Arena raises a $200 million Series B at a $3.1 billion valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures. The company began as a UC Berkeley research project and runs a free crowdsourced platform where users compare AI models by rating their responses. Its commercial AI Evaluations service gives model labs and enterprises performance analytics based on community feedback, and Arena has added an alignment category to its leaderboard.

Oct 2026TechCrunchNews article

Endeavor Catalyst closes its fifth fund with $320 million in capital commitments, bringing its assets under management to more than $850 million. The venture arm invests alongside institutional lead investors in companies founded by entrepreneurs in Endeavor’s global network, with typical checks of $1 million to $3 million. It plans to invest in up to 150 companies through the fund, and says about 90% of its investments are outside the U.S.

Oct 2026TechCrunchNews article