October 19 to 25, 2026: Flapping Airplanes, DeepSeek and Legora Lead a Week of Steep Valuation Jumps
October week 3 funding
Valuations moved fast again during the week of October 19 to 25, 2026. A one‑year‑old AI lab with no product raised a 1 billion dollar Series A, AI chip designer Tenstorrent closed a 1.5 billion dollar Series E, China's DeepSeek was reported to have raised about 15 billion dollars, and Swedish legal AI company Legora rose to an 8.8 billion dollar valuation only six months after its last round. India's funding slowed after a strong prior week, but its largest ever IPO, Jio Platforms, closed with heavy institutional demand. Here is a complete recap of the major startup and technology stories from October 19 to October 25, 2026.
AI Labs, Chips and Infrastructure Command the Largest Rounds
Flapping Airplanes Raises $1 Billion at a $6 Billion Valuation
Flapping Airplanes, a San Francisco AI research lab founded about a year ago, announced on October 21 that it had raised a 1 billion dollar Series A co‑led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital, with Sequoia Capital, GV, Kleiner Perkins, Valor, Atreides, A* and Nvidia also named as investors. Bloomberg reported a valuation of 6 billion dollars, four times the 1.5 billion dollars set in its 180 million dollar seed round nine months earlier, and total funding now stands at 1.18 billion dollars. The lab, founded by Ben Spector, Asher Spector and Aidan Smith, has no commercial product yet and is working on training models with far less data and on a GPU framework meant to cut the cost of training and inference. A few outlets mistakenly reported the valuation as 60 billion dollars, but the primary reporting points to 6 billion.
Tenstorrent Closes a $1.5 Billion Series E
AI processor and systems maker Tenstorrent announced a 1.5 billion dollar Series E led by Trace Capital and Innovation X, with Crunchbase News ranking it the largest round of the week and one tracker putting the valuation at 6.2 billion dollars. The financing lets the Santa Clara company keep funding silicon development and system builds as a private challenger to the dominant AI chip suppliers.
DeepSeek Reportedly Raises About $15 Billion
Bloomberg reported on October 22 that China's DeepSeek had raised about 100 billion yuan, or roughly 15 billion dollars, in a round whose largest backers include Tencent and battery maker CATL, with Geely, Midea and Boyu Capital also reported as participants. The target was raised at least twice during talks, from 50 billion yuan to 80 billion yuan and then to about 100 billion yuan, and one report put the valuation at 74 billion dollars before the new money. Reuters said the round was expected to close within days and that terms could still change, so the figures remain reported rather than confirmed by the company. The news followed an order from Washington for federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek technology from their systems, and DeepSeek is reportedly preparing for a mainland China listing.
ASI, Arda, Reliable Robotics, Daytona and Blacksmith Add Large Infrastructure Rounds
AI infrastructure management software company ASI raised a 325 million dollar Series C led by Spark Capital, and manufacturing automation company Arda Industries raised 232 million dollars from Accel, Altimeter Capital, Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures. Reliable Robotics raised 115 million dollars at a valuation above 1 billion dollars to take pilotless aircraft through FAA approval, while developer infrastructure startup Daytona raised 60 million dollars at a 1 billion dollar valuation. Blacksmith, which tests AI‑generated code, raised 66 million dollars at a 1 billion dollar valuation in a round led by Sequoia. Early‑stage deals included Coherence Neuro's 45 million dollar seed round from the OpenAI Startup Fund and Founders Fund for brain‑computer interface technology, and Watchtower Labs' 35 million dollar seed round to simulate military logistics plans.
Fintech and Consumer Software See Large Late‑Stage Deals
Whop Raises $200 Million at a $5.1 Billion Valuation
Creator commerce platform Whop announced on October 21 that it had raised a 200 million dollar Series D at a 5.1 billion dollar valuation, a deal that sits at the border of fintech and creator‑economy software and adds to the week's run of late‑stage rounds.
Otter.ai Secures $320 Million in Non‑Equity Financing
Meeting transcription and AI assistant company Otter.ai secured 320 million dollars in financing from General Catalyst, which TechStartups described as non‑equity, as it pushes into enterprise AI against Microsoft, Google and Zoom.
Stablecoin Card Reach Expands as Barclays Plans Job Cuts
StraitsX announced a partnership with Visa to extend stablecoin‑backed card programs to more than 100 markets, while Barclays said on October 22 that it would cut about 5,000 jobs, roughly 5 percent of its global workforce, as it uses technology including AI to lower fixed costs.
Europe Posts Big Rounds as Quarterly Funding Hits a Record
Legora Raises $550 Million at an $8.8 Billion Valuation
Stockholm based legal AI company Legora announced a 550 million dollar Series E on October 21 at an 8.8 billion dollar post‑money valuation, up from 5.6 billion dollars six months earlier when it closed a 600 million dollar Series D. Atreides Management led the round, joined by new investors Baron Capital, Capital Group, Fidelity, Glade Brook and J.P. Morgan alongside insiders including Accel, Benchmark and General Catalyst. Legora said its annual recurring revenue has passed 200 million dollars, with total funding above 1.3 billion dollars, and it plans to expand in North America, Europe and Asia‑Pacific while building its agentic operating system for legal work.
Pigment Raises $250 Million Led by the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund
Paris based planning software company Pigment raised a 250 million dollar Series E at a 2.3 billion dollar valuation, led by the Scaleup Europe Fund, the EU‑backed 5 billion euro vehicle managed by EQT, with World Innovation Labs, Greenoaks, Iconiq, IVP and Meritech participating. Nvidia's stake was described as planned rather than completed. Pigment said its annual recurring revenue has passed 100 million dollars after doubling again, and co‑founders Eleonore Crespo and Romain Niccoli plan to use the money for research and engineering. The fund previously co‑led Mistral's 3 billion euro round and was the first investor in Finnish satellite company ICEYE.
Tech.eu Tracks Over €1.5 Billion Across 65 Deals
Tech.eu counted more than 65 deals worth over 1.5 billion euros during the week, down slightly from 1.8 billion euros the week before, and reported that European tech funding rebounded to 27.8 billion euros in the third quarter on the back of billion‑euro mega‑rounds. Berlin logistics company sennder confirmed it is on track for 1 billion euros in annual revenue and full‑year profitability, and smaller rounds included Espoo based Coherence Quantum, which raised 2.78 million euros in seed funding.
India's Funding Cools While Its Biggest IPO Draws Heavy Demand
Weekly Funding Falls After a Strong Prior Week
Inc42 counted 184 million dollars raised across 17 deals between October 19 and 23, down 22 percent from the previous week, while Entrackr counted 133.9 million dollars across 15 startups from October 19 to 24, a 56 percent fall from the 302.85 million dollars it tallied before. The differences reflect varying methodologies and the treatment of a few large deals. Separately, Entrackr reported that Indian startups raised 2.9 billion dollars in the third quarter, with electric vehicles and AI driving funding.
Even Healthcare, The Pant Project and Blacksmith Lead the Rounds
Bengaluru based managed care company Even Healthcare raised 50 million dollars in a Series B led by existing investor Khosla Ventures with Alpha Wave, taking its total funding to more than 120 million dollars to support hospital expansion in Bengaluru. Mumbai based menswear brand The Pant Project raised 109 crore rupees, about 11.5 million dollars, in a Series B led by Mirae Asset Venture Investments India, with venture debt from Alteria Capital. Blacksmith's 66 million dollar round at a 1 billion dollar valuation, led by Sequoia, was counted among the week's Indian‑linked deals and created a new AI infrastructure unicorn.
AuxoAI, CureBay, TravClan and a Spread of Early‑Stage Rounds
Forward deployed AI company AuxoAI raised 20.7 million dollars in a Series A led by NTTVC, rural healthtech startup CureBay raised 100 crore rupees, and travel technology company TravClan raised 5 million dollars from Flipkart and other investors. Voice AI platform Karta AI raised 3 million dollars in a seed round led by PeerCapital and Cedar Hill, AI startup Vectorial raised 3 million dollars led by SenseAI Ventures, and Onto, a travel startup, raised a 1 million dollar pre‑seed round.
Jio Platforms' 30,213 Crore Rupee IPO Closes Heavily Oversubscribed
Jio Platforms' initial public offering, the largest in Indian history, closed on October 23 after three days of bidding, priced at 1,065 to 1,119 rupees a share. The issue was subscribed about 21 to 22 times overall depending on the source and time of the snapshot, with qualified institutional buyers bidding roughly 67 to 70 times, non‑institutional investors about 14 times and retail investors about 2.7 times. Anchor investors had taken about 8,110 crore rupees of shares beforehand. Allotment is expected on October 26 and listing on October 28.
What the Week Signals
The week reinforced how quickly the market reprices anything that looks like core AI infrastructure or an enterprise AI leader. A lab with no product quadrupled in nine months, a legal AI company rose by more than 3 billion dollars in six months, and China's leading open model developer raised more in one round than most countries' entire startup ecosystems do in a year. Europe's new Scaleup Europe Fund is now showing up as a lead investor in several of the region's biggest rounds, which may start to change how large European companies are financed. In India, the contrast between a cooling startup funding week and an oversubscribed record IPO suggests that public markets, rather than venture rounds, are driving the largest capital events heading into the final quarter.
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