I’ve never had a serious growth spurt (I’ve been extremely 5’4” since middle school).
But I’ve been thinking about growth spurts lately, because in AI there are a lot of them right now—capital throughout this year has quickly been cascading into a real but simultaneously select number of companies, with eyebrow-raising valuation jumps to boot.
There are the examples you’ve perhaps heard of, companies on which much digital ink has been spilled. Like Anthropic—which in March raised at a $61.5 billion valuation and is now at $183 billion—or Cursor, which finished 2024 with a $2.6 billion valuation and now, after two funding rounds, is valued by investors at $29.3 billion.
Over the holiday weekend, we published a story diving into who’s raising rapidly this year, and it’s far from just the OpenAIs and Anthropics of the world. Companies that have raised two or more rounds through 2025 include Reflection AI, OpenEvidence, Lila Sciences, Harmonic, Fal, Abridge, and Doppel.
And this isn’t inherently bad, to be clear—often, multiple rounds in a year is an indication of serious growth and traction. But there are factors in this equation I find myself worried about: The startups, for example, valued in the tens of billions that aren’t too big to fail as the bubble deflates and AI spending retracts. And the sheer fact of capital, that there’s more money sinking into these companies than was imaginable during the dotcom boom.
But the game of venture has always been one of big winners and big losers.
“In this type of environment, investors sometimes fall into a trap where they think every new AI model company is going to look like OpenAI or Anthropic,” Tom Biegala, founding partner at Bison Ventures, told Fortune.
“They’re assigning big valuations to those businesses, and it’s an option value on those companies becoming the next OpenAI or Anthropic,” Biegala said. But, he adds, “a lot of them are not necessarily going to grow into those valuations…and you’re going to see some losses for sure.”
I’ve never had a growth spurt, but my brother tells me they can be pretty painful.
Crystal Ball Call… It’s that time of year: Crystal Ball is back! Each year, we ask our Term Sheet readers what they believe the future holds and publish them at the beginning of January. So, you out there: Send me your predictions for 2026—especially if they’re strange, brutally honest, or really nerdy, I want to hear them (and they could be published in Term Sheet). Just send me your predictions to the email below, and include “Crystal Ball” in the subject line so I don’t miss them.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X:@agarfinks
Email:[email protected]
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VENTURE DEALS
– BlackForestLabs, a Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany-based AI image generation and editing model, raised $300 million in Series B funding. AMP and SalesforceVentures led the round.
– GravisRobotics, a Zurich, Switzerland-based automation platform for heavy machinery, raised $23 million in funding from IQCapital and ZacuaVentures.
– StirlingX, a Cambridge, U.K.-based advanced drone operations and data intelligence company, raised $11 million in a seed extension. RCMPrivateMarketsFund led the round and was joined by GALLOSTechnologies, ONE9, and angel investors.
– Minitap, a San Francisco-based AI-powered mobile development platform, raised $4.2 million in seed funding. MoxieVentures and Mercuri led the round and were joined by EWOR, TektonVentures, AmigosVentureCapital, and others.
– Ranketta, a Brno, Czech Republic-based AI visibility platform, raised £1 million ($1.3 million) in pre-seed funding. LighthouseVentures led the round and was joined by Gi21Capital.
EXITS
– Cegid, backed by SilverLake, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Shine, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based financial co-pilot platform for small businesses, from InvestcorpTechnologyPartners. Financial terms were not disclosed.
