Over the last 24 hours, billions of dollars and a lead investor. In quick succession, Demis Hassabis’s Isomorphic Labs announced it had raised a $2.1 billion Series B, and very early today, Anduril announced it had closed its $5 billion Series H at a $61 billion valuation. (Thrive Capital led in both rounds, and Andreessen Horowitz additionally led for Anduril.)
I have an admittedly odd vantage point here: Two of the biggest features of my career to date have involved me spending a lot of time with Anduril and Isomorphic, respectively, a defense tech company and an AI drug discovery company. And though I will under no circumstances tell you they are the same (building drones and searching for cancer cures have wildly different financial and ethical landscapes), they also have a few things in common.
Both Anduril and Isomorphic are deeply technical companies that have risen at a time when advances in AI have not only rendered the impossible possible, but made moonshots seem earthbound. Hassabis and Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold, which won the 2024 Nobel Prize, is the foundation of the Isomorphic spinout, proof that AI could make biological vastness legible. Anduril, meanwhile, is building its business on the kind of autonomous weapons and systems that very well would have been out-of-reach twenty years ago.
When the numbers are tallied for all the venture dollars flowing into AI, though these billions will count, neither is something I would personally consider “an AI company,” whatever such a phrase means these days.
Perhaps the more salient thing Anduril and Isomorphic have in common: Both are at inflection points where, in the coming months and years, results matter more than anything else.
“On the Isomorphic side, we care about the outcome,” Hassabis told me yesterday. “First and foremost, it’s about curing diseases or making a breakthrough on a particular property we care about. We don’t care so much about the algorithm that got us there, right? It’s whatever works… Whereas when you think about AGI, you do care about the algorithm. It’s not just about winning at Go. It’s how you build it.”
Hassabis is clear: he believes AGI will usher in generational change, and that the stakes are high there, too. But when it comes to better pharmaceuticals, it’s not algorithms that matter most, it’s outcomes. This is simultaneously true in defense, particularly at a time when the U.S. is at war—Anduril has systems deployed in the Middle East right now, and they have to work.
Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf is certainly aware of this, and as Thrive partner Philip Clark recently pointed out to me: “The most important thing from here is that Anduril shows it can deliver results in tests and in combat. They’ve shown this in small ways, and it’s about the big swings from here.”
Schimpf is also building towards a future where it will be clear one way or another if Anduril has gotten results. That’s clear in an investor letter from Schimpf the company shared with Fortune.
“In our new world, the victors will be those who are best suited to deliver mass and apply advanced technologies to their future force,” Schimpf writes. “We are singularly positioned to build at scale, deploy superior software, and act with the speed that our status as a technology company affords us.”
You win wars or you lose them. You either cure intractable diseases, or you don’t. For all their differences, for both companies, the most gut-level versions of success are relatively binary—and will be visible over time.
In a way, then, Anduril and Isomorphic are both, well, isomorphic: two things that look different, but underneath it all, have a lot in common.
Term Sheet Podcast… This week, our guest is Claire Zau! With 337,000 followers and 1.6 million likes, Lightspeed Venture Partners just hired her in a role that’s never existed in venture before: New Media and Investor. We talked about the AI bubble, AI education, the gap between Silicon Valley and the general public, and why one in three Gen Zers say AI makes them angry. Watch the episode here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE CAPITAL
– Exaforce, a San Francisco-based agentic cybersecurity company, raised $125 million in Series B funding from HarbourVest, Peak XV, Mayfield, Khosla Ventures, Seligman Ventures, and AICONIC.
– Havoc, a Providence, R.I.-based developer of autonomous defense technology, raised $100 million in Series A funding from CCM Capital Markets, Clear Street LLC, Cobalt Capital, Boardman Bay Capital Management, and others.
– Monaco, a San Francisco-based AI-powered sales platform, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Benchmark led the round and was joined by Founders Fund and Human Capital.
– Embat, a Madrid, Spain-based developer of AI-powered treasury management technology, raised $33 million in Series B funding. Cathay Innovation led the round and was joined by existing investors Creandum, Samaipata, 4Founders, and Venture Friends.
– Pillar, a Milan, Italy-based developer of an AI operating system for the construction industry, raised €12 million ($14.1 million) in seed funding. Earlybird Venture Capital and Base10 Partners led the round and were joined by Italian Founders Fund.
– Knit Health, a San Francisco-based health care-native intelligence company, raised $11.6 million in seed funding from Uncork Capital, Frist Cressey Ventures, and others.
– Exponent, a New York City-based developer of finance software for multi-location franchise operators, raised $10 million across Series A and seed funding from Era, Chailease, and others.
– Regulate, a Munich, Germany-based breathwork app, raised €1.4 million ($1.6 million) in seed funding. 4impact.vc led the round and was joined by angel investors.
– Tolemy Bio, a Cambridge, U.K. and Barcelona, Spain-based simulated cell biology platform, raised €1.4 million ($1.6 million) in pre-seed funding. Norrsken Evolve led the round and was joined by others.
– Stock, a Chicago, Ill.-based supply chain technology company, raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding. M25 led the round and was joined by StoryTime Capital, Mighty Capital, LongJump, and IU Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Lafayette Instrument, backed by Branford Capital, acquired Sutter Instrument Corp., a Novato, Calif.-based scientific instrumentation equipment company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
– Rosebank Industries acquired CPM Holdings, a Blaine, Minn.-based processing equipment company, from American Securities for $2.1 billion.
– VSE Corporation acquired Precision Aviation Group, an Atlanta, Ga.-based aviation aftermarket maintenance and distribution services company, from GenNx360 Capital Partners for approximately $2 billion in cash and equity.
– Coupa, backed by Thoma Bravo, acquired Rossum, a London, U.K.-based AI document processing platform, from General Catalyst. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
– A*, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $450 million for its fund focused on seed-stage tech companies.
PEOPLE
– Shore Capital Partners, a Chicago, Ill.-based private equity firm, hired Aurelio Banda as an Executive Operating Partner. Previously, he was CEO of Turck USA.
