Startup investors were busily closing on big rounds this week, with AI and defense among their favored target sectors. The biggest financing went to Castelion, a defense tech startup developing a hypersonic missile. Other sizable rounds went to companies developing AI inference technology, a video-creation platform, data centers and voice-to-text tools. 1. Castelion, $800M, defense tech: Castelion, a defense tech startup developing a hypersonic strike missile, raised new Series C funding consisting of $800 million in equity capital along with $250 million in debt financing. JPMorgan Chase, Andreessen Horowitz and Carlyle led the equity financing, which set a $13 billion valuation for the Torrance, California-based company. 2. Etched, $700M, semiconductors: San Jose, California-based Etched, a developer of inference clusters to accelerate AI computing, secured $700 million in a new funding round led by Jane Street and joined by a long list of prominent investors. The financing set a...
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