This week in startup funding: May 11–17, 2026

A quick read on the week, 66 deals and $9.4B raised. The highlights, not the whole list.

Biggest rounds

Anduril Industries $5B

Unknown · Hardware · United States · May 13

Anduril raised $5B in a round co-led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, nearly doubling its valuation to $61B on the back of the defense boom.

Isomorphic Labs $2.1B

Series B · Biotech · United Kingdom · May 13

Isomorphic Labs (London), the DeepMind spinout led by Demis Hassabis, closed a $2.1B Series B led by Thrive Capital, among the largest AI drug discovery rounds ever raised in Europe.

Graphcore $457M

Unknown · Hardware · United Kingdom · May 13

SoftBank injected about $457M into British chipmaker Graphcore, acquired in 2024, to relaunch its global expansion including a £1B AI campus in Bengaluru.

Cowboy Space $275M

Series B · SpaceTech · United States · May 15

Cowboy Space (California) raised $275M in a Series B led by Index Ventures at a $2B valuation, to build solar-powered orbital data centres for AI compute.

Fractile $220M

Series B · Hardware · United Kingdom · May 13

Fractile (London) raised $220M in a round co-led by Accel, Factorial Funds and Founders Fund for its specialized AI inference chips challenging NVIDIA.

Notable M&A

JustPlay $202M

acquired by NCSoft · May 13

Korea's NCSoft acquires 70% of bootstrapped Berlin gaming champion JustPlay for 202 million dollars.

Did you also notice

The week's biggest raise: Anduril Industries at $5B.
Hardware was the busiest sector with 7 rounds.
United States led on deal count with 15.

This week's funding picks May 11–17, 2026