OpenAI secured another billions, but there was capital left for other startups

This week once more brought us news regarding AI funding, in addition to some warnings: some categories and stages are showing signs of overheating. Luckily, we also spotted some cool startups – literally.

The most interesting startup stories of the week

It could also be hard to imagine, but OpenAI continues to be a startup, hence its repeated first place. There were other interesting stories this week, nevertheless.

A billion AI: OpenAI raised $6.6 billion at a post-money valuation of $157 billion, and likewise secured a $4 billion revolving credit facility and launched a brand new interface. Business apparently has asked investors to not back rivals corresponding to Anthropic and xAI, but OpenAI has not confirmed this. Meanwhile, Anthropic has hired OpenAI co-founder Durk Kingma for a distant position.

Attack of the Clones: Y Combinator faced criticism for supporting AI code editor PearAI, whose CEO apologized for cloning another YC-backed open source project without proper attribution and with a “garbled” license.

Shopping broadcast live: Live shopping app Whatnot says its annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) has surpassed $2 billion this 12 months, meaning there’s still hope for live commerce within the US

The most interesting collections this week

Some firms prefer to boost funds secretly; others even work underwater.

Deep end: Artificial intelligence coding startup Poolside raised a $500 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from eBay and Nvidia. This enabled Poolside to bring 10,000 Nvidia GPUs online to coach future models, CEO Jason Warner said.

Cool water: Barcelona-based immersion cooling startup Submer raised $55.5 million to draw more customers to its solution already utilized by hyperscalers, telecommunications firms and other large corporations.

11x meets a16zTechCrunch has learned that 11x.ai, a startup that creates AI-powered sales bots, has secured a Series B funding round of roughly $50 million led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Hidden financing: Cloud backup startup Eon has come out of hiding to disclose that it has already achieved a post-money valuation of $750 million after raising three rounds of funding, including a $77 million Series B.

More hidden financing: Series, an AI-powered generative game development platform, has quietly raised a $28 million Series A funding round from Netflix, Dell, a16z and others.

The most interesting VC and funding news this week

Pruning season: Veteran enterprise capital firm CRV returned $275 million of its $500 million late-stage Select fund to investors, citing overvaluation of mature startups. It follows the same move by India’s Peak XV, which reduced its fund size and costs amid signs of overheating.

Launching: Former Y Combinator CEO and Twitter executive Ali Rowghani is launching Maxq, a brand new enterprise capital firm with a debut fund of $250 million.

NOT bullish: Index Ventures is looking for another New York investor and plans so as to add three or 4 latest people to its local team over the following 12 months, partner Shardul Shah told TechCrunch.

No less necessary

Speaking with TechCrunch Global Managing Editor Matt Rosoff ahead of this 12 months’s Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt, New York tech investor and serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan shared his thoughts on when and if founders should sell their company. His belief: there ought to be more of them.