In short
Episode topic: Recap of top US AI startups that raised $100M+ in 2025, plus commentary on what the funding trend says about AI maturity.
Guests
No named guests; the hosts discuss with “Jamie” (co-host) and “Jaden” (another speaker). Guest/backgrounds: Jamie is an AI business operator who uses ElevenLabs and Together AI; Jaden provides commentary on regulated-industry AI (healthcare).
Key claims
2025 matches 2024’s count of $100M+ rounds, with more multi-round, >$100M raises.
Notable examples
ElevenLabs raised $180M Series C (valuation >$3B) led by a16z, Sequoia, NEA, Salesforce Ventures, etc. Hippocratic AI raised $141M Series B (valuation >$1.6B) and later $126M Series C (valuation $3.5B), positioning “safest healthcare generative AI agents” as HIPAA-compliant alternatives to ChatGPT. Together AI raised $305M Series B (valuation $3.3B), offering hosted access to open-source models on its own GPUs via an API; investors include General Catalyst, Salesforce Ventures, and NVIDIA.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to AI Funding
1:04 to 2:28
Discussion about top AI companies raising over $100 million.
“And we're going to do that again this year because the list has changed.”
Eleven Labs Funding Overview
2:28 to 3:33
Analysis of Eleven Labs' Series C funding and its valuation.
“All right, let's talk about the top US AI startups that have raised$100 million or more in 2025.”
Hippocratic AI Series B Success
3:33 to 4:34
Exploration of Hippocratic AI's funding and its significance in healthcare.
“So you can imagine Eleven Labs has made a lot of progress.”
February's Together AI Funding
4:34 to 6:38
Discussion on Together AI's significant Series B funding round.
“They are a AI healthcare company, which I think is a really fascinating industry.”
Future of AI Companies
6:38 to 9:21
Wrap-up of the episode discussing future episodes and AI companies.
“So, I mean, it's not like they were able to raise an insane amount more, but I mean, come on.”
Transcript
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1:22So we're going to cover some of those today and we hope that you take away a lot from them. Before we get into that, Jamie, why don't you tell them about our school community? Yeah, every single week, Jamie and I record a bonus piece of content we post over on our school community. It's exclusive over there. It's$19 a month and you get access to over 60 videos on the school community about basically every way to use AI to grow and scale your business. Our goal is that it will give you an unfair advantage in mastering AI tools and growing your side hustles and businesses with AI. So we have a discount, a Christmas discount where it's$19 a month.
1:58Usually it is much more expensive. So it's discounted. If you lock in that price, it won't ever be raised on you. And we have a whole bunch of different side hustles, businesses, what we personally are doing to grow and scale our businesses with AI. We share the stuff we don't share publicly, like the exact figures, how much money we make on different things, how much different things cost. It's all, we break it all down there on what we're doing. So if you want to go check it out, it is linked in the description. Grow and scale your business and career with AI tools on the AI Hustle School community.
2:28All right, let's talk about the top US AI startups that have raised$100 million or more in 2025. One thing that was impressive to me here is that we have officially, we're in the last, we're in the final stretch of the year. And we have already matched 2024 in terms of how many companies have raised$100 million or more. But there's also more companies that have raised multiple funding rounds that are larger than$100 million this year compared to last. So the whole industry as a whole is progressing and growing and maturing, which is an interesting trend to watch happen. So we're going to start you off with the, maybe we'll start you off with the oldest companies.
3:12So in January of this year, and then we'll work our way up to closer to this year. So in January this year, Eleven Labs raised a$180 million Series C round. So that puts them squarely over the$100 million. And that had their valuation at over$3 billion. Now this is back in January. We're about to be in January again. So you can imagine Eleven Labs has made a lot of progress. Their future rounds are much bigger. and they announced that back on January. They had this led by Iconic, Andresen Horwitz, Sequoia, NEA, Salesforce Ventures and they had a bunch of other people that were in this. Jamie, I mean, this is probably the least surprising company on this list but what's your take on 11 Labs?
4:01Yeah, I mean, I'm actually surprised that it's not more money, that their valuation's not higher because I feel like we've been talking about 11 Labs for almost two years now on the podcast. I mean, they're one of the main tools we use for, you know, we talk about in the school community about just different ways to start podcasts, make content using AI. 11 Labs is huge. So yeah, that one to me is not, it's actually a shock. And the other way, I feel like it should be, they should be raising more money and maybe they do later in the year. We'll get back into that. But the next on the list for January is Hippocratic AI.
4:34They are a AI healthcare company, which I think is a really fascinating industry. I think it's going to continue to grow as well. They raised$141 million in their Series B round on January 9th. So this valued the company more than$1.6 billion. So again, we have Andreas and Horowitz, NVIDIA, General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins, lots of VC firms there. But yeah, Jaden, Hippocratic AI, this is one of the larger players as well. Wouldn't you agree? What have you heard about Hippocratic? Yeah, I mean, I think anytime that you're in these kind of like regulated industries, like healthcare and finance and, you know, government, there is a lot of money to go around and they need a lot of very specific tools to make sure that everything is HIPAA compliant.
5:21And there's like a lot of specific regulations with a lot of this stuff. And so it's harder for just everyday companies to break into this, it feels like. Hippocratic AI has done a phenomenal job. And yeah, no shock here that they've been able to raise this much money. Specifically, they call themselves the safest healthcare generative AI agents. So they're agents that help you with everything happening inside of a hospital, everything that a doctor would need to chat with. Yes, you could chat with ChatGPT, but it's not HIPAA compliant and you can't share your client's personalized information with it.
5:58There's all these different issues that will stop it. And so by using something like Hippocratic AI, you avoid all of those problems. And they basically built a tool that is safe to use. And yeah, what? Yeah. So anyways, this is this is fantastic for them that they've been able to raise this series B. Spoiler alert, they also just raised a series C. So they're double dipping when they raised their series B. It was$141 million at a$1.6 billion valuation. They just raised$126 million, so less money, at a 3.5 valuation, at a higher valuation. So, I mean, it's not like they were able to raise an insane amount more, but I mean, come on.
6:42This is a crazy amount of money that Hippocratic AI has been able to raise just this year alone. That puts them at, you know, almost$300 million this year alone that they've been able to raise. So, well done to Hippocratic AI. All right. The next month of the year that we had that kicked off to an absolutely crazy start was February. In February, Together AI raised a lot of money. I don't know if you saw anything about that, Jamie. Yeah. So they raised$305 million in their series B round that values the company at$3.3 billion. So they are an open source generative AI model and AI model development infrastructure.
7:23So what's interesting to me about this one is that that is, you know, a huge amount of money. Obviously, I have not heard of them up to this point. But I use them. You do tell me about it. Okay, so I love Together AI actually use them to help power AI box.ai my own startup, what they have this really cool is they have a whole bunch of open source models, they will put the open source models on their own GPUs on their own hardware and run them and they just have an API that gives me access to them. So a bunch of open source AIs that typically you'd have to either put on your own hardware and run it yourself.
7:59I don't want to have to worry about the hardware side of things right now. So I want access to these open source models, but I want someone else to host them. So I basically get an API to their open source models. I pay them for the usage. They host them. They run them. And I just have to pay a usage fee. So yeah, overall, I think Together AI is awesome. I mean,$3.3 billion. This is a no brainer. I'm using them as a major part of the infrastructure for my company. And AI Box is doing great. I imagine there's millions of other AI companies that are probably using them or probably hundreds of thousands, at least.
8:37They're a great partner. We've never had them have downtime or any sort of issue like that. So yeah, Together AI is fantastic. This was led by General Catalyst, Salesforce Ventures, NVIDIA, Lex Capital, a whole bunch of these people. I mean, you see NVIDIA jump in because obviously Together AI is running open source models. So they need the actual compute. Anytime a company needs compute, NVIDIA is going to give them money because they know they're just going to turn back and buy NVIDIA chips with them. So overall, yeah, really excited about Together AI, what they've done. I think it's a fantastic company.
9:06So you think Together AI would be used a lot of by developers who are building apps that use AI? Is that? Yeah. Okay, gotcha. So it plugs into a lot of software. In any case, these are some of the most interesting$100 million companies. We're going to do more of these episodes in the future. Our goal is basically to help everyone be familiar with all of the top AI companies. So if they've raised over$100 million, we'll do a wrap-up show here at the end of the year, maybe the beginning of January, covering them all. Thanks so much for tuning into the show today. If this was interesting, if you learned about a new company, what they do, make sure to leave us a rating and review on the show.
9:41And also go check out the AI Hustle School community if you want to grow and scale your business or career using AI tools. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you in the next episode. What's up, Illinois? It's Bluff here. And I've got something better than footlong hot dogs and deep dish pizza. It's SpinQuest.com, America's newest social casino with over a thousand games available for you to play from the comfort of your own home. With instant cash prize redemptions and new users can take advantage of a$30 coin package for only$10. So what are you doing? Quit wasting time and sign up today.
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From the publisher
Jamie and Jaeden discuss the latest trends in AI funding, highlighting top startups that have raised over $100 million in 2025. They explore significant players like 11 Labs, Hippocratic AI, and Together AI, examining their contributions to the industry and the implications of their funding rounds.
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