| Hi, Agen. Hoping to travel to space, but you’re not an astronaut? A startup working to develop what could be the first private space station just raised $350 million in fresh capital in a deal that makes it the second most heavily funded spacetech startup, behind only SpaceX. The deal comes as space tech funding in general has fallen back to Earth. Plus, we look at startups catering to the growing hybrid work trend and another very large funding round to start off the week — this time to a startup working at the intersection of AI and biotech. Axiom Space, a startup working on what it says will be the first commercial space station, flew past a billion-dollar valuation with a new $350 million funding round led by Saudi Arabia’s Aljazira Capital and Korean health care company Boryung Pharmaceutical. The Houston-based company also works with NASA on things like making low-orbit spacesuits for the Moon. It’s estimated that by the end of this year, more than half of U.S. knowledge workers and close to 40% globally will have hybrid work arrangements, in which they go into the workplace at least once a week. But hybrid work also presents plenty of challenges for employers, from managing desk sharing to IT security. We look at the funded startups tackling those issues. Related Crunchbase Pro list: Venture-Backed Hybrid Work Startups Andreessen Horowitz co-led a $200 million Series B round for Genesis Therapeutics, which is using AI to develop small molecule drugs and make drug discovery more successful. Last week’s large deals were also led by biotech. Abcuro, which develops therapies for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer, led the 10 largest U.S. funding rounds last week with a $155 million Series C. Other sectors taking in nine-digit rounds include fintech, telecom and crypto, as well as artificial intelligence with another big round for AI startup Anthropic. The first seven months of the year saw only 34 cyber startups get acquired, putting dealmaking at its slowest pace since 2017. However, a couple of recent, large deals offer a positive indicator of pent-up demand. Related Crunchbase Pro list: M&A Involving VC-Backed Cybersecurity Startups Only 18 of the new unicorns minted in 2023 joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board after an early-stage funding round. That’s a sharp drop from the prior two years. The number of young startups to hit unicorn status quickly this year would be a lot lower, however, if it weren’t for two letters — AI. | 
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