Top 5 VC Deals of the Week in AI (11/1/25)

By
Christopher Robbins
-
1049

This week we continue our series on the top 5 VC-funded deals in AI.

This week’s venture capital funding announcements rebound to their previous momentum, with four transactions in excess of the $100 million threshold and one crossing the $1 billion mark.

The top reported deal, per FinSMEs, came from San Francisco-based Crusoe, which raised a $1.375 billion Series E, pushing it above $10 billion in valuation. Crusoe is an AI infrastructure provider “that leverages a vertically integrated model that spans across rapid energy sourcing, AI-optimized data center design and construction, and a high-performance AI cloud platform,” according to its announcement. Our second announcement comes from the AI development space where Mercor, also headquartered in San Francisco, brought in a $350 million Series C to “expand operations and its development efforts,” according to its announcement. The top five also included companies in the AI inference and security sectors.

Smaller funding raises that did not quite make our top 5 this week included announcements from the enterprise AI, fintech and agritech spaces.

Below, we highlight the top five venture capital deals, ranked from the highest to the lowest funding amounts, showcasing the companies at the forefront of the AI revolution…

Top 5 Venture Capital Deals from Oct. 23-Oct. 2

1. Crusoe

  • Location: San Francisco, CA and Denver, CO

  • Description: An AI factory company focused on powering compute-intensive workloads by using stranded or wasted energy.

  • Funding Amount: $1.375 billion

  • Funding Round: Series E

2. Mercor

  • Location: San Francisco, CA

  • Description: A platform that connects AI labs with a global network of experts to help train and fine-tune AI models.

  • Funding Amount: $350 million

  • Funding Round: Series C

3. Fireworks AI

  • Location: Redwood City, CA

  • Description: Provides an AI inference cloud designed for production-grade AI applications, enabling scalable and efficient model deployment.

  • Funding Amount: $250 million

  • Funding Round: Series C

4. Sublime Security

  • Location: Washington, DC

  • Description: Developer of an agentic email security platform that autonomously detects and mitigates email threats using AI.

  • Funding Amount: $150 million

  • Funding Round: Series C

5. ConductorOne

  • Location: San Francisco, CA

  • Description: An AI-native identity security platform helping enterprises automate and secure access controls across cloud infrastructure.

  • Funding Amount: $79 million

  • Funding Round: Series B

Make sure to check out our Top 5 VC Deals of the Week in AI right here!

Written & Researched by DWN Staff
VC Deals Synopsized by ChatGPT
Research Source: FinSMEs

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