Startup Funding 2026 Statistics (Updated September)

Top 10

Venture and growth investors put $425 billion into more than 24,000 private companies worldwide in 2025, 30% more than the $328 billion of 2024.
Global venture funding reached $510 billion in the first half of 2026, more than the $440 billion invested in all of 2025 by Crunchbase's updated count.
The median seed round was $2.32 million in 2026 among startups whose latest round is a seed round, up from $1.45 million in 2023.
Deals of $100 million or more took 87.5% of the $412.7 billion invested in US startups in the first half of 2026.
The median post-money valuation of a seed round on Carta reached a record $24 million in Q4 2025, up from $18 million a year earlier and $16 million two years earlier.
Of 30,826 seed-stage startups founded from 2015 to 2017, 170 became unicorns and about 9,710 are dead: 57 dead companies for each unicorn.
US female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, 27.7% of US venture deal value.
For the 1 in 1,000 fastest-growing new US companies, the mean founder age is 45.0.
For each deal a venture firm closes it considers about 100 companies, and the median firm closes about 4 deals a year, in a survey of 885 VCs.
Reported unicorn valuations were on average 50% above fair value once the terms of each share class were priced in, and 15 unicorns were more than 100% above.

How much funding did startups raise in 2025 and 2026

1
Venture and growth investors put $425 billion into more than 24,000 private companies worldwide in 2025, 30% more than the $328 billion of 2024.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global venture funding in 2025, 2026 ^[1]
2
Five companies (OpenAI, Scale AI, Anthropic, Project Prometheus and xAI) raised $84 billion in 2025, 20% of all venture funding that year.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global venture funding in 2025, 2026 ^[1]
3
US-based companies raised about $274 billion in 2025, 64% of global startup funding.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global venture funding in 2025, 2026 ^[1]
4
Global venture funding reached $510 billion in the first half of 2026, more than the $440 billion invested in all of 2025 by Crunchbase's updated count.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global funding and exits in Q2 and H1 2026, 2026 ^[2]
5
OpenAI and Anthropic alone took $217 billion in the first half of 2026, 43% of all startup funding.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global funding and exits in Q2 and H1 2026, 2026 ^[2]
6
More than 70% of global startup capital in Q2 2026 went to AI companies, up from just under 50% a year earlier.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global funding and exits in Q2 and H1 2026, 2026 ^[2]
7
16 companies raised rounds of $1 billion or more in Q2 2026, together $108.6 billion or 53% of the quarter's funding.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global funding and exits in Q2 and H1 2026, 2026 ^[2]
8
Global VC investment was $227.4 billion across 8,440 deals in Q2 2026, KPMG counted.
Source: KPMG Private Enterprise, Venture Pulse, 2026 ^[3]
9
Asian startups raised $50.8 billion across 2,676 deals in Q2 2026, and European startups $25.6 billion across 1,636 deals.
Source: KPMG Private Enterprise, Venture Pulse, 2026 ^[3]
10
US VC investment was $144.9 billion across 3,644 deals in Q2 2026.
Source: KPMG Private Enterprise, Venture Pulse US, 2026 ^[4]
11
US startups raised more than $400 billion in the first half of 2026, more than any previous full year.
Source: NVCA, PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor summary, 2026 ^[5]

How concentrated is startup funding

12
Deals of $100 million or more took 87.5% of the $412.7 billion invested in US startups in the first half of 2026.
Source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2026, 2026 ^[6]
13
AI companies took 86% of all US venture dollars in the first half of 2026.
Source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2026, 2026 ^[6]
14
263 mega-rounds of $100 million or more took 81% of global venture funding in Q2 2026, while the number of deals fell to its lowest in over a decade.
Source: CB Insights, State of Venture, 2026 ^[7]
15
In 2025 the bottom 50% of US startups on Carta that closed a round raised 14% of all cash raised, while the top 10% raised about half.
Source: Carta, Record seed and Series A valuations, 2026 ^[8]
16
A third of global venture investment in Q3 2025 went to 18 companies that each raised $500 million or more.
Source: Crunchbase News, Global venture funding in Q3 2025, 2025 ^[9]

How big are seed rounds and what happens after them

17
The median post-money valuation of a seed round on Carta reached a record $24 million in Q4 2025, up from $18 million a year earlier and $16 million two years earlier.
Source: Carta, Record seed and Series A valuations, 2026 ^[8]
18
The median Series A post-money valuation on Carta was $78.7 million in Q4 2025, up 37% from $57.5 million a year earlier.
Source: Carta, Record seed and Series A valuations, 2026 ^[8]
19
Median dilution at seed and Series A is between 19% and 20% on Carta.
Source: Carta, Record seed and Series A valuations, 2026 ^[8]
20
More than half of seed dollars in 2025 went into seed rounds of $10 million or more, as the count of seed deals stayed below its 2021-2022 peak.
Source: Crunchbase News, Seed funding amounts in 2025, 2026 ^[10]
21
US startups on Carta raised $10.4 billion across 50,316 SAFEs and convertible notes in 2025, 1% less money than in 2024 and 13% fewer instruments.
Source: Carta, State of Pre-Seed 2025, 2026 ^[11]
22
The median valuation cap on a post-money SAFE was about $10 million for rounds of $250,000 to $1 million in 2025, and $15 million for rounds of $1 million to $2.5 million.
Source: Carta, State of Pre-Seed 2025, 2026 ^[11]
23
In a typical year such as 2018, 25% to 30% of startups that raised a seed round reached Series A within 24 months; for 2022 seed rounds the share was about 17%.
Source: Carta, Graduation rate from seed to Series A, 2025 ^[12]
24
The share of new startups on Carta with a solo founder rose from 23.7% in 2019 to 36.3% in the first half of 2025.
Source: Carta, Solo Founders Report, 2025 ^[13]
25
Solo founders led 30% of the startups on Carta founded in 2024 but received 14.7% of the cash those startups raised in priced equity rounds on Carta that year.
Source: Carta, Solo Founders Report, 2025 ^[13]

What the FundingWatcher startup file shows

26
Of 30,826 seed-stage startups founded from 2015 to 2017, 170 became unicorns and about 9,710 are dead: 57 dead companies for each unicorn.
Source: FundingWatcher · startups founded 2015 to 2017, status as of September 2026 · 30,826 startups with a seed-stage funding history
27
31.9% of the seed-stage startups founded from 2015 to 2017 (9,848 of 30,826) went on to raise a Series A or later.
Source: FundingWatcher · startups founded 2015 to 2017, rounds to September 2026 · 30,826 startups with a seed-stage funding history
28
The median seed round was $2.32 million in 2026 among startups whose latest round is a seed round, up from $1.45 million in 2023.
Source: FundingWatcher · rounds dated January 2023 to mid-September 2026 · 4,524 seed rounds with an amount in 2026; 5,347 in 2023 · method
29
13.5% of the 2026 seed rounds in the FundingWatcher startup file were $10 million or larger, against 4.3% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2021.
Source: FundingWatcher · rounds dated 2021, 2023 and January to mid-September 2026 · 4,524 seed rounds in 2026; 5,347 in 2023; 3,617 in 2021 · method
30
The median Series A was $14.7 million in 2026 among startups whose latest round is a Series A, up from $7.94 million in 2023.
Source: FundingWatcher · rounds dated 2023 and January to mid-September 2026 · 1,762 Series A rounds with an amount in 2026; 1,834 in 2023 · method
31
US companies account for 39.7% of the startups whose latest funding round is dated 2025 or 2026 in the FundingWatcher startup file; Chinese companies for 14.2%.
Source: FundingWatcher · latest rounds dated January 2025 to mid-September 2026 · 13,303 of 33,519 startups (4,748 in China; 1,493 with no country recorded) · method

Who gets startup funding

32
US female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, 27.7% of US venture deal value.
Source: PitchBook, All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem, 2026 ^[14]
33
More than $30 billion of the 2025 total for US female-founded companies came from rounds raised by Scale AI and Anthropic.
Source: PitchBook, All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem, 2026 ^[14]
34
Among 2.7 million US founders who started companies with at least one employee from 2007 to 2014, the mean age at founding was 41.9.
Source: American Economic Review: Insights, 2020 ^[15]
35
For the 1 in 1,000 fastest-growing new US companies, the mean founder age is 45.0.
Source: American Economic Review: Insights, 2020 ^[15]
36
A 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely than a 30-year-old founder to build a company in the top tail of growth.
Source: American Economic Review: Insights, 2020 ^[15]
37
From 1990 to 2016, women made up less than 10% of US venture-backed founders and venture capitalists, Hispanics about 2% and African Americans less than 1%.
Source: NBER Working Paper (Gompers and Wang), 2017 ^[16]
38
Black entrepreneurs started their businesses with $35,205 of capital on average, against $106,720 for white entrepreneurs.
Source: Management Science, 2022 ^[17]
39
In the year of founding, white-owned startups borrowed nearly six times as much as Black-owned startups.
Source: Management Science, 2022 ^[17]
40
Black entrepreneurs were about three times more likely than white entrepreneurs to skip applying for credit they needed because they feared being turned down.
Source: Management Science, 2022 ^[17]

How venture investors choose startups

41
For each deal a venture firm closes it considers about 100 companies, and the median firm closes about 4 deals a year, in a survey of 885 VCs.
Source: Journal of Financial Economics, 2020 ^[18]
42
More than 30% of venture deals come through the investors' professional networks, 20% are referred by other investors, 8% by portfolio companies, and 10% come inbound from company management.
Source: Journal of Financial Economics, 2020 ^[18]
43
47% of venture firms named the founding team as the most important factor in choosing an investment, and 95% named it as an important factor.
Source: Journal of Financial Economics, 2020 ^[18]
44
VCs credit the team for their successes (96% of respondents) and blame it for their failures (92%) more than any other factor.
Source: Journal of Financial Economics, 2020 ^[18]
45
During COVID-19, venture capitalists said they were investing at 71% of their normal pace and expected 81% over the following year, in a survey of over 1,000 VCs.
Source: Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2021 ^[19]
46
The same VCs reported that 52% of their portfolio companies were helped or unaffected by the pandemic and 38% were hurt.
Source: Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2021 ^[19]

How startups end up: valuations, exits and survival

47
Reported unicorn valuations were on average 50% above fair value once the terms of each share class were priced in, and 15 unicorns were more than 100% above.
Source: NBER Working Paper (Gornall and Strebulaev), 2017 ^[20]
48
Common shares in US unicorns were 58% overvalued relative to their reported valuations, because recent investors held protections common holders lack.
Source: NBER Working Paper (Gornall and Strebulaev), 2017 ^[20]
49
Among US unicorns, 32% gave recent investors seniority over all other investors, 24% a veto over a lower-priced IPO and 14% an IPO return guarantee.
Source: NBER Working Paper (Gornall and Strebulaev), 2017 ^[20]
50
US public companies that were once venture-backed employ four million people and account for one-fifth of US stock market value and 44% of US public companies' R&D spending.
Source: Stanford GSB Working Paper (Gornall and Strebulaev), 2015 ^[21]
51
Almost three-quarters of venture-backed founders receive nothing when their company exits, and the average founder receives $5.8 million.
Source: American Economic Review, 2010 ^[22]
52
Female founders' share of US venture-backed exits rose to nearly 25% in 2025.
Source: PitchBook, All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem, 2026 ^[14]
53
34.7% of US private-sector business establishments opened in March 2013 were still operating in March 2023.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024 ^[23]
54
Information businesses had one of the lowest 10-year survival rates in the US: 29.1% of those opened in 2013 were still operating in 2023.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024 ^[23]

Frequently asked questions

How much venture funding did startups raise in 2025?

Crunchbase counts $425 billion across more than 24,000 private companies worldwide in 2025, 30% more than in 2024. US companies raised about $274 billion of it, 64%.

How much have startups raised in 2026 so far?

Crunchbase counts $510 billion worldwide in the first half of 2026, already more than all of 2025. OpenAI and Anthropic took $217 billion of that, 43%. PitchBook and the NVCA count more than $400 billion for US startups alone.

What is the average seed round size in 2026?

Among startups whose latest round is a 2026 seed round, the median is $2.32 million in the FundingWatcher startup file, up from $1.45 million in 2023. On Carta, the median seed post-money valuation reached $24 million in Q4 2025.

What share of seed-funded startups raise a Series A?

31.9% of seed-stage startups founded from 2015 to 2017 went on to raise a Series A or later. Carta finds 25% to 30% of seed companies reached Series A within two years in a typical year such as 2018, and about 17% for 2022 seed rounds.

How many startups fail?

Of 30,826 seed-stage startups founded from 2015 to 2017, about 9,710 are dead and 170 became unicorns. Across all US businesses, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found 34.7% of establishments opened in 2013 still operating ten years later.

What share of venture funding goes to female founders?

PitchBook counts $73.6 billion raised by US female-founded companies in 2025, 27.7% of US deal value. More than $30 billion of it came from Scale AI and Anthropic rounds.

Sources

[1]Crunchbase News, Global venture funding in 2025. 2026.↑1 ↑2 ↑3
[2]Crunchbase News, Global funding and exits in Q2 and H1 2026. 2026.↑4 ↑5 ↑6 ↑7
[3]KPMG Private Enterprise, Venture Pulse. 2026.↑8 ↑9
[4]KPMG Private Enterprise, Venture Pulse US. 2026.↑10
[5]NVCA, PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor summary. 2026.↑11
[6]PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2026. 2026.↑12 ↑13
[7]CB Insights, State of Venture. 2026.↑14
[8]Carta, Record seed and Series A valuations. 2026.↑15 ↑17 ↑18 ↑19
[9]Crunchbase News, Global venture funding in Q3 2025. 2025.↑16
[10]Crunchbase News, Seed funding amounts in 2025. 2026.↑20
[11]Carta, State of Pre-Seed 2025. 2026.↑21 ↑22
[12]Carta, Graduation rate from seed to Series A. 2025.↑23
[13]Carta, Solo Founders Report. 2025.↑24 ↑25
[14]PitchBook, All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem. 2026.↑32 ↑33 ↑52
[15]American Economic Review: Insights. 2020.↑34 ↑35 ↑36
[16]NBER Working Paper (Gompers and Wang). 2017.↑37
[17]Management Science. 2022.↑38 ↑39 ↑40
[18]Journal of Financial Economics. 2020.↑41 ↑42 ↑43 ↑44
[19]Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. 2021.↑45 ↑46
[20]NBER Working Paper (Gornall and Strebulaev). 2017.↑47 ↑48 ↑49
[21]Stanford GSB Working Paper (Gornall and Strebulaev). 2015.↑50
[22]American Economic Review. 2010.↑51
[23]US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2024.↑53 ↑54

Method

We searched Google for startup funding statistics, seed funding statistics and startup statistics and read the statistics pages that ranked, then searched NBER, the American Economic Association and journal indexes for papers on venture capital, founders and startup outcomes. Each number was traced to the organisation or paper that produced it and checked against that source on September 24, 2026. Paper numbers are cited to the journal that published the paper; where the only public copy is the NBER or Stanford working paper, we cite that, and the unicorn valuation figures come from the working-paper version, which differs slightly from the published one. Crunchbase, PitchBook, KPMG and CB Insights count venture rounds differently, so their totals for the same quarter do not match. Carta numbers cover US startups that manage their cap table on Carta. FundingWatcher numbers come from our startup file as of September 15, 2026: 165,218 startups whose latest round is pre-seed, seed, angel or a Series A to J. The file keeps only each startup's most recent round, so the round-size medians describe latest rounds, and a company that raised again later drops out of its earlier year. The two numbers on seed startups founded from 2015 to 2017 repeat our earlier report on that cohort.

FundingWatcher numbers new on this page:

The median seed round was $2.32 million in 2026 among startups whose latest round is a seed round, up from $1.45 million in 2023. Median disclosed amount of each startup's most recent round, where that round is a seed round and is dated in the year. A startup that raised a seed round and then a Series A counts only under its Series A, so the medians describe the latest round, not every seed round.
13.5% of the 2026 seed rounds in the FundingWatcher startup file were $10 million or larger, against 4.3% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2021. Share of latest-round seed amounts at $10 million or more, same rows as the median seed round above.
The median Series A was $14.7 million in 2026 among startups whose latest round is a Series A, up from $7.94 million in 2023. Median disclosed amount of each startup's most recent round, where that round is a Series A dated in the year.
US companies account for 39.7% of the startups whose latest funding round is dated 2025 or 2026 in the FundingWatcher startup file; Chinese companies for 14.2%. Country of each startup whose most recent round falls in the window. Startups with no country recorded stay in the denominator.

All 54 statistics as a CSV: startup-funding-statistics.csv.

Cite this page

FundingWatcher, “Startup Funding 2026 Statistics (Updated September)”, updated September 2026, https://fundingwatcher.com/research/startup-funding-statistics/

To cite one number, link its anchor: each statistic has one, for example https://fundingwatcher.com/research/startup-funding-statistics/#stat-1.

FundingWatcher is a research publication of Haus Research, an independent research firm, covering startup funding rounds and the investors behind them.