# October 25 to 31, 2026: DoorDash's $17 Billion Instacart Deal, Cohere's Record Round and a Record Crypto Heist > A complete recap of startup and tech news from October 25 to 31, 2026, covering DoorDash and Instacart, Cohere, Kalshi, the Binance hack and India's Jio listing. - **Author:** Prashant Jagtap - **Published:** 2026-11-01 - **Updated:** 2026-11-01 - **Category:** Startups - **Editorial type:** news - **Topics:** funding-roundup - **Canonical URL:** https://www.todaysstartupnews.com/news/october-25-31-2026-startup-funding-news-recap ## The final week of October 2026 closed the month with unusually large headlines. DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart for about 17 billion dollars, Canada's Cohere opened a Series E targeting up to 7 billion Canadian dollars with the federal government as an investor, Kalshi raised 1 billion dollars at a 40 billion dollar valuation, and Binance suffered what is believed to be the largest crypto theft ever recorded. India's market, meanwhile, saw Jio Platforms list at a strong premium even as weekly startup funding stayed subdued. Here is a complete recap of the major startup and technology stories from October 25 to October 31, 2026. ## Landmark Deals and Mega-Rounds ### DoorDash Agrees to Acquire Instacart for About $17 Billion DoorDash and Instacart announced on October 29 a definitive agreement under which DoorDash will acquire Instacart for 65 dollars a share, an equity value of roughly 17 billion dollars and a 26 percent premium to Instacart's closing price on October 22, the last trading day before reports of a possible deal. At least 75 percent of the consideration will be paid in cash, with Instacart holders able to elect cash, DoorDash stock or a mix, subject to limits on the stock portion. DoorDash plans to keep Instacart's brand, app and enterprise technology products, and said the combination could give Instacart customers access to more than 50,000 additional stores while merging the two membership programs. DoorDash released its third-quarter results alongside the news, reporting revenue of 4.62 billion dollars. Some coverage noted the deal faces antitrust review, and reports said closing is not expected until late 2027 or early 2028. ### Cohere Opens a Series E Targeting Up to C$7 Billion Toronto based Cohere announced on October 29 the initial close of a Series E targeting up to 7 billion Canadian dollars at a post-money valuation of 35.7 billion Canadian dollars, which the company called the largest private financing in Canadian startup history. Germany's Schwarz Group leads the round, with Bell Ventures, Bullhound Capital and the Government of Canada joining as new investors and Inovia Capital, Nvidia and Prosperity7 Ventures returning. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced in Montreal that Ottawa will invest up to about 1.6 billion Canadian dollars in stages, a commitment tied to Cohere building out computing infrastructure, with Cohere pledging at least 1.7 billion Canadian dollars of Canadian compute investment by 2030 and keeping its headquarters in Canada. Bloomberg put the valuation at about 20.5 billion US dollars before new money and the round at up to roughly 5 billion US dollars. Only an initial tranche has closed so far. ### Kalshi Raises $1 Billion at a $40 Billion Valuation Prediction market exchange Kalshi raised a 1 billion dollar Series G co-led by Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management at a 40 billion dollar valuation, up about 82 percent from 22 billion dollars in May. The company plans to use the money for leveraged event contracts, perpetual futures on individual stocks, markets based on compute prices and its institutional business, and industry reports described it as the last raise before an IPO. ### Anthropic Publicly Files Its S-1 for a Nasdaq Listing Anthropic filed a public Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26, naming ANT on the Nasdaq Global Select Market as its intended ticker, following a confidential draft filing on June 1. The filing does not give a share count or price range, and reports have suggested a valuation between 1.5 trillion and 2 trillion dollars, with a listing possible in November. The prospectus runs through extensive risk disclosures, and no official trading date has been announced. ## US Startups Add Large Late-Stage and Infrastructure Rounds ### Firehawk, Group14, Wabi and Collective Lead a Busy Second Tier Defense technology startup Firehawk Defense raised more than 150 million dollars at a valuation above 1.4 billion dollars to expand domestic rocket-propulsion and munitions production, while Group14 Technologies raised 150 million euros, about 169 million dollars, in an extension of its Series D to expand silicon battery materials manufacturing into Spain. Wabi, founded by Replika creator Eugenia Kuyda, raised 55 million dollars from IVP at a 1.25 billion dollar valuation, and Collective raised 100 million dollars from General Catalyst to run taxes and payroll for solo businesses with AI. General Compute raised a 100 million dollar Series A at an 800 million dollar post-money valuation to make AI inference cheaper with specialized processors. ### Hyphenate, Casap, Opentrons and Infisical Extend a Strong Enterprise Run Hyphenate, formerly Maximor, raised a 45 million dollar Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners and B Capital to bring AI agents into finance teams, and fintech Casap raised a 56 million dollar Series B for AI-assisted payment dispute investigation. Opentrons raised a 40 million dollar Series E led by Avego for lab robots that run AI-designed experiments, and Infisical raised a 40 million dollar Series B at a 600 million dollar valuation led by Elad Gil to secure secrets for AI agents. ## Crypto Suffers Its Largest Hack on Record ### Binance Hit by a Theft of About $6.3 Billion Binance said a security incident on October 29 affected about 6.3 billion dollars in client assets, with roughly 3 billion dollars frozen on-chain, making it the largest crypto hack on record. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimated about 5.9 billion dollars was stolen, nearly four times the next largest heist. Binance said initial findings point to a compromised engineer's laptop that gave an attacker access to a service container, that it will cover all losses, and that it paused deposits and withdrawals while it investigates. Tether froze more than 1.5 billion dollars of USDT and Circle froze more than 800 million dollars of USDC within hours, and some analysts have suggested North Korea-linked actors were behind the attack, though attribution has not been confirmed. The incident adds weight to a week in which stablecoin infrastructure and exchange security dominated crypto coverage. ## Europe Posts a Giant Chip Round and a Steady Week ### Fractile Raises GBP 577 Million Before Shipping a Chip London AI chip startup Fractile issued about 577 million pounds of Series C shares between September 9 and October 23, according to UK Companies House filings, roughly 774 million dollars. The round has not been formally announced, and it follows a 220 million dollar Series B only five months earlier. Fractile designs inference chips aimed at challenging Nvidia and has shipped no production chip yet. Bloomberg reported that Anthropic placed an initial order of about 250 million dollars of Fractile chips, with deliveries not due until 2027. ### Tech.eu Tracks Over EUR 1.3 Billion and a Strong Third Quarter Tech.eu counted more than 60 funding deals worth over 1.3 billion euros during the week, down from 1.5 billion euros the week before, plus more than 10 exits and acquisitions. Its third-quarter data showed the UK leading with 12 billion euros, about 43 percent of European funding, and AI companies attracting 6.7 billion euros, about 24 percent. Greentech Alliance acquired Intermobility to create a network of more than 5,000 members across 25 countries, London based Machenta raised a 40 million dollar seed round from Creandum and Union Square Ventures, and venture firm BY Venture Partners closed a 60 million dollar Fund III while opening a Lisbon office. ## India Sees a Strong Jio Debut and a Subdued Funding Week ### Jio Platforms Lists at a 21 Percent Premium Jio Platforms made its market debut on October 28, listing at 1,358 rupees on both the NSE and BSE, a 21.36 percent premium to its 1,119 rupee issue price. Its roughly 30,213 crore rupee IPO had been subscribed more than 21 times, and the stock's market capitalization at listing was reported at about 12.5 to 13 lakh crore rupees, making it one of India's most valuable companies. ### Weekly Funding Slips Again Inc42 counted 130.2 million dollars raised between October 26 and 30, down 29.2 percent from 184 million dollars the previous week, while Entrackr counted 115 million dollars across 28 deals from October 26 to 31, down 14 percent from 133.9 million dollars. Entrackr put the average weekly funding over the past eight weeks at about 210 million dollars across 23 deals, a level this week fell well short of. The two trackers differ because of methodology and cut-off dates. ### Cent, Simplismart, Live2.ai and Matiks Lead the Rounds Preventive healthcare startup Cent raised 15 million dollars in a Series A co-led by Blume Ventures and South Park Commons. Bengaluru AI infrastructure startup Simplismart raised a 14 million dollar Series B led by Dallas Venture Capital with Nvidia, Accel, Shastra VC and Micromax participating, and social intelligence company Live2.ai raised 130 crore rupees in a pre-Series B round led by IvyCap Ventures. Social gaming startup Matiks raised 10 million dollars in a pre-Series A round led by General Catalyst with Ronnie Screwvala and existing investors participating. ### Troovy, Rotoris, Mochatrade and Fund News Round Out the Week Snacks brand Troovy raised 100 crore rupees in a Series B led by Fireside Ventures, luxury watch brand Rotoris raised 70 crore rupees in a Series A led by Blume Ventures, and trading platform Mochatrade raised 5.5 million dollars in seed funding led by CoinFund. Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini are reportedly raising a 700 crore rupee venture fund called Longshot Capital to back AI and deeptech startups, while Ather Energy reported its first profitable quarter and SoftBank sold a 1.2 percent stake in Ola Electric. ## What the Last Week of October Signals Three patterns stood out. Consolidation is back at the top of the market, with DoorDash and Instacart joining a year already full of large acquisitions. Governments are becoming direct investors in AI, as Canada's stake in Cohere and Europe's Scaleup Europe Fund both show. And hardware keeps drawing large bets, with Fractile raising hundreds of millions before shipping a chip and Firehawk and Group14 scaling physical manufacturing. The Binance theft, by contrast, was a reminder that the infrastructure under crypto and fintech remains a target. In India, public markets again carried the week, with Jio's debut dwarfing every startup round tracked.