The Three Biggest Checks This Week Came From Nowhere Near Venture Capital

This Week's Main Story · Beyond Venture Capital

This Week's Guide

This week's SVTR AI Venture Capital Activity Index is 154.2, up 9.4 points from last week, and 54.2% higher than the median level in 2025. Among the four sub-items, the capital inflow index is the strongest at 283.5, while the institutional participation index is still below the base period level at 89.6.

This week, the SVTR AI Venture Database recorded 83 financing events, with a total disclosed amount of approximately $7 billion, of which $4.5 billion was raised by Nscale and Fluidstack, two computing power companies. Nscale's $3 billion is not equity financing, but two project-based loans, led by J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, respectively, and both received investment-grade ratings.

In the same week, NVIDIA announced the acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, a transaction that is nearly twice the total financing amount for the week. On the Chinese side, Enflame Technology submitted its application for listing on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board on September 2, with Tencent, its largest shareholder, contributing 83.79% of its revenue last year.

SVTR Private Signal · Not Investment Advice

This week's highlights:

• Nscale (★ evaluated, approximately $3 billion in project-based loans, with two parks in Texas and North Carolina, both receiving investment-grade ratings)

• Fluidstack (★ evaluated, $1.5 billion in financing, led by Jane Street, valued at $18 billion, up from $7.5 billion two months ago)

• Tripo AI (★ evaluated, ranked third in the startup list this week, with no new financing events)

The complete list can be found in the AI Venture Capital Daily.

I. Community Dynamics

① Entrepreneurial Dynamics

Two new projects were added to the in-progress projects this week. One is a software engineering company that develops basic models and has a research office in Paris. The other is Bimotal, which designs and manufactures robotic actuators in Berkeley and has achieved positive revenue. All projects on the list have been evaluated by SVTR, and the complete list can be found in the Curated Project Library (for certified investor members).

New founders who joined the community this week are focused on embodied intelligence and world models in China.

• One team is developing a behavioral world model for embodied intelligence, which has signed strategic cooperation agreements with several leading companies, focusing on automotive and logistics.

• Another team is developing an interactive AI world with causal chains, which will be sold to players, creators, and model manufacturers.

• There are also three teams: one is upgrading its financial data distribution network to a data routing layer, another is developing scenario-based AI wearables for front-line personnel, and the third is working on contract management.

• In Silicon Valley, a consumer hardware company founded by Amazon and Google alumni has joined the community, with products that have won CES awards.

② Investment Dynamics

New institutional investors who joined the community this week come from Xinwei Capital, with a focus on hard technology and embodied intelligence, consistent with the direction of investment in China.

On the ecosystem side, an industrial park joined the community this week, and several industry and research professionals with a background in cooperation opportunities also entered the community.

③ Product Updates

• Is the AI venture capital market hot or not? Now there's a number: The SVTR AI Venture Capital Activity Index (SVTR VAI) has been launched as an independent page, with a weekly update, calculated from four items: financing events, capital inflow, institutional participation, and track expansion, with a base period of 100 in 2025. The 173rd period is 154.2, up 54.2% from the base period and 9.4 points from last week.

• After logging in to your My SVTR account, you can see which institutions are following your company: Founders can check which institutions have viewed their projects and decide which institutions can see their projects.

II. Market Observation

① IPO/Listing Dynamics

*For rumored or unfinished transactions, not included in this week's statistics and capital graph.

• The only company that completed the issuance process this week is Enflame Technology. Its prospectus contains a set of notable numbers: Tencent holds 20.26% of the shares as the largest shareholder and is also the largest customer, with revenue contributions from Tencent increasing from 33.34% to 83.79% from 2023 to 2025.

• PlusAI is another example: in June 2025, it negotiated an estimated valuation of $1.2 billion with Churchill Capital IX, but the transaction was terminated in April this year, and this time it is trying again with an estimated valuation of $800 million. The same company, the same autonomous trucking business, and the price offered by the public market has dropped by nearly a third in 14 months.

② Ongoing Financing (Rumored/Not Closed)

The first two are in the tens of billions of dollars, one for computing power and the other for models.

• If Crusoe is traded at $30 billion, it will be on par with Fluidstack ($18 billion) and Nscale, and the three will be in the same tier, while two years ago they were not on the list of most institutions.
• Thinking Machines Lab was founded by Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, and has not released commercial products since its establishment. The lead investor is Accel, and the follow-on investors include NVIDIA.
• AfterQuery became the fastest unicorn in Y Combinator's history with a valuation of $32 billion, mainly providing human-annotated data for model training and evaluation.

③ Key Financing Rounds (This Week's Confirmed, by Disclosed Amount)

• Nscale's $3 billion is not a financing round, but two project-based loans with high-level guarantees: the Texas Ward County park can withdraw up to $1.85 billion, and the North Carolina Madison County park can withdraw up to $1.2 billion. J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs are the lead arrangers for the two parks, respectively, and both have received investment-grade ratings.

• In the same week, Nscale signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Figure: Nscale invested in Figure and became a shareholder, and Figure promised to purchase computing power worth $3.5 billion in the initial stage and up to $6 billion, with up to 100,000 NVIDIA graphics processing units, starting deployment in Barstow, Texas, in the second half of 2027.

• In the second tier, Gimlet Labs' $300 million Series B was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Arm and Microsoft's M12 as follow-on investors. The company is developing a cloud inference platform that supports multiple chips.

④ Strategic Acquisitions

• NVIDIA announced the acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.93 billion on September 3, with approximately $11.9 billion paid to shareholders and up to $1 billion in employee retention stock options, expected to be completed in the first half of 2027. Hugging Face has raised a total of $335 million, with 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, 18 million developers, and 200,000 companies using its platform.

• The amount of the transaction is worth comparing: it is nearly twice the total financing amount for the week.

The other five acquisitions did not disclose the amount, with targets including intelligent security, market intelligence, data engineering, and network security assets. GoPro's $285 million is an all-cash merger, with $1.14 per share.

⑤ VC Fundraising

Only two funds completed fundraising this week, the least in recent periods. Swish Ventures' $250 million third fund plans to invest in about 12 companies, with a single investment of approximately $20 million, and only does co-leading or follow-on investments.

⑥ Notable Events

In China, the main investments this week were in embodied intelligence, low-altitude flights, and fusion.

• NovaFusion's Series A was co-led by Meituan Longzhu, Hillhouse Capital, Legend Capital, and Guozhong Capital;
• NestWorks' angel round was led by HongShan, with BlueRun, Zhongding, Xiangfeng, and Yuanying as follow-on investors;
• OpenCSG's Series A was led by four Shanghai-based state-owned capital companies: Jing'an Capital, Shibei High-tech, Xuhui Capital, and Huanghai Golden Capital;
• Chasing Sky Technology's Series A was led by Hangzhou Low-Altitude Company.

There are also more than a dozen other investments, including Yobotics, Tian Gong Robot, and Mapping Vision Technology. Most of these rounds only disclosed the amount as "hundreds of millions of yuan" and were not included in the total calculation. Detailed information can be found in the AI Venture Capital Daily.

In the United States, there were two large seed rounds this week.

• AIR Security raised $50 million, co-led by Sequoia US and Greenoaks;
• Physical Superintelligence raised $58 million, led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with angel investors from OpenAI, NVIDIA, Oracle, and Hugging Face.

III. Venture Capital Research

The largest investments are no longer made by venture capital. This week, 83 financing events and approximately $7 billion in disclosed amounts were recorded, with the top two, Nscale and Fluidstack, raising a total of $4.5 billion, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total. In the same week, NVIDIA acquired Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, a single transaction that is nearly twice the total financing amount for the week. On the Chinese side, Enflame Technology is listing on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, with a proposed financing of 6 billion yuan.

We judge that the AI primary market is being layered by asset attributes, and risk capital is being squeezed into the middle layer. The bottom layer of computing power has predictable cash flow and mortgageable physical assets, so it goes to the bank, priced according to credit rather than growth; the top layer of ecological entrances has strategic value for giants, so it is acquired in cash, priced according to control rights; the middle layer, which is software and model companies that have not yet formed contractual revenue, is still the territory of risk capital, but the single investment limit is around $300 million. Judging which layer an AI company is in by looking at how it raises funds is more accurate than looking at the track label.

The complete analysis of "the target of financing on the computing power track is changing from companies to contracts" can be found in this week's Signal article "AI Computing Power Financing Targets Are Changing from Companies to Contracts".

IV. Event Preview

AI Venture Capital Conference: From Payment to Agent-Based Commerce
2026-09-12 (Saturday) · Online
Hosted by this community
Guest: Max So (Co-Founder and CEO of Bravo Technology)

From payment to agent-based commerce, discussing how AI intelligent bodies can complete a meal's discovery, booking, and payment, as well as the authorization and accounting issues that agent-based commerce needs to solve in the payment chain.

The AI Conference 2026
2026-09-29 to 10-01 (Tuesday to Thursday) · San Francisco, Pier 48
Paid
SVTR rating: 8/10

A three-day conference with a Startup Showdown session, where selected AI companies will pitch to venture capital investors on the main stage. The topics cover general artificial intelligence, large models, intelligent bodies, infrastructure, and applications.

V. Capital Graph

Firstly, the head is extremely concentrated: the top 10 financing events total $5.981 billion, accounting for more than 80% of the disclosed amount, with the top two accounting for nearly two-thirds.

Secondly, computing power has a heavy weight: the top 10 financing events include Nscale, Fluidstack, Gimlet Labs, and iPronics, with a total of $4.925 billion, accounting for 70% of the disclosed amount.

Thirdly, the Chinese long tail is not included in the total: there are more than a dozen financing events in China that only disclosed the amount as "hundreds of millions of yuan" and were not included in the total calculation. Detailed information can be found in the AI Venture Capital Daily.

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