin American infrastructure:

• Mural: $15 million Series A led by Tether, with North Island Ventures and existing investors. The New York company, which connects accounts, payments, identity verification and compliance, announced October 20 that cumulative funding reached $28 million. Mural said its API, launched in 2025, has processed $2.1 billion across 128 countries for customers including Deel and Opera. Its AI-agent payment controls include spending limits, approved counterparties and audit records.
• Peso: Bolivian fintech, pre-seed round led by Tether and announced October 21, aimed at expanding USDT payment infrastructure in Latin America. The amount was not disclosed.
• Erebor exposure: Robinhood Ventures Fund I disclosed a preferred-stock purchase on October 21 that closed on September 17. Erebor, which serves US technology, defense, robotics, AI and digital-asset businesses, received its full national charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and FDIC insurance in February. Deposits exceed $7 billion — excluded from the funding tally. Retail exposure runs through RVI, an NYSE-listed closed-end fund; Robinhood noted the preferred shares are securities, not insured deposits.

What do the seed-stage deals signal?

Dataline raised $10.6 million in seed funding co-led by Lattice and Dispersion Capital, with Coinbase Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Anagram and Vlad Tenev participating. The AI-agent data provider also plans a public token sale — a separate event excluded from the tally.

Nectar Group, developer of HoneyB, raised $5 million from Portal Ventures, Peer Ventures and Anchorage Digital Ventures. HoneyB pairs Bitcoin collateral with institutional-grade income strategies through coordinated custody, credit and asset management.

Solana Ventures led Hylo's $1 million strategic round, with Colosseum participating; the protocol is building leveraged tokens, stablecoin systems and yield infrastructure, separate from its earlier $1.5 million seed round.

X Pay, headquartered in the Netherlands, raised $1 million from nine investors including DCI, Credit Scend, Skyland Ventures and Zerra Ventures. It uses x402 for automated USDC payments and will spend the money on expanded blockchain support, a security audit, an API marketplace and EU compliance preparation.

Lighthouse secured additional strategic funding for persistent AI-agent memory and decentralized storage; Sonic Labs entered an OTC agreement covering roughly 13 million S tokens. Neither disclosed amounts.

The week's structure says more than its headline number: nearly all the capital chased one AI hardware bet, while crypto-native infrastructure split the remainder — with Tether, a company that discloses little about its own reserves, positioned as the common investor across them.