Top Startup and Tech Funding News – September 30, 2025
Nickie Louise
Posted On September 30, 2025
It’s Tuesday, September 30, 2025, and we’re back with the top startup and tech funding news stories shaping the day. From billion-dollar AI hardware bets to healthtech, fintech, and defence drones, investors are spreading capital across both frontier deep tech and fast-scaling SaaS platforms.
Today’s highlights include Cerebras Systems’ $1.1 billion Series G at an $8.1 billion valuation, Rebellions’ $250 million Series C to fuel its next-gen AI chips, and Periodic Labs’ record-breaking $300 million seed round to build autonomous AI labs. Healthtech also made waves with Assort Health’s $76 million Series B to scale its patient access platform, while Modal Labs hit unicorn status with an $87 million raise for its serverless AI infrastructure.
Funding Highlights
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Cerebras Systems raised $1.1 billion in Series G funding to expand AI chip manufacturing and data center capacity.
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Periodic Labs secured $300 million in seed funding to pioneer autonomous AI-driven science labs.
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Rebellions closed a $250 million Series C to accelerate production of its Rebel-Quad AI chip.
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Assort Health landed $76 million in Series B to expand its AI-powered patient access suite.
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Modal Labs raised $87 million in Series B funding, valuing the startup at $1.1 billion.
Investor Activity
The day’s financings drew participation from some of the biggest names in venture and strategic investing — including Andreessen Horowitz, Lux Capital, Fidelity, Samsung Ventures, Arm Holdings, Nvidia, and DST. Angels such as Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt also doubled down on frontier bets like Periodic Labs. Meanwhile, investors across Asia and India pushed capital into financial data, defence tech, and spiritual-tech platforms, highlighting the breadth of startup innovation attracting capital today.
Together, these rounds underscore sustained conviction in AI infrastructure, semiconductor innovation, healthtech automation, and emerging-market fintech — sectors that continue to command attention and investment at both early and late stages.
Here’s the full breakdown. Until tomorrow, have a great evening.
Periodic Labs Raises $300M in Seed Funding to Build Autonomous AI Laboratories
Periodic Labs, a startup founded by former OpenAI VP Liam Fedus and ex-DeepMind lead Ekin Dogus Cubuk, closed a record-breaking $300 million seed round on Tuesday. The funding, one of the largest seed rounds ever, was backed by top-tier investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, and Google’s Jeff Dean.
Periodic Labs is developing fully autonomous “AI scientists” – robotic labs that conduct physical experiments to discover new materials and superconductors. This massive capital infusion will enable the startup to build specialized robotics, laboratory equipment, and computing infrastructure for end-to-end scientific discovery, potentially revolutionizing research in materials science and energy.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Periodic Labs
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Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (lead), Nvidia, DST, Accel, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean
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Amount Raised: $300 million
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Total Raised: $300 million (first round)
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Funding Stage: Seed
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Assort Health Raises $76M in Series B Funding to Accelerate AI-Powered Patient Platform
Assort Health, a San Francisco-based healthtech startup specializing in agentic AI for patient access, has raised $76 million in a Series B funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company’s platform uses AI agents to automate patient scheduling, follow-ups, prescription renewals, and other care interactions.
The new funding, which brings Assort Health’s total raised to $102 million, will fuel the expansion of its engineering and product teams and accelerate the development of its comprehensive patient experience suite, Assort OS. Existing backers Felicis, First Round Capital, Chemistry, A*, Liquid 2, and Quiet Capital also participated in the round. Co-founders Jon Wang and Jeff Liu say the Series B will help them scale Assort OS across thousands of provider practices, improving the healthcare journey for millions of patients.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Assort Health
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Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners (lead), Felicis, First Round Capital, Chemistry, A*, Liquid 2, Quiet Capital
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Amount Raised: $76 million
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Total Raised: $102 million
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Funding Stage: Series B
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
StackGuardian Raises in $10M Series A Funding to Expand AI-Driven Infrastructure Platform
StackGuardian, a European startup offering an AI-driven cloud infrastructure automation and orchestration platform, secured $10 million in Series A funding. The round was led by TIN Capital, with participation from existing investors Volta Ventures and InvestLink. StackGuardian’s platform enables enterprises to offer secure, compliant self-service infrastructure provisioning, and the new capital will support its expansion across Europe and the U.S., as well as continued enhancement of its AI capabilities.
Co-founder Karl Driesen said the funding “enables us to scale our go-to-market efforts, support our growing global customer base, and accelerate innovation, especially in AI.” Established in 2022, StackGuardian’s customers include Siemens, RheinEnergie, and Bpost, and the Series A will fuel further growth in this enterprise segment.
Funding Details:
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Startup: StackGuardian
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Investors: TIN Capital (lead), Volta Ventures, InvestLink
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Amount Raised: $10 million
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Total Raised: $10 million
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Funding Stage: Series A
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
VAMA App Raises $2.7M in Pre-Series A Funding to Expand Spiritual-Tech Platform
VAMA, an Indian spiritual-tech startup offering a virtual platform for religious and wellness services, raised ₹22 crore (approximately $2.7 million) in a pre-Series A round. The round was led by Wavemaker Partners and included participation from global VC fund 500 Global, Sadev Ventures, Venture Catalysts, Silverneedle Ventures, and a group of angel investors.
VAMA plans to use the capital to expand its product offerings into spiritual e-commerce and offline spiritual travel, deepen its platform features, and launch services catering to India’s global diaspora. Co-founder Manu Jain stated that the funding and marquee backers will help VAMA build “for scale,” entering new categories and markets and strengthening its positioning as a comprehensive faithtech provider.
Funding Details:
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Startup: VAMA (spiritual-tech platform)
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Investors: Wavemaker Partners (lead), 500 Global, Sadev Ventures, Venture Catalysts, Silverneedle Ventures, plus angels including Alok Nanavaty, Harit Nagpal, Swati Parikh, Mahesh Kamdar
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Amount Raised: ₹22 crore (~$2.7 million)
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Total Raised: ₹22 crore (first round)
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Funding Stage: Pre-Series A
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Unmannd Raises $2M in Pre-Seed Funding for Autonomous Drone Defense Tech
Unmannd, an Indian defence technology startup developing autonomous drones for contested environments, announced roughly $2 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Speciale Invest and included Accel as a key investor. Unmannd’s drones integrate custom compute hardware, AI-driven autonomy, mesh networking, and aerospace-grade avionics to operate in unpredictable conditions.
The new financing will accelerate commercial development of its aerial logistics platform, Titan, and its Fury counter-UAS interceptor system, as well as support hiring and readiness for international sales. Co-founder Yeshwanth Reddy said the funding enables Unmannd to build “smarter” drones that operate in places others cannot.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Unmannd
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Investors: Speciale Invest (lead), Accel
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Amount Raised: ~$2 million
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Total Raised: $2 million (first round)
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Funding Stage: Pre-seed
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Ignosis Raises $4M in Pre-Series A Funding to Boost Financial Data Intelligence
Ignosis, a Bengaluru-based enterprise infrastructure startup focused on financial data intelligence, has raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round. The funding was led by Peak XV’s Surge fund, with participation from Force Ventures, Razorpay Ventures, Kunal Shah (founder of Cred), and existing investors. Ignosis provides an Account Aggregator platform and AI-driven analytics to help banks and financial institutions underwrite risk and serve India’s 160+ million credit-underserved consumers and MSMEs.
The new capital will scale Ignosis’s engineering, business, and compliance teams and help expand its platform across India. Co-founder Nirav Prajapati noted that account aggregation is poised to become the default rails for financial data sharing in India, similar to UPI for payments.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Ignosis
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Investors: Peak XV Surge (lead), Force Ventures, Razorpay Ventures, Kunal Shah (Cred), and existing backers
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Amount Raised: $4 million
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Total Raised: $4 million (first round)
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Funding Stage: Pre-Series A
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Modal Labs Raises $87M Series B at Unicorn Valuation
Modal Labs, a New York-based serverless AI infrastructure startup, closed an $87 million Series B round led by Lux Capital. The round values the company at about $1.1 billion and brings Modal Labs’s total funding to roughly $110 million. Founded by Akshat Bubna and Erik Bernhardsson, Modal’s cloud platform enables developers and enterprises to build and run AI applications without managing servers.
The Series B proceeds will support Modal Labs’s continued expansion and further development of its platform for AI/ML workloads. CEO Erik Bernhardsson said the capital raises Modal to “unicorn status,” reflecting strong demand for scalable AI infrastructure.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Modal Labs
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Investors: Lux Capital (lead)
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Amount Raised: $87 million
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Total Raised: $110 million
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Funding Stage: Series B
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Rebellions Raises $250M in Series C Funding for Next-Gen AI Chips
Rebellions, a South Korean semiconductor startup, announced a $250 million Series C round on Tuesday. The investment included strategic participation from Arm Holdings and Samsung Ventures, alongside existing investors Korea Development Bank and Korelya Capital. Rebellions is developing modular AI accelerators, including its new Rebel-Quad chiplet-based AI accelerator.
The fresh funding will accelerate production of the Rebel-Quad, which is designed for high-end AI inference workloads. The round values Rebellions at about $1.4 billion post-money. Sungkyue Shin, CFO of Rebellions, said the investment marks an important milestone in the company’s journey from a national AI chip champion to a leading Asia-Pacific AI semiconductor player.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Rebellions
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Investors: Arm Holdings, Samsung Ventures, Korea Development Bank, Korelya Capital
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Amount Raised: $250 million
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Total Raised: $250 million (Series C)
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Funding Stage: Series C
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
DataJoint Raises $4.9M in Seed Funding to Advance AI Data Management
DataJoint, a Barcelona- and Salt Lake City-based startup, closed a $4.9 million seed round to scale its AI-driven data management platform. The round was co-led by Nina Capital, Inoca Capital Partners, and Capital Factory, reflecting interest from Europe and the U.S. DataJoint provides a computational database that enables researchers in neuroscience, oncology, and systems biology to harmonize large multimodal datasets and build complex AI/ML workflows.
The new funding will help the company expand its SaaS platform, hire additional engineering talent, and reach new life science and pharma customers in Europe and North America. CEO Jim Olson said the investment will allow DataJoint to accelerate innovation in lab data management and scientific research.
Funding Details:
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Startup: DataJoint
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Investors: Nina Capital, Inoca Capital Partners, Capital Factory (co-leads)
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Amount Raised: $4.9 million
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Total Raised: $4.9 million (first round)
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Funding Stage: Seed
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Cerebras Systems Raises $1.1B in Series G Funding at $8.1B Valuation
Cerebras Systems, a Sunnyvale startup making high-performance AI chips and supercomputers, has closed a massive $1.1 billion Series G round. The oversubscribed round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Atreides Management, with participation from Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, 1789 Capital, Altimeter Capital, Alpha Wave, and Benchmark. The funding brings Cerebras’s valuation to about $8.1 billion. Cerebras plans to use the proceeds to expand its AI processor and system R&D, increase U.S. manufacturing capacity, and grow its data center footprint to meet surging demand.
Andrew Feldman, Cerebras co-founder and CEO, said the round underscores investor confidence in Cerebras’s mission to make AI inference dramatically faster. The company’s Wafer-Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3) chips already deliver more than 20× faster inference performance than leading GPUs, and customers, including AWS, Meta, IBM, and others, are deploying Cerebras solutions for large-scale AI workloads.
Funding Details:
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Startup: Cerebras Systems
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Investors: Fidelity Management (lead), Atreides Management, Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, 1789 Capital, Altimeter, Alpha Wave, Benchmark
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Amount Raised: $1.1 billion
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Total Raised: $1.1 billion (Series G)
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Funding Stage: Series G
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Funding Date: September 30, 2025
Tech Funding Summary Table
| Startup | Investors (Lead & notable) | Amount Raised | Total Raised | Stage | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Periodic Labs | Andreessen Horowitz (lead), Nvidia, DST, Accel, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean | $300M | $300M | Seed | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Assort Health | Lightspeed (lead), Felicis, First Round, Chemistry, A*, Liquid 2, Quiet Capital | $76M | $102M | Series B | Sep 30, 2025 |
| StackGuardian | TIN Capital (lead), Volta Ventures, InvestLink | $10M | $10M | Series A | Sep 30, 2025 |
| VAMA App | Wavemaker Partners (lead), 500 Global, Sadev Ventures, Venture Catalysts, Silverneedle Ventures, angels | ₹22 Cr (~$2.7M) | ₹22 Cr (~$2.7M) | Pre-Series A | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Unmannd | Speciale Invest (lead), Accel | ~$2M | ~$2M | Pre-seed | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Ignosis | Peak XV Surge (lead), Force Ventures, Razorpay Ventures, Kunal Shah, others | $4M | $4M | Pre-Series A | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Modal Labs | Lux Capital (lead) | $87M | $110M | Series B | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Rebellions | Arm Holdings, Samsung Ventures, Korea Development Bank, Korelya Capital | $250M | $250M | Series C | Sep 30, 2025 |
| DataJoint | Nina Capital, Inoca Capital, Capital Factory | $4.9M | $4.9M | Seed | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Cerebras Systems | Fidelity Management (lead), Atreides, Tiger Global, Valor Equity, 1789 Capital, Altimeter, Alpha Wave, Benchmark | $1.1B | $1.1B | Series G | Sep 30, 2025 |
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