CrunchBase : The Week’s Biggest Funding Rounds: Food Delivery Startup Wonder Lea

The Week’s Biggest Funding Rounds: Food Delivery Startup Wonder Leads Big Week

After a slow week last week, big rounds saw a good rebound with seven startups raising $100 million or more. While food delivery led the way, it also was a good week for aerospace, AI, biotech and defense.

1. Wonder, $250M, food delivery: Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder can’t stay off this list. It was here in March, last November and in June 2022. It’s back this week as part of its $650 million acquisition of Grubhub, raising an additional $250 million in capital exclusively from new investors — which were not named. The deal price was a significant drop for Grubhub, which was bought by Just Eat Takeaway for $7.3 billion in 2021. Founded in 2018, Wonder has raised nearly $1.9 billion, per Crunchbase.

2. Metsera, $215M, biotech: It didn’t take Metsera long to get back on this list. It was just in April when the New York-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical startup emerged from stealth with $290 million in funding led by Arch Venture Partners. This week the company is back after a $215 million Series B led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and Wellington Management. The company is exploring medicines for obesity and metabolic diseases with a collection of oral and injectable incretin, nonincretin and combination therapies.

3. Writer, $200M, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Writer locked up a $200 million Series C that values the enterprise-focused generative AI platform at $1.9 billion. The new valuation is a nice uptick from the $500 million the company was valued at after a $100 million round led by Iconiq Growth last year. The new Series C was co-led by Iconiq, Premji Invest and Radical Ventures. Writer’s platform is designed to help businesses use large language models to improve workflows and offers AI solutions that can execute complex enterprise operations across systems and teams. The new cash will be used for the company’s quick-start AI applications and agents for workflows in healthcare, retail and financial services. Writer continues to grow its customer base, which includes names like Accenture, L’Oreal and Uber.

4. Firefly Aerospace, $175M, aerospace: Last year, Firefly Aerospace raised a $300 million Series C. The new cash values the company at $1.5 billion pre-money. The Cedar Park, Texas-based space transportation startup is back this week after closing a $175 million Series D led by RPM Ventures at a valuation of more than $2 billion. Firefly is getting set for its inaugural Blue Ghost mission to the moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service initiative. Founded in 2014, the company has raised $747 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Chaos Industries, $145M, defense: Defense and critical infrastructure tech startup Chaos Industries raised $145 million in a Series B led by Accel, becoming just the latest defense tech firm to see big cash from investors. The Los Angeles-based startup had previously raised a $70 million Series A led by 8VC last year. Chaos specializes in advanced detection, monitoring and communication solutions for the defense and commercial sectors. The company’s Vanquish radar provides early warning and tracking capabilities against unmanned aerial systems, missiles and aircraft. Chaos is not alone in raising a large round among funding to other defense tech startups. Just in the past three months, several defense tech startups have seen significant cash roll into their coffers. In late August, defense tech startup Parry Labs, which creates digital systems for the defense industry that include mission-critical software and advanced AI, completed an $80 million round led by Capitol Meridian Partners. In mid-September, self-driving technology company Forterra closed a $75 million Series B led by Hedosophia, Moore Strategic Ventures and XYZ Venture Capital.

6. Trace Neuroscience, $101M, biotech: South San Francisco, California-based Trace Neuroscience, which is developing treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, launched with a $101 million Series A led by Third Rock Ventures.

7. Radiant Industries, $100M, energy: Radiant Industries, which develops portable nuclear microreactors, raised a $100 million Series C funding round led by DCVC. Founded in 2019, El Sungundo, California-based Radiant has raised $160 million, per the company.

8. TRex Bio, $84M, biotech: South San Francisco, California-based TRex Bio, a biotechnology company looking to decode human tissue immune biology, locked up an $84 million Series B led by Delos Capital. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $169 million, per Crunchbase.

9. Beta Bionics, $60M, biotech: Beta Bionics, a biotech developing diabetes management solutions, closed a $60 million Series E led by new investor Wellington Management. Founded in 2015, the Irvine, California-based company has raised nearly $354 million, per Crunchbase.

10. ScaleOps, $58M, cloud: New York-based ScaleOps, a cloud resource management startup, locked up a $58 million Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Founded in 2022, ScaleOps says it has raised $80 million.

Big global deals
The biggest round of the week came from South America.
  • Argentina-based fintech company Ualá, which provides digital banking, raised a $300 million Series E at a valuation of $2.75 billion.

>>> US Close Dow -0.70% S&P -1.32% Nasdaq -2.24% Russell -1.42%

Closing Stock Market Summary
The stock market closed with solid losses. The S&P 500 fell nearly 80 points, or 1.3%. This decline left the index 1.5% higher since the election.

Many stocks contributed to index losses, sinking on concerns over interest rates and speculation that the Fed may be more cautious with rate cuts than the market previously hoped. The 10-yr note yield jumped to 4.50% in response to the October Retail Sales report, which was stronger than headline numbers suggest due to upward revisions in the September data.

Additionally, the NY Fed Empire State Manufacturing survey jumped to 31.2 in November, its highest level in nearly three years, supporting the view that the economy is not signaling a need for the Fed to rush into rate cuts. These factors align with Fed Chair Powell's comments yesterday.

The market's expectations for a rate cut at the December FOMC meeting have shifted. The fed funds futures market is pricing in a 58.4% probability of a 25-basis points rate cut at the December FOMC meeting versus 72.2% yesterday and 85.5% a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Treasury yields declined from their initial post-data spike, but that didn't provide any relief to equities. The 10-yr yield settled one basis point higher at 4.43% and the 2-yr yield settled one basis point higher at 4.30%.

Large-cap technology stocks, especially semiconductor-related names, suffered outsized declines compared to the broader equity market. This downturn followed fiscal Q1 guidance from Applied Materials (AMAT 168.88, -17.12, -9.2%), a leading chip equipment maker, which failed to meet the market's more optimistic expectations.

Weakness in chipmakers and other large-cap components led the S&P 500 information technology sector to move 2.5% lower. It was the worst performing sector followed by health care (-1.9%), communication services (-1.9%), and consumer discretionary (-1.4%).

The health care sector was reacting to the news that President-elect Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., known as a vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Nasdaq Composite: +24.4%
  • S&P 500: +23.1%
  • S&P Midcap 400: +15.3%
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average: +15.3%
  • Russell 2000: +13.7%

Reviewing today's economic data:
  • The New York Fed Empire State Manufacturing Survey for November checked in at 31.2 (consensus 3.3) following a -11.9 reading for October. A number above 0.0 is indicative of expansion. The New Orders Index surged to 28.0 from -10.2.
    • The key takeaway from the report is that the November reading is the highest reading in nearly three years; moreover, firms remained optimistic that conditions would continue to improve in the months ahead.
  • Total retail sales increased 0.4% month-over-month in October (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) following an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.4%) in September. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.1% month-over-month ( consensus 0.2%) following an upwardly revised 1.0% increase (from 0.5%) in September.
    • The key takeaway from the report is that the upward revisions for September make the October results better than they appear since the growth is coming on top of a higher base. With month-over-month increases for nonstore retailers (+0.3%), food services and drinking places (+0.7%), electronics and appliance stores (+2.3%), and building materials and garden equipment and supplies dealers (+0.5%), it is clear that the consumer continues to embrace discretionary spending activity.
  • Import prices increased 0.3% month-over-month in October and were up 0.8% year-over-year. Excluding fuel, import prices were up 0.2% month-over-month and up 2.3% year-over-year. Export prices increased 0.8% month-over-month and were down 0.1% year-over-year. Excluding agricultural products, export prices jumped 0.6% month-over-month and were flat year-over-year.
    • The key takeaway from the report is that prices picked up on a monthly basis following declines in August and September.
  • Total industrial production decreased 0.3% month-over-month in October ( consensus -0.3%) following a downwardly revised 0.5% decline (from -0.3%) in September. The capacity utilization rate fell to 77.1% (consensus 77.3%) from a downwardly revised 77.4% (from 77.5%) in September. Total industrial production declined 0.3% yr/yr while the capacity utilization rate was 2.6 percentage points below its long-run average.
    • The key takeaway from the report is that industrial production in October was pressured by two extraordinary factors, but even excluding those factors, it was still relatively weak in October. The Boeing strike held down total industrial production growth by an estimated 0.2 percentage point in October while Hurricane Milton and the lingering effects of Hurricane Helene reduced industrial production growth by 0.1 percentage point.
  • September Business Inventories increased 0.1% month-over-month (consensus 0.2%) following a 0.3% increase in August.
Looking ahead, Monday's economic calendar features: November NAHB Housing Market Index (prior 43) at 10:00 ET and September Net Long-Term TIC Flows (prior $111.4 bln) at 16:00 ET.

WWD : Matthieu Blazy Emerges as a Top Contender for Chanel’s New Fashion Creativ

Matthieu Blazy Emerges as a Top Contender for Chanel’s New Fashion Creative Director
The French-Belgian designer has been creative director of Bottega Veneta since November 2021.

Chanel’s search for a new fashion creative director seems to be coming to an end.

Sources told WWD the French house intends to reveal the successor to Virginie Viard, who exited the house in June after a five-year tenure, toward mid-December.

Matthieu Blazy, who has made Bottega Veneta into one of the hottest tickets in Milan, has emerged as a new contender for the plum Paris post, the same sources said.

The designer did not return repeated calls requesting comment.

Kering officials declined all comment on Friday.

It is understood Chanel has cast a wide net, interviewing the likes of Pieter Mulier, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Jeremy Scott and Marc Jacobs, sources told WWD.

Contacted by WWD on Friday, a Chanel spokeswoman said a new creative organization would be announced “in due course” and declined further comment.

Blazy has been creative director of Bottega Veneta since November 2021, when he rose from ready-to-wear designer to succeed Daniel Lee at the design helm.

He has won consistent acclaim for collections hinged on sophisticated, grown-up chic, and haute craftsmanship.

He’s also been gaining renown as a fashion showman capable of pulse-pounding runway action and imaginative sets, which for spring 2025 consisted of beanbag chairs in 15 animal shapes.

Born in Paris in 1984, Blazy is a graduate of La Cambre in Brussels, and he started his fashion career as men’s designer for Raf Simons.

From 2016 to 2019, Blazy worked at Calvin Klein as part of the team Raf Simons brought to New York, working on the men’s and women’s collections as design director.

Before Calvin Klein, Blazy, who is a French and Belgian national, worked in the studio of Celine under then-creative director Phoebe Philo, becoming senior designer in 2014, and for four years at Maison Margiela, ultimately responsible for its couture line, dubbed Artisanal.

Chanel Fashion has been without a creative leader since the surprise departure of Virginie Viard in June after more than three decades at the house, and five at the helm following the death of Karl Lagerfeld in February 2019. Chanel’s spring 2025 collection was designed by an in-house team.

FT : Valuations at Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI set to soar in new deals

Valuations at Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI set to soar in new deals
Billionaire’s rocket builder plots huge share sale while AI start-up closes in on $5bn funding round

Two of Elon Musk’s private companies are set to secure multibillion-dollar jumps in valuation through new deals, as investors race to back the sprawling business interests of the world’s richest man.

SpaceX, the largest private company in the US, is preparing to launch a tender offer in December that will sell existing shares in the business at about $135 each, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. That would value the rocket builder at more than $250bn, up from about $210bn during a similar deal earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI has raised $5bn at a valuation of $45bn, almost double its valuation a few months ago, according to the people. The fundraising has been carried out at breakneck speed as discussions between Musk and his investors began just last month.

The double fundraising comes as Musk expands his focus beyond Silicon Valley to Washington DC, having helped to deliver the US election to Donald Trump earlier this month and becoming a key confidant to the president-elect.

On Tuesday, Trump appointed Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential hopeful, to lead a new “department of government efficiency”. It will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” and look for ways to “dismantle” bureaucracy, Trump said in a statement.

Musk’s proximity to Trump has also helped to boost the share price of Tesla, the electric vehicle-maker he runs as chief executive, by almost 30 per cent since the November 5 election.

The people close to the xAI fundraising said the deal had been “fully allocated”, meaning all of the new shares had been assigned to investors, although it will not formally close until the end of the month. They added that the deal was oversubscribed and featured only investors who had backed the start-up in its previous fundraising round.

The significant interest in xAI, which operates a ChatGPT rival called Grok, has fuelled Musk’s efforts to compete with rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

It has also already prompted speculation about a subsequent fundraising in the first quarter of next year that could value the company at as much as $75bn, according to two of the people. However, it was not yet clear if this had been communicated directly to investors by xAI.

xAI has been developing an enormous cluster of 100,000 graphics processing units, the chips used to train and run AI tools, in Memphis. The project, nicknamed Colossus, would be one of the biggest supercomputers in the world. Musk’s AI systems are likely to play a critical role across his many enterprises, which include X, Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink.

SpaceX is also likely to benefit from closeness to Trump. As well as a long-stated ambition to launch a mission to Mars, Musk wants to add to the company’s network of 6,000 low Earth orbit satellites that constitute its Starlink broadband network. The billionaire has also regularly fought battles with an array of US regulators that he believes have stymied Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

>>> US Gapping down

Gapping down
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
  • DMRC -10.4%, ASTS -10.2% (also announces launch services agreements), AMAT -8.1%, OKLO -7.6%, OKLO -7.6% (guidance), SPB -6.9%, ASND -4.2%, GLOB -3.7%, SOC -2.2%
Other news:
  • QUBT -27.3% (enters securities purchase agreement for the purchase and sale of 16.0 mln shares of common stock at $2.50 per share, priced at-the-market)
  • ALHC -14.4% (enters into privately negotiated subscription agreements with certain investors, pursuant to which it will issue $330 million principal amount of 4.25% Convertible Senior Notes due 2029)
  • HALO -5.7% (HALO confirms it made bid to acquire EVO)
  • SEDG -3.9% (Director bought 20000 shares)
  • LUNR -3.5% (filed to delay its 10-Q; has been unable to timely finalize the impact of certain immaterial prior period corrections and the impact to internal controls over financial reporting)
  • OS -3.4% (prices secondary offering of 15.0 mln shares of common stock at $31.00 per share)
  • ZG -2.3% (names new COO)
  • KGS -1.8% (prices offering of 5,708,885 shares of its common stock by selling shareholders at $34.50 per share)
  • SYNA -1.7% (prices offering of $400.0 mln of 0.75% convertible senior notes due 2031)
  • ASB -1.4% (prices offering of 12.0 mln shares of common stock at $25.00 per share)
  • NGNE -1.1% (to delay 10-Q filing)
  • HZO -1% (files mixed shelf securities offering)

>>> US Gapping up

Gapping up
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
  • DESP +10.8%, CWCO +7.2%, BABA +3.1%, AEG +2.7%, POST +1%
Other news:
  • RCAT +10.9% (files $100 mln mixed shelf securities offering; also files for 13.55 mln offering by selling shareholders)
  • MNOV +9% (Receives Notice of Allowance from United States Patent and Trademark Office for New Patent Covering MN-001 for Triglyceride Synthesis in the Liver)
  • ZLAB +7.9% (prices offering of 7,843,137 ADSs at $25.50 per ADS)
  • EVO +7.6% (HALO confirms it made bid to acquire EVO)
  • DPZ +7% (Berkshire Hathaway takes new position)
  • POOL +5.8% (Berkshire Hathaway takes new position)
  • ALMS +5% (presents data highlighting ESK-001)
  • PLTR +2.7% (to move to Nasdaq from NYSE)
  • ZURA +2.5% (submits protocol to FDA for Phase 2 study of tibulizumab)
  • CDXS +2.1% (unveils pioneering enzymatic synthesis data)
  • AUPH +1.8% (Presents New Data Underscoring Critical Importance of Earlier Lupus Nephritis Detection and Intervention and Value of LUPKYNIS)
  • NKE +1.2% (raises quarterly dividend by 8%)
  • SNY +1% (Regeneron Pharma and Sanofi (SNY) announces the FDA accepts renewed submission of Dupixent sBLA)
  • SNDL +1% (renews share repurchase program)