--- url: 'https://qubit.capital/blog/us-series-b-plus-weekly-funding-roundup-week-4-april-2026' title: 'US Series B+ Weekly Funding Roundup (Apr 18-25, 2026): $125.0M Raised Across 2 Deals' author: name: Vaibhav Totuka url: 'https://qubit.capital/blog/author/vaibhav-totuka' date: '2026-04-25T09:08:39+05:30' modified: '2026-04-25T13:44:28+05:30' type: post summary: 'US Series B+ funding Apr 18-25, 2026: $125M across 2 deals. Ray Therapeutics ($75M) and Alcatraz AI ($50M) lead late-stage healthtech and security raises.' categories: - Weekly Funding Roundup image: 'https://qubit.capital/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/featured-us-series-bplus-66295.webp' published: true --- # US Series B+ Weekly Funding Roundup (Apr 18-25, 2026): $125.0M Raised Across 2 Deals Late-stage US capital stayed selective this week, with two Series B+ rounds closing for a combined $125 million. Ray Therapeutics took the larger ticket at $75 million for its retinitis pigmentosa gene therapy, and Alcatraz AI added $50 million to scale its facial-authentication access control hardware past $100 million in total funding. Both deals back companies with seven to ten years of development behind them and clear paths to commercial scale. The contrast with earlier-stage activity is sharp. US seed-stage startups pulled in $136.3M across eight deals this same week, and Series A rounds added another $33.5M across two more. Late-stage dollars are flowing to fewer names but bigger checks, a pattern that fits 2026’s bifurcated venture market: capital is patient at the top of the funnel and concentrated at the bottom. Weekly Funding Roundup APR 18-25, 2026 $125M TOTAL RAISED 2DEALS CLOSED 100%SERIES B $62.5MAVG DEAL SIZE USTOP REGION BY STAGE Series B$125M100% BY SECTOR Ray TherapeuticsHealthtech / gene therapy$75M Alcatraz AICybersecurity / physical access control$50M Table of Contents - [1. Ray Therapeutics Raises $75M For Retinal Gene Therapy](#1-ray-therapeutics-raises-$75m-for-retinal-gene-therapy) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision) - [Market Context](#market-context) - [2. Alcatraz AI Closes $50M Series B For Facial Access Control](#2-alcatraz-ai-closes-$50m-series-b-for-facial-access-control) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-1) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-1) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-1) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-1) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-1) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-1) - [Market Context](#market-context-1) - [Lessons For Founders](#lessons-for-founders) ## 1. Ray Therapeutics Raises $75M For Retinal Gene Therapy ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: Healthtech / gene therapy - Geography: San Francisco Bay Area, United States - Round size: $75M - Valuation: not disclosed ### Investor Profile Specific lead investors weren’t disclosed in the announcement. Series B rounds of this size in clinical-stage biotech typically draw a mix of crossover funds and specialist life-sciences syndicates, with capital structured to carry a lead candidate through Phase 2 readouts. ### Company and Leadership Ray Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech building optogenetic therapies for inherited retinal diseases. The team is drawn from ophthalmology and gene-therapy backgrounds, with prior experience taking AAV-based programs through clinical development. ### Problem and Opportunity Retinitis pigmentosa affects roughly 1 in 4,000 people worldwide. Beyond Luxturna, which only treats RPE65 mutations, patients have no broadly effective therapy. Most existing gene-replacement approaches are mutation-specific, leaving the majority of cases without options. Ray’s approach sidesteps this problem by targeting the retinal cells that survive degeneration, regardless of which gene caused the disease in the first place. ### Product and Technology [Ray Therapeutics](https://www.raytherapeutics.com) is developing RTx-015, an AAV-delivered optogenetic therapy. A single intravitreal injection introduces a light-sensitive opsin into surviving retinal ganglion cells, giving them direct photosensitivity in place of the photoreceptors that have died off. The technical edge sits in two places: proprietary opsin engineering that delivers higher light sensitivity and broader spectral response than earlier optogenetic approaches, and AAV capsid optimization that improves cell targeting. Preclinical and early clinical biomarker data on ganglion-cell responsiveness feeds dosing and patient selection. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $75M moves RTx-015 deeper into clinical trials, expands AAV manufacturing capacity, and builds out clinical and regulatory teams. Some capital also funds pipeline extension into adjacent retinal indications such as geographic atrophy and advanced AMD. Long-term, Ray wants to be the optogenetic platform of choice across degenerative ocular diseases, not just retinitis pigmentosa. ### Market Context Optogenetics is competitive. Nanoscope Therapeutics and GenSight Biologics are pursuing similar mechanisms, and the FDA’s posture toward ocular gene therapy has been broadly supportive since the Luxturna approval. Ray’s mutation-agnostic angle is its main differentiator, and getting RTx-015 through key trials before competitors will determine which platform sets the category benchmark. ## 2. Alcatraz AI Closes $50M Series B For Facial Access Control ### Deal Overview - Stage: Series B - Sector: Cybersecurity / physical access control - Geography: Cupertino, California, United States - Round size: $50M (total funding past $100M) - Valuation: not disclosed ### Investor Profile The round drew BlackPeak Capital, Cogito Capital, Taiwania Capital, Almaz Capital, EBRD, and Ray Stata. Stata, who founded Analog Devices, brings deep-tech credibility on the hardware and signal-processing side. EBRD’s involvement is the more strategic signal: the European development bank’s check is tied to expansion into European markets where badge-based access remains dominant. ### Company and Leadership [Alcatraz AI](https://www.alcatraz.ai) was founded in 2016 in Cupertino. The company has spent close to a decade building 3D facial authentication hardware, and the new round pushes total capital raised past $100M after roughly nine years of development. ### Problem and Opportunity Badges and access cards remain the default for enterprise physical security, even though they’re easy to share, lose, or clone. Tailgating, where one person enters behind an authorized badge holder, is one of the largest unaddressed vectors in physical security. Post-COVID, hygiene concerns added pressure to move away from shared touch surfaces. ### Product and Technology Alcatraz’s flagship product, Rock, is a wall-mounted reader that uses 3D facial authentication, ML-driven liveness detection, and multi-factor options that combine face with card or PIN. It integrates with existing access control panels and VMS systems, so customers can deploy it on top of installed infrastructure rather than ripping anything out. The data advantage comes from 3D facial recognition models trained across demographics and lighting conditions, with on-device processing to keep biometric data private. Customer deployments generate continuous telemetry on access patterns and tailgating events that feeds back into the models. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $50M funds international expansion, with Europe as the headline market thanks to EBRD and European investor backing. Capital also goes to next-generation hardware and AI model R&D, sales and channel partnership scaling, and manufacturing capacity. The strategic frame is that physical and cybersecurity are converging, and identity at the door belongs in the same conversation as identity in the network. ### Market Context The global access control market is around $10B and shifting from cards toward biometrics. Alcatraz competes with traditional players like HID Global, Genetec, and LenelS2, plus biometric entrants such as Wicket and Oosto. Facial recognition faces regulatory headwinds in some jurisdictions, but enterprise opt-in deployments inside corporate buildings have so far avoided the consumer-facing scrutiny that has slowed public-space deployments. ## Lessons For Founders - Late-stage capital in 2026 favors companies with seven-plus years of technical depth. Both Ray Therapeutics and Alcatraz AI raised on the back of long product cycles, not recent pivots. - Mutation-agnostic or platform-level approaches command attention in biotech. Targeting downstream cells instead of specific genes broadens the addressable patient population without proportional R&D cost. - Strategic investors with geographic mandates carry weight beyond their check size. EBRD’s participation gave Alcatraz a credible European GTM lever that pure financial investors couldn’t match. - Brownfield integration matters in enterprise hardware. Alcatraz’s ability to plug into existing panels and VMS systems removed the biggest objection to biometric upgrades: rip-and-replace cost. - Total funding milestones still signal something. Crossing $100M cumulative tells customers and channel partners that the company will be around long enough to support multi-year deployment cycles.