Daily Funding Roundup:
June 29, 2026
Williams 'sooner rather than later' language on cuts. September cut probability jumps 63% to 78%. Groq $1.5B Series F at $22B PIF-led ($4.4B ARR). Retool $250M E at $6.5B a16z-led ($215M ARR). Persona Identity $130M D at $3.5B Index-led. Anthropic supplementary S-1 discloses PIF compute-supply agreement (sovereign anchor tied to compute rights). Dallas Fed -3.6 vs -12.5 consensus. Pending home sales +2.9%. Nvidia crosses $200 close.
Rounds
Mountain View, California-based Groq raised a $1.5B Series F at $22B post-money (up from $2.8B at Series D in Aug 2024, ~8x step-up over 22 months) led by Saudi PIF. LPU (Language Processing Unit) inference chip delivers 500+ tokens/second for Llama and Mistral models. The PIF lead is Groq's first sovereign anchor (PIF is also the $8B ANTH anchor and rumored $12B OpenAI anchor); the trifecta cementing Saudi as the largest sovereign AI-capex allocator by Q4 2026. Founded 2016 by CEO Jonathan Ross (ex-Google TPU co-founder and original TPU architect). Total raised: $3.25B. The 'Nvidia inference-alternative' cohort now has Groq at $22B, Cerebras (public via secondary), SambaNova (private at $5B), and Tenstorrent (private at $2.6B). The $22B post is roughly 5x MP4E ARR (disclosed at $4.4B).
San Francisco-based Retool raised a $250M Series E at $6.5B post-money (up from $4.4B at Series D in Oct 2025, 48% step-up over 8 months) led by a16z. Low-code internal tools platform: drag-and-drop UI + code for internal enterprise applications. Customers include Amazon, Doordash, Coinbase, Stripe, and Peloton. Founded 2017 by CEO David Hsu out of YC S17. Total raised: $391M. The a16z lead is the third check the firm has led into an established SaaS category this month (after Basecamp Research bio-foundation and Tessl coding). Retool ARR disclosed at $215M (up from $102M at Series D). The 'AI is not the only game in venture' consensus that gathered on Tidal Vision (Jun 22) and Twelve (Jun 25) is now formalized: infrastructure SaaS at 30x revenue multiples is back.
San Francisco-based Persona Identity raised a $130M Series D at $3.5B post-money (up from $2B at Series C in Nov 2023, 75% step-up over 31 months) led by Index Ventures (extending its three-time lead). Identity verification: government ID, biometric, and knowledge-based verification for KYC and fraud prevention. Customers include Rippling, Deel, Coinbase, and BlockFi. Co-founded 2018 by CEO Rick Song (ex-Square) and CTO Charles Yeh (ex-Dropbox, ex-Square). Total raised: $372.5M. Slots into the identity-verification cohort with Alloy (public rumors), Socure ($4.5B private), and Trulioo. The 'agent-native identity verification' framing (agents need to verify counterparty humans, not the reverse) is the new differentiator; Persona is now the reference vendor for AI-agent-invoked KYC per Anthropic and OpenAI operator threads.
News & Signals
Williams speech: 'sooner rather than later' language on cuts, September now the consensus
NY Fed President John Williams at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY 2pm speech: 'The disinflation progress in the May PCE data, combined with the balanced labor market picture, suggests that beginning to reduce the policy rate sooner rather than later may be appropriate.' First 'sooner rather than later' language from a Fed speaker since March. FedWatch September cut probability jumped from 63% to 78% within 15 minutes; a 25bp cut is now priced 3-1 for September. 2Y -7bp to 4.59%, 10Y -5bp to 4.80%. NDX +0.8%, SPX +0.5%, Russell 2000 +1.2% on the small-cap 'lower rates first' bid. Fed hawks (Bowman, Kashkari, Waller) did not speak Monday; the tone imbalance is now dominant. Powell speaks Wednesday at the ECB Sintra conference; the market frame is 'if Powell doesn't push back on Williams, September is fully priced.'
Barkin cautious 10am, but even the caution framed the September cut as 'live decision'
Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin at the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce 10am: 'I want to see the July and August data before making a September policy decision.' Not dovish, but the framing ('September policy decision') implicitly acknowledges the market pricing. Contrast with the June 17 dot-plot where three dots showed one HIKE in 2026: Barkin's Monday framing is now soft-consistent with the Sept-cut narrative. The 'even the hawks are quiet' story is now the operator take.
Dallas Fed manufacturing -3.6 vs -12.5 consensus, pending home sales +2.9% vs +1.2% expected
Dallas Fed manufacturing index for June at -3.6 (vs -12.5 consensus, prior -15.6). New orders index +8.2 (vs -3.4 prior, first positive read in 14 months). Production +11.4 (best print since 2022). Six of eight regional Fed manufacturing indices now positive; the fifth consecutive above-consensus regional Fed print. Pending home sales +2.9% m/m (vs +1.2% consensus), the second sequential improvement after the Iran-framework gasoline-cost translation. Housing bottom firming further. The 'goldilocks' setup that dominated last week continues cleanly into Q2 close.
Anthropic supplementary S-1: 60-day PIF supply agreement disclosure, sovereign strategic buyer arithmetic clarified
Anthropic filed a supplementary S-1 Monday afternoon disclosing a 60-day compute-supply agreement with Saudi PIF (through PIF's stake in Coreweave via the H100 deal): 25% of PIF-controlled Coreweave capacity gets first-right-of-refusal for Anthropic training workloads through Q3 2028. In exchange, PIF secured the $8B ANTH anchor commitment as part of the roadshow book close. The 'sovereigns get compute access in exchange for anchor equity' pattern is now formalized. Similar disclosure Monday: Mubadala's ANTH $4B allocation includes a co-development agreement for Arabic-language regional Claude deployment. The 'IPO anchor commitments are actually multi-year commercial contracts' framing is now consensus per FinTwit weekend threads.
Q2 close prep: SPX +0.5%, NDX +0.8%, buy-flow tail continues cleanly, VIX at 12.8
Quarter-end buy-flow continues into the Monday. SPX +0.5%, NDX +0.8%, Russell 2000 +1.2%. Microsoft +0.7% to $577 (new all-time high), Nvidia +1.4% to $200 (first close above $200), Oracle +1.9%. Bitcoin +0.4% at $60,300. VIX at 12.8 (below 13 for fifth straight close). The rebalance-tail catch-up thesis from the weekend played out cleanly. Tuesday Jun 30 is Q2 close; the mechanical buy-flow completes over Mon-Tue. Tesla Q2 delivery numbers pre-market Tuesday is the first potentially-negative catalyst since the ANTH book close.
Rounds and signals sourced from SEC filings, press releases, and verified news reports. All amounts in USD unless noted. Reporting reflects information available at time of publication.