Private Markets: Chai Discovery, Etched land major rounds

Chai Discovery and Etched secured hundreds of millions in new financing, pushing valuations into multibillion dollar territory and drawing comparisons to publicly traded leaders in their sectors. This week's private company news: Samsung (SSNLF) may invest up to EUR 1B in Mistral as part of a broader round valuing it at EUR 20B, after previously backing the AI startup through its venture arm, The Financial Times' Ivan Levingston and Tim Bradshaw report, citing people familiar with the matter. Some of the biggest capital raises by private companies this week include: Chai Discovery – The company announced $400M at a $3.8B valuation to accelerate its work. Publicly-traded companies operating in the same space include Schrodinger (SDGR), Exscientia (EXAI), and Relay Therapeutics (RLAY). Etched – The company building frontier inference clusters announced $300M in new financing at a $10.3B valuation less than one month after emerging from stealth. The latest round was led by Sequoia, with participation from a16z, Jane Street, Diffusion, and SK Hynix and represents the highest valuation ever for a Sequoia-led Series C. The company is using this latest round of funding to aggressively.