Key Notes
- Global venture funding reached nearly $680 billion through September, with about a third of third-quarter dollars going to 27 billion-dollar-plus fundraisings.
- North American funding rose 50% year over year to $92 billion in the third quarter, while the reported number of deals fell 16%.
- Series B and similar financings for US startups reached roughly $48 billion by late October, even as the number of rounds headed for a multiyear low.
Global venture funding reached a record of nearly $680 billion through September 2026, according to Crunchbase. In North America, however, investors backed fewer seed and early-stage rounds even as they committed more money than a year earlier. A small group of outsized financings explains much of the gap.
North American startups raised $92 billion in the third quarter, up 50% from a year earlier but down 35% from the second quarter. The number of reported rounds moved the other way: it fell 16% year over year and 14% from the previous quarter, to the lowest quarterly total since 2023. Late-stage deal counts rose year over year; the decline was concentrated closer to the beginning of a startup’s life.
Billion-Dollar Rounds Drive the Record
About a third of global third-quarter funding went to just 27 companies that raised at least $1 billion each. Huge rounds for OpenAI and Anthropic had already lifted the first half. Meanwhile, Crunchbase’s funding chart shows that global dollars going into rounds below $100 million have broadly stagnated since 2023.
That $100 million cutoff sorts rounds by size, regardless of stage. A Series A can clear it: Crunchbase’s regional report counted a $1.1 billion Series A for River AI. North American early-stage funding reached $20.6 billion in the third quarter, above its year-earlier level, even as the number of rounds fell. A few unusually large financings can lift the total for an entire stage.
Angel and Seed Deal Counts Have More Than Halved
Crunchbase’s deal-count chart shows 1,756 North American angel and seed deals in the third quarter, down about 52% from 3,635 in the first quarter of 2023. Its separate early-stage category, which includes Series A and B, fell about 32%, from 887 to 602 over the same span.
The comparison spans different calendar quarters, and young companies often disclose their financings late. Crunchbase says that reporting lag is greatest at the seed stage, so the latest counts can rise as more rounds are added. U.S.-only figures point in the same direction at Series A: Crunchbase data show 272 rounds in the third quarter, down from 377 a year earlier. Reported U.S. seed rounds fell more modestly, to 984 from 1,059.
Series B Dollars Rise as Deal Counts Fall
A separate Crunchbase analysis found that U.S. startups had raised roughly $48 billion in Series B and similar financings by late October, the highest total in years, while the number of rounds was on track for a multiyear low. Less than a third of the deals in its 2026 sample were below $30 million, compared with about half between 2021 and 2025.
Private and public markets will offer different tests of that concentration. As we reported, Anthropic has added third-quarter financials to its IPO prospectus, giving investors a closer look at one of the companies behind the funding boom. Whether more startups are finding capital will show up in a different place: the number of seed and Series A rounds, especially once late disclosures are counted.
