This week, just half of the top 10 rounds crossed the $100 million mark, which is somewhat unusual in this high-flying era for venture megarounds. Nonetheless some large checks did get written, led by Amazon's $5 billion investment and partnership deal with Anthropic. Other sizable rounds went to companies in sectors including aviation autonomy, vision therapy and AI analytics. 1. Anthropic, $5B, foundational AI: AI giant Anthropic announced that Amazon is investing $5 billion in the company, with up to an additional $20 billion in the future. Previously, Amazon had invested $8 billion in the San Francisco-based company. The latest financing also includes a partnership with Amazon for training and deploying Anthropic's AI assistant Claude. 2. Reliable Robotics, $160M, autonomous aircraft: Reliable Robotics, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems, raised $160 million in fresh financing led by Nimble Partners. The 9-year-old, Mountain View, California-based company markets its technology for both commercial and defense aviation....

The largest compute cluster currently in orbit was launched by Canada's Kepler Communications in January, and boasts about 40 Nvidia Orin edge processors onboard 10 operational satellites, all linked together by laser communications links. Experts expect that we won't see large-scale data centers like those envisioned by SpaceX or Blue Origin until the 2030s. The first step will be processing data that is collected in orbit to improve the capabilities of space-based sensors used by private companies and government agencies. Kepler doesn't see itself as a data center company, but as infrastructure for applications in space, CEO Mina Mitry tells TechCrunch. It wants to be a layer that provides network services for other satellites in space, or drones and aircraft in the sky below. Sophia, on the other hand, is developing passively cooled space computers that could solve one of the key challenges for large-scale data centers in orbit: keeping powerful processors from overheating without having to build and launch heavy, expensive active-cooling systems....

While no billion-dollar rounds led this week's list, we nonetheless saw a variety of startups in industries ranging from semiconductors to aerospace to biotech raise sizable rounds. The week's biggest deal was $400 million for SiFive, a semiconductor startup challenging incumbent Arm Holdings with chip designs built on an open rather than proprietary standard. 1. SiFive, $400M, semiconductors: San Mateo, California-based semiconductor startup SiFive raised a $400 million Series G round led by Atreides Management. SiFive makes the blueprints used by companies such as Alphabet to develop their own internal chip designs, on an open standard called RISC-V. CEO Patrick Little told Reuters he expects the raise to be SiFive's last funding round before an IPO, though didn't say when an offering would take place. 2. Hermeus, $200M, aviation: Hermeus, an El Segundo, California-based startup developing autonomous military aircraft, raised $200 million in equity in a Khosla Ventures-led round. The company, which is developing what it says will be the fastest unmanned defense aircraft, also raised $150 million in debt as part of the round, which pushes its valuation to $1 billion. Other investors in the deal include Socium Ventures, RTX Ventures, Karman Ventures, Founders Fund, IQT and Cox Enterprises....

The programme, branded 'Equator', will acquire commercial aircraft leased to airlines worldwide, building a diversified portfolio across geographies, counterparties, and aircraft types. Blackstone will provide capital across the structure, while DAE will originate and manage assets through its Aircraft Investor Services platform. Aneek Mamik, Senior Managing Director at BXCI, said, 'We are pleased to expand our aviation capabilities alongside DAE, a leading aircraft lessor with deep technical expertise and longstanding relationships with airlines and OEMs,' and added, 'This program underscores BXCI's focus on deploying flexible capital into high-quality investments backed by hard assets.' Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....