It is no shock to see the company that tops this list — a $6.6 billion raise makes a lot of headlines. However, it was far from the only big round this week, as seven of them topped $100 million — including $500 million for yet another AI company.

In total, investors put $40.5 billion into startups across all stages in Q3. That’s a decline of 10% from the prior quarter and an increase of 22% from year-ago levels.

The most obvious takeaway from a quick glance of funding numbers for the just-completed third quarter is that investors still can’t get enough of AI.

Global venture funding in the third quarter of 2024 reached $66.5 billion, Crunchbase data shows. That’s down 16% quarter over quarter and 15% year over year from the $78 billion invested in Q3 2023.

OpenAI has announced its long-awaited raise of $6.6 billion at a post-money valuation of $157 billion led by Thrive Capital.

Poolside, an AI coding startup based in San Francisco, closed a $500 million Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures.

There's been a major shift away from the SaaS pricing model toward a new era of value-based pricing, writes startup adviser Itay Sagie. He offers three points for startup founders to consider to adapt to what could be a seismic shift for the software industry.

The likes of GV, Salesforce Ventures and M12 top the list so far this year in terms of rounds led or co-led by U.S.-based corporate ventures — including massive bets in AI, healthcare and the cloud.

Lightspeed Venture Partners — an investor in the likes of Snap, Nest and Stripe — is raising money for three new funds that would total about $7 billion.

Starting a company is equal parts thrilling and daunting, writes Rob Biederman of Asymmetric Capital Partners, who shares four insights he wishes he'd known when embarking on the startup path.