What are the top VC deals this week?

Venture capital deal flow remained robust this week, with AI infrastructure and defense tech commanding the largest checks. The standout raise was Thinking Machines Lab — the new AI venture founded by former OpenAI president Mira Murati — which closed a staggering $2 billion seed round at a $10 billion valuation, making it one of the largest seed rounds in history and a clear signal that investors are still writing enormous bets on foundational AI talent. Meanwhile, Anduril Industries continued its defense-tech momentum, and xAI remains in ongoing conversations with investors around a reported $6 billion raise, according to reporting from The Information and TechCrunch.

The Thinking Machines deal is particularly telling because of its structure: the round was reportedly oversubscribed, with participation from top-tier firms including Andreessen Horowitz and a16z's growth fund. Bloomberg noted that the valuation was set before the company had shipped a single product, underscoring how founder pedigree and the perceived scarcity of elite AI talent is now functioning as the primary underwriting thesis. Alongside this, Cohere — the enterprise-focused LLM company — has been in discussions for a new funding round that would value it north of $6 billion, reflecting continued institutional appetite for AI companies with clear B2B revenue paths rather than pure research plays.

Beyond the mega-rounds, Axios highlighted a broader trend this week: seed and Series A activity in AI agents and agentic workflows is accelerating sharply, with dozens of sub-$20M deals closing across companies building vertical agents for legal, healthcare, and financial services. This suggests the market is bifurcating — enormous capital concentrating at the foundation-model layer, while a long tail of smaller, application-layer bets proliferates beneath it.

The number to watch going forward is whether Thinking Machines Lab can convert its extraordinary valuation into a credible product roadmap before the next fundraising cycle. If Murati's team ships something compelling in the next six months, it will validate the "bet on the founder" thesis at unprecedented scale. If not, it could mark a cautionary peak in AI hype valuations — a question that every LP and GP in the market is quietly asking right now.

— Mercury