July 2025 saw 50 equity deals of $100M or more going to tech companies — the highest monthly total since mid-2022.
AI companies drove the surge, accounting for half of all mega-rounds. Many are building foundation models tailored to complex real-world use cases like robotics and healthcare.
Using CB Insights’ Business Graph, our monthly Book of Scouting Reports offers an in-depth analysis of every private tech company that has raised a funding round of $100M or more, to spotlight where capital is concentrating, which startups are gaining momentum, and who’s shaping the next wave of market disruption.
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Key takeaways from July’s mega-rounds include:
- Clinical AI moves from development to scaling, with both Aidoc (a clinical AI foundation model developer) and Ambience (an AI medical scribe) having raised mega-rounds last month to build upon their early success and scale across more health systems. Last month also saw OpenEvidence and Tala Health raise $100M+ rounds to bring agentic AI solutions to clinicians, with the latter joining the fast-growing AI unicorn list.
- Investors keep betting big on the next wave of the AI boom, physical AI. Recent commercial breakthroughs in the autonomous vehicle space and heightened interest in the humanoid space are driving capital toward physical AI infrastructure. This includes robotics foundation models (Genesis AI, TARS), and hardware platforms for embodied AI model training (Galaxea AI). China-based Meituan led both the $100M Series A extension in Galaxea AI and the $125M Seed round in TARS, as it doubles down on physical AI investments.
- AI newcomers are openly taking on tech giants. Half of last month’s mega-rounds went to AI companies, which accounted for 7 of the 13 new unicorns minted during that time. Some of these companies are directly targeting incumbents such as Reka AI which positions itself as a lower-cost alternative to OpenAI or Anthropic, and Perplexity which targets Google‘s core search business with its new browser product.
- Fintech is minting a new class of financial services challengers. Fintech companies accounted for more mega-round deals than any other vertical in July, including 2 of the top 4 largest rounds. Ramp’s valuation jumped from $16B to $22.5B in mere weeks, while Bilt more than tripled in value, from $3.3B to $10.8B. Beyond fundraising, fintech leaders are pursuing aggressive expansion strategies. iCapital raised $820M last month to accelerate its acquisition strategy focused on seizing the private markets opportunity.
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