The Incline Village, Nevada-based company is also acquiring Austin-based agentic AI startup as it looks to automate more of the labor-intensive work involved in investigating financial crime.

led the investment, which includes both primary capital and a secondary tender offer for employees. , , and others also participated. Socure did not disclose the terms of its acquisition of Fravity.

With the latest funding, Socure has raised over $742 million in disclosed funding since its 2012 inception. It was previously valued at $4.5 billion at the time of its Series E round in 2021. The company did not break down how much of its raise was primary and secondary capital.

Rapid growth as fraud surges

The transactions come as Socure says it is seeing both rapid growth in its own business and a sharp rise in increasingly sophisticated fraud. The company is refreshingly open about its financials, telling ������Ƶ News that it ended the second quarter with $364 million in annual recurring revenue, up 63% from a year earlier, and added 95 customers during the quarter, including , , and . It also claims to be growing “profitably.”

Socure uses AI and machine learning to help banks, fintechs and government agencies verify identities so they can “approve real customers instantly while stopping fraud.”

It now has more than 3,000 enterprise customers. They include 19 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, more than 600 fintech companies, major sportsbook and prediction-market operators, and 160 public-sector organizations. Specifically, some of those customers include , , , , and . The company’s revenue model mixes usage- and transaction-based SaaS.

AI creates both an opportunity and a problem

Socure co-founder and CEO said AI is creating both an opportunity and a problem for the business. For example, Socure saw an 8,000% increase in AI-driven fraud across its network last year, according to the company, as generative AI and other tools make it easier to create convincing fake identities and automate attacks.

At the same time, AI could help address one of the more costly parts of fraud prevention: investigating the large number of cases and alerts that automated systems flag for human review.

That is where Fravity comes in.

Automating fraud investigations

Fravity has built an AI-native platform that uses agents to automate fraud, risk and compliance investigations. Its technology will be incorporated into Socure’s RiskOS platform as RiskOS_Agents, initially focusing on watchlist screening and monitoring and know-your-business checks.

Socure and Fravity already share several enterprise customers that use the two products together, according to Socure. Across its existing deployments, Fravity has reduced cost per case by 80%, sped up case resolution fivefold and cut false positives by as much as 70%, the companies say.

The acquisition puts Socure more directly into what identity intelligence company estimates is a $71.1 billion financial crime investigation market. The problem is particularly acute at banks, where 53% spend at least an hour reviewing each alert, and 37% manually review more than 40% of alerts, according to Liminal.

As AI increases the volume and sophistication of fraud, Ayers argues that the identity layer — determining whether people and increasingly AI agents are who or what they claim to be — is becoming more critical to doing business online.

“I believe there are two types of companies that matter in the AI-driven global economy: those that are AI-native, and those that fight the consequences of AI acceleration,” he said in a statement.

Expanding beyond financial services

The investment follows a period of expansion for Socure beyond its financial services roots. In May, the company won a five-year, $163 million federal contract to provide identity-proofing technology for Login.gov. It is also pushing further internationally.

Socure had more than 550 employees as of March 2026, more than 100 more than it had about a year ago, according to Ayers.

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It’s been a rapid progression to get here. In the past two years, venture investors have poured more than $7 billion into legal and legal tech startups, most with an AI focus. Funding to the space hit a record level last year, with $4.6 billion invested, per ������Ƶ data. So far this year, legal tech startups have pulled in more than $2.2 billion.

Top fundraisers

The biggest chunk of funding in recent quarters has gone to startups familiar to followers of the space.

, a provider of AI tools for legal professionals, is the sector’s top fundraiser with $1.2 billion in investment to date. The 4-year-old, San Francisco-based company is reportedly now another $500 million at a $15.5 billion valuation.

, an AI platform built for lawyers, is also in the midst of a massive scale-up. The Stockholm-based startup raised $600 million in Series D funding this year, securing a valuation of $5.5 billion, tripling over a six-month period.

, a 2008 vintage provider of legal practice management software that has pivoted heavily into AI, has also been attracting growth funding. While it didn’t secure a round this year, the Vancouver company closed on $1.4 billion in equity financing in 2024 and 2025.

For 2026, meanwhile, at least 12 legal tech-focused startups have secured rounds of $50 million or more. We’ve put together a list below.

Notably, there’s still quite a bit of activity at the early stage. Out of the 12 largest rounds this year, eight were Series A or Series B financings. Seed-stage dealmaking is also busy, with more than 50 legal- and legal-tech seed rounds of $1 million or more this year, per ������Ƶ data.

Exits

Legal tech startups are also selling to acquirers at a steady clip.

Legora has been particularly acquisitive of late, snapping up at least five companies this year, all of which raised seed or venture funding. Harvey is also a serial buyer, acquiring at least three companies in 2026. Neither company has disclosed purchase prices.

Among publicly traded acquirers, , a Dutch legal and healthcare software provider, has made at least two sizable legal tech startup acquisitions since last year. It paid $500 million for , a provider of legal spend management tools, and $105 million for , an AI workspace for legal professionals.

We haven’t seen venture-backed legal tech companies go public lately, but the biggest names seem to be signaling the possibility. Harvey, for instance, it added over $100 million in ARR in the first quarter of this year, indicating it has the revenue and growth trajectory of a strong IPO candidate.

With high investment comes high expectations

Robust investment in legal tech comes amid high expectations for AI-delivered efficiencies among legal professionals.

A of professionals in the space this year found that 80% of respondents believe AI will have a high or transformational impact on their work within the next five years.

Early benefits look promising too, with more than half of respondents attesting that their organizations are already seeing a return on investment from investing in AI. Top use cases include document review, legal research, summarizing documents, and drafting briefs or memos.

One of the highest-impact areas for AI ahead is saving time, with tools that automate repetitive tasks. Generally speaking, that’s a welcome offering, although legal professionals do widely anticipate it could disrupt the hourly billing model.

Overall, the storyline looks similar to what we see in other industries where AI is shouldering more tasks. AI isn’t expected to replace lawyers and legal support staff. However, it could free people to spend more time on valuable tasks only a human can do, enable employers to run with a smaller staff, or both.

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has been operating in that market since 2013. The New York-based company operates a marketplace for shares of privately held companies, giving employees and other shareholders a way to sell stock before a company goes public or is acquired.

announced plans to acquire EquityZen in October 2025 and completed the deal in January 2026, bringing the company under the investment bank’s umbrella.

, who co-founded EquityZen and serves as its chief strategy officer, has had a front-row seat to the secondary market’s evolution. ������Ƶ News spoke with Haslett about what secondary-market pricing says about today’s most sought-after startups, why AI companies are commanding premiums while many older startups trade at discounts, what the IPO market looks like beyond its biggest names, and why investors are taking a closer look at hard tech.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

������Ƶ News: The second quarter was one of the strongest venture-backed IPO quarters since 2021, but drove much of that activity. If you remove SpaceX, how open is the IPO market for the typical late-stage startup?

Phil Haslett: Generally, I’d say it’s better than it was three or six months ago. If you were a private late-stage technology company, you probably were going to wait until after SpaceX anyway, so that hurdle is gone.

Tech markets are also doing well. The stock market is at an all-time high, and there’s been a strong recovery in tech stocks overall. I assume that we’re gearing up for a busier summer than usual.

Another thing to consider is IPO performance beyond SpaceX. Some have had initial enthusiasm followed by a slowdown. has come down a bit. So companies may see it as a good time to go public, while post-IPO performance has been, in a word, “meh.”

But within AI, I think we’ve seen that there’s opportunity up and down the production curve — from energy for data centers, to the technology inside them, to orchestration of compute, to efficient spending on training and inference. There are a lot of interesting companies along that spectrum, and I think that bodes well for companies in the space that want to go public.

A few companies entered your Top 20, including , , and . Does that reflect a durable shift away from traditional software, or are investors chasing a small group of scarce, high-profile hard-tech companies?

Haslett: I think it reflects a thematic shift. The companies entering that list generally fall into AI infrastructure, space tech and robotics.

If those are industries we think will have generational growth opportunities, the logical conclusion is that each sector will have winners. SpaceX gets people thinking about opportunities in space and space tech, and by extension defense tech.

The same applies to AI infrastructure. If the market is that big, and we’ve seen companies go public over the last year or so, it stands to reason investors will be interested in other companies in that space. I think that’s more important than simply chasing scarce supply.

These businesses tend to be more capital intensive and may take longer to reach predictable revenue than a traditional SaaS company. How are secondary investors underwriting them?

Haslett: If a company needs more capital, investors have to decide whether the overall opportunity is big enough to justify waiting longer and having the company raise more.

If you have to build a factory or get regulatory approval, that can delay the company’s ability to increase its valuation or reach an exit. Investors discount that into what they’re willing to pay.

Secondary investors are making the same calculus as primary venture and growth investors, so you’d imagine much of that is already baked into headline valuations from primary raises.

What’s changed is that capital-intensive companies now have more financing options. Five or six years ago, a battery company or new chip manufacturer might have had little choice but to raise equity. In 2026, more credit and asset-based financing options are available.

That matters because if one of these companies underperforms or has a distressed asset sale, creditors and lenders get paid first. Secondary investors have to factor that in, too.

EquityZen says the average transaction occurred at a 38% discount to the last funding round, while many AI transactions traded at premiums. What does that say about how bifurcated the private market has become?

Haslett: I don’t know if it’s a mispricing. There are essentially two vintages of private companies right now.

Some companies weren’t built AI-first and have had to adapt. Many raised during the go-go years of 2021, at very high valuations, and may not have raised since. They’ve had to rethink their strategies, which can slow growth and execution. That gets reflected in the discount.

Then there’s a new wave of companies, from 2023 and beyond, that were built with an AI-first mentality. They started from a clean slate, may operate more efficiently, and have a cleaner story for the market.

Some of those companies are raising rounds in quick succession at higher valuations. Secondary investors may pay a premium because they believe the company’s trajectory is clear and the next valuation increase could happen quickly.

is an example from the 2021 cohort. It raised at roughly a $10 billion-plus valuation and just sold for substantially less. It’s still a good business, but when investors compare 20% growth with newer companies going from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue in just a few years, you can understand why their appetite changes.

We may see more companies from that era sell for less than where they raised in 2021.

Over the past few years, many private companies have conducted secondaries because they weren’t ready to go public. When should founders consider establishing a company-approved secondary program?

Haslett: Historically, companies started thinking about liquidity programs after they’d been around five, six, or seven years, largely to reward employees for their patience and provide liquidity to early investors.

Now we’re seeing younger companies engage in controlled liquidity and tender offers.

One reason is talent retention. There are only so many engineers and data scientists, and companies need to compete for them. Secondary liquidity has become more normalized.

More solutions are available than before. Morgan Stanley, for example, has significantly grown its tender-offer activity as investor interest and available tools have expanded.

There’s also more investor appetite. Investors are increasingly willing to gain ownership through tender offers or secondary transactions. Five years ago, that was far less common.

Right now, it’s a very founder- and employee-friendly environment, and investors are willing to support secondary liquidity because they want access. If markets turn, that pendulum could shift back.

For investors considering private-company shares, what does a secondary-market price tell them compared with the valuation at the company’s last fundraise?

Haslett: I think it gives them the true price.

A primary valuation is a point-in-time measure of what investors were willing to pay, and those investors generally received preferred stock with additional rights and liquidation preferences.

The secondary market is more telling of what you could actually get in your pocket now. For companies that embrace secondary liquidity, those prices help employees, former employees and early investors understand what their shares are actually worth.

How does EquityZen calculate popularity and distinguish durable investor demand from curiosity or hype?

Haslett: Our platform allows investors, typically retail accredited investors, to tell us what they’re interested in. They can browse companies, review our analysis, and indicate which companies they would invest in, if shares became available, and at what size.

That gives us a real-time metric of what our user base wants to invest in and how much. It helps guide where we spend our time bringing opportunities to clients.

The last thing we want is to work with a shareholder when we can’t find a buyer, or with a buyer when we can’t find shares for sale.

What does the recent consolidation in the secondary market tell you about how the market is evolving?

Haslett: There was a lot of attention toward the end of 2025 around consolidation in the secondary-market space. went to , and EquityZen went to Morgan Stanley.

To me, that reflects market growth, increasing adoption of secondary liquidity, and the fact that the biggest financial institutions are paying attention. I don’t expect that to change.

Your data showed that some software companies began trading at premiums again in the second quarter. What separates those gaining investor confidence from those still trading at deep discounts?

Haslett: Execution. Leadership and execution.

It’s about a company’s ability to take a legacy SaaS business and turn it into something AI-enabled across the business. Are you using AI tools to improve internal tasks? Are you building AI into your product for clients?

Companies that can combine the stickiness and customer loyalty they’ve already built with their domain expertise and AI are going to do just fine. The ones that are slower to adopt are going to get pummeled.

Six months ago, there was concern that when a company like announced a cybersecurity or legal tool, companies in those sectors would immediately lose value. I think some of that was a knee-jerk reaction.

Customers already using your software have some patience, but they also expect you to keep improving the product and give them a reason not to switch. The companies that are slow to react, or too proud to react, are the ones I think will get hit hardest.

, and 1��are examples of software that is deeply ingrained in large enterprises. If companies can keep their products working well and keep adapting them, they still have a shot at being successful standalone businesses. It comes down to management execution.

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So far this year, more than 500 seed- or venture-backed private companies across the globe have sold to other private, venture-backed companies, per ������Ƶ data. The most prolific acquirers include many of the most famous and valuable unicorns, including , and .

Overall, the pace of dealmaking in 2026 looks relatively flat��1Reported deal counts are down slightly this year from the comparable period, but are likely to even out more over time as some acquisitions, particularly smaller deals, are added to the dataset weeks or months after they close.2 compared to last year. That’s not entirely surprising given that overall market conditions haven’t changed dramatically. The number of tech startup IPOs remains below normal. Hot venture-backed AI companies are still sustaining unheard-of valuations. And the rise of megarounds means favored startup acquirers are flush with cash.

Startups buying startups in recent years

In total, at least 440 funded startups sold to other startups in the first half of this year. The second half is shaping up to be a bit slower, meanwhile, with fewer than 100 deals so far.

For a more expansive chronological view, below we charted startup M&A deal counts by half-year beginning in 2021.

The pace of M&A dealmaking peaked about four years ago and fell afterward, in tandem with a broader dip in startup investment. But activity has picked up over the past couple of years with the rise in AI investment.

Startups that buy a lot of other startups

A few startups have proven particularly acquisitive.

The standout in this category is probably OpenAI, which has acquired eight startups this year, most of them seed- or early-stage companies. To date, the generative AI giant has bought at least 19 companies, per ������Ƶ data.

Anthropic has also been a busy buyer. It’s snapped up at least five startups so far this year, including the $400 million purchase of AI biotech startup .

In the fintech space, meanwhile, has been on an M&A spree. The crypto transactions platform acquired five funded startups focused on cryptocurrency or blockchain between April and July.

Others with multiple funded startup M&A deals this year include AI infrastructure unicorn , security provider , and the legal tech startups and .

No big slowdown in sight

While prediction can be a fool’s game, there’s not much in the immediate set of indicators pointing to a slowdown in startups’ appetite for acquisition. Amid fierce competition for an edge in the AI race, well-funded startups commonly find it’s simply faster to buy another company than try to build out certain technologies themselves.

Same goes for talent. Through acquihire transactions, startups can bring on board not just top-tier individuals but experienced teams with a track record of building impressive things together.

Concentration of capital is another factor driving M&A deals. While overall startup funding has risen this year, it’s increasingly spread across a smaller pool of companies. That leaves one large cohort of startups struggling to raise funding while another has plentiful capital for acquisitions.

Go-to-market expenses also factor into M&A considerations. A startup might produce a compelling offering in-house but find it costly to bring it to market. The process may look more feasible under the wing of a larger, more mature startup.

Bottom line: Given the high number of willing sellers and well-funded buyers, expect the startup-to-startup acquisitions to continue.

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I asked him whether the company and board had started thinking about a potential M&A process. His answer was telling.

“Not really,” he said. “When my board is in the mood, I will reach out and we can discuss a process.”

What I heard was something different: When things start going south, or when the VC is stressed about liquidity (typically five years in) we will think about selling.

That is how many boards approach M&A. They treat it as a fallback plan in case growth slows, cash tightens, or strategic options narrow, and an escape route later on when liquidity is needed to pay back LPs. But by then, the company’s leverage may already be gone.

The first signal is often the most counterintuitive: Everything is going exceptionally well

When revenue is growing rapidly, customers are happy, retention is strong and the leadership team is excited about the future, selling is usually the last thing anyone wants to discuss. Yet this is often when companies command their highest valuations. Strategic acquirers pay premiums for momentum. They want businesses that are winning markets, not struggling businesses trying to survive.

Boards should periodically ask themselves a difficult question: If we are currently operating from a position of maximum strength, should we at least understand what the market might pay for the business?

A second signal emerges when the founder begins losing energy

In many growth-stage companies, the founder remains the primary driver of vision, product strategy, recruiting, customer relationships and culture. After a decade or more of building a company, it is not unusual for founders to begin thinking differently about their future.

That does not automatically mean the company should be sold. In some cases, a CEO transition may be appropriate. In others, a secondary transaction can provide liquidity to founders and reduce the pressure to pursue a full exit. However, boards should not ignore founder fatigue. If the founder’s personal objectives are changing, that reality should become part of the strategic discussion long before it begins affecting company performance.

A third signal occurs when buyers begin calling

Many CEOs dismiss inbound acquisition interest because they believe their company is still too early to sell. While that may be true, repeated inbound interest often contains valuable information. Strategic buyers spend significant resources analyzing markets, technologies and competitive dynamics. When multiple buyers independently express interest, it may signal that the company occupies a more valuable strategic position than management realizes.

This does not mean launching a formal process. It means listening. Understanding why buyers are interested, how they view the market, and what strategic value they see can help boards better assess their options. Sometimes the market identifies value before the company itself does.

Ironically, the situation that most often triggers discussions about selling may be the weakest reason to pursue it

When growth slows, competitors appear stronger, or cash reserves begin shrinking, boards frequently turn their attention toward M&A. The logic seems straightforward: If the company is struggling, perhaps it should be sold.

Unfortunately, buyers can see the same challenges.

When a company enters the market because it is running out of options, valuations typically reflect that reality. Acquirers gain negotiating leverage, and shareholders often receive less attractive outcomes than they expected. In many situations, a strategic reset may create more value than an immediate sale. A product pivot, leadership change, market repositioning or operational turnaround can restore momentum and dramatically improve future strategic options.

What I have observed from conversations with CEOs and boards is that many begin thinking about selling precisely when they should be thinking about reinventing. Meanwhile, the strongest exits often begin when nobody feels urgency to sell at all.

In my mind, the role of a board is to actively avoid inertia, and continuously evaluate whether selling, scaling, pivoting or remaining independent creates the most value for shareholders. The best time to have that conversation is usually before circumstances force it.

is a strategic adviser to tech companies, investors, CEOs and boards, specializing in strategy, growth and M&A. He is a guest contributor to ������Ƶ News and a university lecturer on strategy, finance and entrepreneurship. Learn more at and connect with him on .

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Venture investors, luckily, seem to be more upbeat than they have been in years about the future of fitness and wellness. Startup investment in those categories totaled more than $3.6 billion in the first half of this year, putting 2026 on pace to come in about a third higher than 2025, though notably last year marked the lowest sum for wellness-related startup funding in at least six years.

The recent uptick also puts investment into fitness- and wellness-related startups on pace to top each year since 2022, though deals are concentrating into fewer, larger bets.

Largest fundraisers of H1 2026

This year’s funding totals have been driven by a handful of outsized deals, like wearable health tracker ’s $575 million Series G in March.

Other companies that have raised large rounds this year include senior healthcare provider , which raised a $366 million Series F at the beginning of the year, and , which raised a $130 million Series C from investors including in February. Its platform connects patients with professional healthcare advocates who support them through complex medical journeys like cancer, rare-disease management and substance abuse treatment.

Those fundings are markedly different from the hardware plays that received investor attention during the pandemic. For example, connected fitness devices startups and each raised hundreds of millions of dollars during the peak funding years, but haven’t received new investment in three-plus years.

AI gives devices a second act

That doesn’t mean investors have entirely given up on hardware. Rather, the more compelling pitch in 2026 appears to be a device that continuously collects health data and uses AI to turn it into personalized guidance to improve overall wellness and fitness.

Along with Whoop’s Series G, New York-based sleep technology company raised a $50 million Series D in March, while India-based metabolic health wearable maker secured the equivalent of about $44 million in Series C funding in February.

A few entrants are also drawing substantial checks. New Delhi-based raised a sizable $54 million seed round in February for a wearable focused on brain-centered health and performance metrics. The company says its technology tracks cerebral blood flow and uses a proprietary measure called Entropy to quantify users’ real-time energy expenditure.

The future of fitness funding and exits

We expect to see continued investor interest in companies that bring AI to bear on wellness-related offerings, including in more specialized areas such as longevity, mental health, sleep and athletic performance.

We may also see more funding for devices that serve as data-collection layers for AI-driven health platforms. At the same time, we don’t expect investors to broadly return to large, pricey home-gym gadgets or hardware that doesn’t have a strong recurring software, data or healthcare component.

We could also see more exits in the sector as companies combine their capabilities through M&A deals or private equity roll-ups. And, we would not be surprised to see more established players make strategic buys of smaller companies, as we saw last year with fitness tracking platform ’s acquisition of running workout planner , or more recently with ’s purchase of endurance-training platform .

Still, we don’t foresee a flurry of IPOs from the sector, perhaps with the exception of a few star players. ������Ƶ’s predictive intelligence tools suggest likely IPO candidates in the fitness and wellness categories include Whoop, rival wearable wellness tracker , mental health platform , and , which operates a network of clinics offering what it bills as AI-driven longevity and preventative health services.

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It is difficult to define the extent to which a specific company should morph itself into an “AI native” company. Does this add value for everyone?

AI does not automatically increase exit value. In some cases, it can reduce differentiation, compress margins, complicate diligence and make a company more difficult to acquire. Like pricing, customer service or go-to-market strategy, AI requires a careful balancing act between speed and defensibility, innovation and complexity, short-term productivity and long-term strategic value.

Let’s jump into three ways AI strategy can impact exit value.

Build an AI architecture that acquirers can trust

Many startups are rapidly adding AI copilots, model integrations, orchestration layers, prompt libraries, vector databases and third-party AI tools across the organization. This may accelerate product development and help teams ship faster. However, from the perspective of an acquirer, it can also create a more complicated architecture.

During due diligence, buyers care about how AI is being used. Which models are embedded in the product? Which vendors are critical to delivery? Where does customer data flow? How are outputs monitored? What happens if pricing changes, APIs break or regulation shifts?

A startup may see AI adoption as innovation. A buyer may see it as integration complexity, vendor dependency, compliance exposure and security risk.

This is especially important for strategic acquirers that need to integrate the target into a larger platform. If AI makes the product easier to scale, automate, secure and maintain, it can support valuation. If it creates a fragile layer of external dependencies, unclear data flows and difficult-to-audit decision-making, it may reduce confidence and lower the price a buyer is willing to pay.

Invest in proprietary data

Even one year ago, adding AI functionality to a product could create excitement by itself. Today, many AI features are becoming easy to replicate. Summarization, search, chat interfaces, recommendations, content generation and workflow assistance are increasingly available through the same underlying models and infrastructure. This matters for exits.

A strategic acquirer rarely pays a premium simply because a startup integrated the latest model. They pay for what they cannot easily build themselves: proprietary datasets, unique customer workflows, strong distribution, deep vertical adoption or network effects that improve with scale.

Founders should therefore ask a simple question: Is our AI strategy creating a defensible asset, or are we just adding features that competitors can copy within weeks or months?

Revisit your buyer map as AI redraws strategic boundaries

Historically, many companies built their exit strategy around a familiar buyer map. A cybersecurity startup might sell to a larger cybersecurity vendor. A vertical SaaS company might sell to a competitor in the same industry. A workflow automation company might sell to a productivity platform. AI is changing those boundaries.

As AI expands what platforms can do, strategic buyers are moving into adjacent markets they previously ignored. An infrastructure company may acquire an identity platform because AI agents need secure access controls. An ERP vendor may acquire workflow automation because AI is moving closer to business process execution. A data platform may acquire a vertical application because domain-specific data is becoming more valuable.

This means CEOs should revisit their buyer map every six to 12 months. The most logical acquirer today may not be the same one that would have been logical even one year ago.

is a strategic adviser to tech companies, investors, CEOs and boards, specializing in strategy, growth and M&A. He is a guest contributor to ������Ƶ News and a university lecturer on strategy, finance and entrepreneurship. Learn more at and connect with him on .

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July ranked as the third-largest funding month of the year, up 10% over June, following on the heels of a record-breaking first half of 2026, when startups raised $515 billion globally.

Fourteen startups raised billion-dollar rounds in July, the highest count in a single month, though not the largest amount raised in such deals, an analysis of ������Ƶ data shows. The tally includes nine U.S.-based companies, two each from Germany and China, and one company headquartered in Singapore.

The largest startup funding deal last month was a $10 billion investment in , the first external financing for the -founded space exploration company.

, a frontier lab founded by former Chief Scientist , reportedly raised $5 billion from . The next two largest deals were Beijing-based frontier lab ’s $3.5 billion raise after releasing its latest Kimi K3 model, and raising $2.8 billion for short-video generation.

Two Germany-based companies in defense tech also raised billion-dollar rounds: and . In the U.S., companies that raised billion-dollar-plus rounds spanned the energy, industrial robotics, AI training, security and semiconductor industries.

Funding to AI

A total of $35 billion, or around 53% of global venture funding, went to AI-focused companies in�� July. Other leading sectors were aerospace, defense and energy.

U.S.-based companies raised a total of $39 billion, or around 59% of global venture capital, last month with roughly half of the capital invested in its AI-focused companies.

Exits

July was also a robust month for startup exits, including via acquisition and public-market debuts.

Venture-backed M&A totaled more than $9 billion in July, with five companies exiting at prices�� over $1 billion, ������Ƶ data shows. Notable acquisitions included London-based data center provider ’s roughly $1.65 billion acquisition of software layer , which was built to manage AI workflows, and in the security sector, AI-native security company ’s $1 billion acquisition of , a service to manage non-human identities.

Twelve venture-backed companies went public above $1 billion in value in July, including five from China, six U.S.-based companies, and one from Italy. The largest was Chinese chipmaker , which went public at around $85 billion and . Italy-based , an acquirer of software companies including and , went public at a value of $18.5 billion. And last-mile transportation company , founded in 2017, went public at $1.6 billion in value, raising $167 million in the process.

In closing

If the first half of 2026 established that venture has entered a new era of mega-financings, July reinforced that the trend is broadening rather than fading. Record numbers of billion-dollar rounds in both hardware and software, alongside a healthy IPO and M&A market, point to an ecosystem where capital is not only concentrating in category leaders but is also beginning to recycle through exits.

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Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Aug. 3, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. ������Ƶ also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. ������Ƶ includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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The purported deal, which has been rumored for months, is notable not just for its scale — it would be one of the largest acquisitions of a technology company in recent years — but also for its highly unusual nature. Privately held startups typically lack the cash, publicly traded shares and debt capacity to acquire their publicly listed brethren.

Of course, Stripe is not just any privately held company. The fintech startup was, until just a few short years ago, the highest valued startup based in the U.S., before being eclipsed on that metric by AI labs and . In February, the company announced it had inked deals with investors to provide liquidity to current and former employees through a tender offer at a $159 billion valuation, which still ranks it as the fourth most valuable startup in the world.

With substantial private capital — it has raised some $10.4 billion since inception, —��Stripe has long been one of the most acquisitive venture-backed startups. It has made since its 2010 inception, according to ������Ƶ data. Only three have disclosed prices: stablecoin platform at $1.1 billion (2025), usage-based billing software startup at $1 billion (2026), and Nigerian payments startup at $200 million (2020).

Stripe’s M&A pace has also accelerated sharply since 2020, ������Ƶ data shows, with 13 of its 21 acquisitions announced since then.

Its recent strategy appears to be focused on stablecoins and crypto infrastructure — Bridge, , and —��as well as on billing and money movement through Metronome, payment processing startup and .

If the plan to buy PayPal does go through, it will most certainly make Stripe an even more formidable player in the crowded payments space.

It would also rank as one of the largest acquisitions of a U.S. tech company, public or private, of the past five years, according to ������Ƶ data, trailing only a handful of larger deals including $61 billion purchase of in 2022 and ’s acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor and its parent, , for $60 billion last month.

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Those were the findings from an analysis of global funding for the first half of the year to companies in ������Ƶ security- and privacy-related industry categories. Overall, startups in the cohort pulled in $10.6 billion in financing across stages, roughly in line with recent prior comps.

Slower in Q2

The first quarter of 2026 was a more robust period for funding than the second. Privacy and cybersecurity startups pulled in $4.4 billion in seed- through growth-stage financing in Q2. That marked a decline of around 30% from prior quarter and year-ago levels, with round counts falling by a similar magnitude, as charted below.

Given that the prior two quarters were particularly robust for cybersecurity funding, a moderate Q2 decline doesn’t look like a flashing warning sign. Moreover, the quarter did produce a sizable number of jumbo financings, including eight rounds of $100 million or more.

Standout fundraisers

The largest Q2 funding recipient was , a developer of AI-enabled enterprise security tools with a particular focus on AI agents. The New York company raised $600 million at a $12 billion valuation in a June round led by .

, a provider of an endpoint management platform, was another standout fundraiser, raising over $400 million in Series C extension financing. The investment set a $12.3 billion valuation for the Austin-based company.

, a 3-year-old Israeli startup that describes itself as an AI and cyber defense company for governments and critical infrastructure, also picked up a big round, closing on $260 million at a $3 billion valuation. For a broader view, below we list five of the quarter’s largest security-related financings:

Exits

In addition to scooping up funding, security startups also generated exits in Q2. While the IPO market was quiet, the quarter did bring a number of larger M&A deals.

The biggest of these straddled security and defense tech. That would be Chicago-based ’ planned acquisition of , an Israeli counter-drone technology company, for $1.5 billion.

The quarter also delivered multiple startup acquisitions valued in the hundreds of millions. To illustrate, below we charted four of the largest disclosed-price deals for Q2.

A mixed picture

Overall, the past few months have given cybersecurity startup investors and founders a case for optimism, but we aren’t seeing anything close resembling the hoopla and valuation escalation around foundational AI.

Still, there are some encouraging signs. Exits are happening. Big rounds are getting done. And as AI agents continue to proliferate, it’s a given we’ll need more sophisticated security to monitor their activities.

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