All told, startups in Latin America raised a combined $1.3 billion across seed- and growth-stage deals in the three-month period ending Sept. 30. That was up 26% year over year but down 9% from the second quarter.

For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 12 quarters below.

Of the quarterly total, $757 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 74% compared to the $435 million that flowed into such deals in the third quarter of 2025. However, that is down 21.3% from the $962 million in late-stage and growth rounds raised by LatAm startups in the second quarter. (Although it’s worth noting that Q2 2026 represented the most raised at that stage since the second quarter of 2022.)

Mexico startups have raised $1.52 billion in venture funding during the first three quarters of 2026, per ������Ƶ data. Notably, that’s about 40.7% more than the $1.08 billion Brazil’s startups raised in the same period. This is unusual as Brazil has historically been the largest recipient of venture funding in Latin America.

Still, Brazil continues to attract a broad range of investors.

“Over the past year, we have seen investments into Brazil from firms including , , , and ,” , managing partner of , told ������Ƶ News. “For several, this marked either their first investment in Latin America or their first in a long time.”

, Endeavor Catalyst’s vice president and head of Latin America, noted that Mexico drew more venture funding in the first half of 2026 than Brazil. But much of �ѱ�澱����’s funding went to a few startups, he pointed out, while Brazil recorded many deals.

“Investors are concentrating on a few Mexican winners, while Brazil retains the breadth,” Piquet said, adding that Brazil also leads in realized exits.

Table of contents

• Outsized rounds
• An uptick in seed funding
• ‘Another rediscovery moment’
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Outsized rounds

Several mega-raises took place in Latin America in the third quarter. And notably, the two largest funding deals were not for companies in Brazil or Mexico, which have historically raised the largest share of venture capital in the region. They also weren’t to fintech, which typically has the most funding recipients in the region, but rather to energy-related startups.

, the Chilean project company for ’s Black Giant lithium project, raised $225 million in a July round at a reported $900 million valuation. And Colombia’s , a clean energy company that builds and operates solar power systems for homes and businesses, landed a $129 million Series C in August at a reported $600 million valuation.

�ѱ�澱����’s , an AI-powered financial services company, raised a $125 million Series C in September at a $1.6 billion valuation. led the financing, which included a senior debt funding facility provided by .

And in August, Brazilian fintech brought in $106.9 million in an equity and debt seed round at a $626 million valuation.

Also in August, Brazil’s , an AI-native wealth advisory company, landed $85 million in�� what ������Ƶ shows is the largest seed funding deal ever raised for a Latin American startup. Founded by , former CTO of , and , founder of , the startup is backed by ,,, and .

An uptick in seed funding

Latin America experienced a marked surge in very early-stage funding totals in the third quarter, largely thanks to the seed rounds mentioned above.

Of the $1.3 billion raised by Latin America’s startups in the third quarter, about 20.5% — or $266 million — was raised across the angel and seed stages.

That’s up 128% from the $117 million raised across those stages in the second quarter of 2026, and up 62% from the $165 million in the same quarter last year.

Just over 22%, or $288 million, was raised at early stages, down 18.9% from $355 million in the second quarter and 34% from $437 million in the same period last year.

We expect the Q3 deal counts to rise somewhat over time; however, as seed rounds in particular are commonly reported weeks or months after they close.

‘Another rediscovery moment’

Latin America is drawing renewed interest from international venture investors, according to Endeavor’s Taylor. He said international VCs were more active in the region, particularly Brazil, during the first three quarters of 2026 than in 2024 and 2025 combined, through both new investments and follow-on funding.

“I joke that investors from the U.S. ‘rediscover’ Latin America every five or six years, and I think we are approaching another rediscovery moment,” Taylor told ������Ƶ News.

Endeavor Catalyst recently closed its oversubscribed $320 million fifth fund. Latin America accounts for nearly 40% of its portfolio by both deals and dollars, and Fund V had made 14 investments in the region as of Sept. 22. Taylor also pointed to opportunities beyond Brazil and Mexico, including repeat founders building global businesses from Colombia and emerging companies in Venezuela and Central America.

Liquidity is improving, although acquisitions and secondary transactions are providing more opportunities than public listings, Piquet said. He pointed to approximately 60 private Latin American technology companies that have each raised at least $150 million as a potential pipeline for future IPOs.

“The exit door is open, although it is not primarily opening through IPOs yet,” Piquet said.

Taylor expects more exits could help bring global investors back consistently, with potential listings by companies such as , or contributing to another “rediscovery moment” in 2027.

International investors remain interested in Latin America but have become more selective about deploying capital, according to of . Firms with a longstanding presence in the region remain engaged, while many that entered during the 2020–2021 investment boom have shifted toward AI opportunities elsewhere and are concentrating on existing portfolios, she noted.

“Global investors are increasingly investing behind themes rather than geographies,” she said, putting Latin American startups in more direct competition with companies in the U.S. and other markets.

Investor interest is increasingly centered on AI-native businesses and financial infrastructure, particularly stablecoins and cross-border payments. Gadala-Maria said more founders are targeting global markets from the outset, marking a departure from the previous wave of startups that adapted established business models to underserved local markets.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing founders build globally competitive technology companies from Latin America, rather than necessarily for Latin America,” she said.

Gadala-Maria agrees that Brazil and Mexico remain the region’s largest markets, with Brazil offering a deeper, more mature startup ecosystem and Mexico providing substantial room for financial services innovation. She pointed to Argentina as an overlooked market, citing its strong technical talent and founders building companies for global customers.

Correction: Details regarding Kapital’s Series C were updated. The deal was a debt and equity raise.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 5, 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.)

Illustration:

This tracker includes layoffs conducted by U.S.-based companies or those with a strong U.S. presence and is updated at least bi-weekly. We’ve included both startups and publicly traded, tech-heavy companies. We’ve also included companies based elsewhere that have a sizable team in the United States, such as , even when it’s unclear how much of the U.S. workforce has been affected by layoffs.

Layoff and workforce figures are best estimates based on reporting. We source the layoffs from media reports, our own reporting, social media posts and , a crowdsourced database of tech layoffs.

We recently updated our layoffs tracker to reflect the most recent round of layoffs each company has conducted. This allows us to quickly and more accurately track layoff trends, which is why you might notice some changes in our most recent numbers.

If an employee headcount cannot be confirmed to our standards, we note it as “unclear.”

������Ƶ startup funding reached $25 billion last quarter, well above the $14 billion invested in Q3 2025 and up slightly from the $24 billion invested in Q2. Quarterly funding was up 77% year over year, per ������Ƶ data.

While the U.K. continued to lead startup funding totals last quarter, Germany and France both posted their strongest quarters since the boom years of 2021 and early 2022. Last quarter’s funding totals were boosted heavily by a $3.5 billion investment in Paris-based , the largest venture round ever for a Europe-based company.

Table of contents

• Billion-dollar fundings
• Venture expands beyond the UK
• Late-stage rise
• Early stage
• Seed
• Looking forward
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Billion-dollar fundings

Four ������Ƶ companies raised billion-dollar-plus fundings, representing close to 40% of the region’s startup capital raised last quarter.

They include Mistral, which also announced its new open-source model Large 4, an LLM it claims outperforms competing open source models on several vectors.

Data center provider raised a convertible note of $3.36 billion that it says it will convert once it goes public, which it has filed plans to do.

Two defense tech startups also raised billion-dollar-plus rounds last quarter: raised a Series E of $1.8 billion, and raised $1.2 billion.

AI drove 75% of ������Ƶ funding this past quarter — totaling $18.8 billion — the highest proportion on record.

Investments in physical tech in Europe in defense, data centers, energy, aerospace and robotics accounted for roughly half of ������Ƶ funding in Q3.

Venture expands beyond the UK

The U.K. led the region’s quarterly funding totals with $7.5 billion even as Germany and France gained market share for venture capital funding in Q3 with $5 billion and $4.8 billion invested, respectively.

The fourth-largest market, Sweden, saw $1.5 billion in venture capital invested while the Netherlands and Spain posted their strongest quarter since the COVID boom years with $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion invested in their startup markets, respectively.

Late-stage rise

A total of $17.3 billion — 70% of Europe’s Q3 venture capital — was invested in late-stage deals in 83 companies.

Outside of the billion-dollar rounds, large late-stage fundings between $400 million to $700 million were raised by Stockholm-based health scanning provider ; Lisbon-based autonomous drone developer ; Spain-based , which offers model compression technology for enterprise AI adoption; Amsterdam-based AI deployment startup ; Bayern-based space transportation company ; and Stockholm-based AI web application builder .

Early stage

Europe’s early-stage funding totaled $5.7 billion into just over 200 companies in Q3, down quarter over quarter and flat year over year.

The largest Series A funding deals, each $200 million or over, were raised by Eindhoven-based AI semiconductor startup and Zürich-based autonomous construction company .

Large Series B rounds were raised by Munich-based fusion energy company and London-based optical computing provider .

Seed

Europe’s seed funding fell quarter over quarter and was flat year over year. Around $2 billion was invested in more than 750 companies at seed stage in Q3.

London-based managed inference company raised the largest seed round at $100 million, followed by Munich-based AI for robotics startup , which raised $55 million.

Looking forward

Europe’s momentum in 2026 continued in Q3, which was the second quarter this year when venture totals topped $20 billion. Those are figures not seen in the region’s startup scene since Q3 2022. Along with growth in AI funding, late-stage funding noticeably increased last quarter with many of the leading rounds sourced across multiple ������Ƶ countries.

Europe represented 16% of global venture capital in Q3, although the true impact of its technology and startups is higher, with many of the region’s startups expanding or moving to the U.S. to capitalize on the rapid growth of AI there.

At the same time, Europe’s ambition to build leading deep-tech companies and meet demand for sovereign AI will be tested in the quarters ahead by its ability to mobilize the substantial capital these businesses need.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Related reading:

• ������Ƶ Data: Q3 2026 Posted A Record Count Of Billion-Dollar Rounds As The Global AI Race Heats Up
• Reporter’s Notebook: Europe’s Sovereign AI Push Needs Customers As Well As Capital

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 5, 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.)

Illustration:

In 2021, putting AI on a slide could get you funded. Small and mid-sized businesses were eager to be early adopters, and they bought fast. I watched companies secure customers, raise money, then struggle to keep anyone using their products. Retention fell off a cliff.

Many of those products were generic: They did what traditional software already did, with AI fairy dust sprinkled on top. Others saved a bit of time on something nobody’s job depended on. A 20% improvement on a noncritical task makes for a nice demo and a dead renewal.

There were never easy AI wins, even if there was easy money going around. The market is now correcting for that. Companies delivering meaningful value are growing faster than anything I have seen in enterprise software. For investors, the question is which of these companies can keep their customers — and whether the coming IPOs will expose the difference.

What makes an AI business defensible today

Before my co-founder and I wrote a single line of code, we interviewed more than 900 mechanical engineers, from juniors to VPs. We asked where their hours went and which of those hours they would pay to get back. Those 900 conversations shaped how I think about building an AI business.

First: the improvement has to justify the investment. Saving 10% on an occasional task will rarely change how a company operates. Reducing a business-critical process from weeks to minutes, or saving serious money, will.

Second: domain expertise. Frontier models are becoming infrastructure. Access to a good LLM is available to almost anyone with an API. The commercial opportunity lies in understanding an industry well enough to solve problems that generic tools cannot.

Third: proprietary context. In terms of engineering examples, every company that builds physical products has accumulated decades of engineering knowledge. Much of it remains buried in old drawings or locked away in the heads of experienced employees. That knowledge is absent from a foundation model’s training data. An AI product that cannot access it will struggle to become essential for the business. The advantage grows as the product becomes embedded in the customer’s workflows and replacing it becomes costly.

What this means for funding and IPOs

The upcoming AI IPOs will put these business models under much greater scrutiny. Public investors will examine net revenue retention and gross margins, assessing whether rapid growth is able to translate into a sustainable business. They will also want to know whether each deployment becomes cheaper to support as the company grows. The standards they establish will influence what private investors expect from earlier-stage AI companies.

I can already see the change in my own fundraising conversations. A few years ago, $1 million in ARR was a milestone. In the AI era, a new product can reach $1 million in ARR in about a year, and shut down a year later. Now ARR alone no longer tells investors enough.

What investors keep asking about is expansion. They want to know whether customers are increasing their spending after the initial deployment. Expansion is the closest thing we have to proof that a product has changed how an organization works: customers have experienced its value and committed more of their own budget to it.

Over the next 12 to 24 months, I expect capital to keep flowing to companies that combine deep industry expertise with significant improvements in business-critical work and access to customers’ proprietary knowledge. They may grow through hands-on deployment rather than viral self-service, but they can expand inside accounts that trust them.

Companies whose products are thin layers over someone else’s model, with impressive customer lists and retention charts nobody wants to show, will find their next funding round much harder than the last one. I would rather grow fast and steady for five years than spectacularly for five quarters.

is the founder and CEO of , the first AI for mechanical engineering — a large mechanical model for physical product design. He conducted AI and mechanical engineering research at as a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow and became the youngest Ph.D. graduate in the history of the Farid has built a community of more than 60,000 engineers and supports underserved youth through his nonprofit initiative.

Related ������Ƶ query:

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In total, investors poured $92 billion into seed- through growth-stage rounds for U.S. and Canadian startups in the third quarter, per ������Ƶ data. That’s a 35% decline from the prior quarter but up 50% from year-ago levels.

Deal volume held fairly steady, with late-stage and early-stage round counts remaining close to prior quarter levels.

Artificial intelligence remained the prevailing theme for startup investors. Per ������Ƶ data, roughly two-thirds of total funding this past quarter went to AI-focused companies. Of that, a big chunk went to large rounds for , and .

Overall, however, investment fell across most stages. Early-stage dealmaking posted a particularly sharp decline from a multiyear peak the prior quarter, while later-stage funding was also down.

As for exits, quarter-over-quarter IPO comps were always going to be challenging, given that Q2 featured ’s record-setting market entry. Even compared to a typical quarter, however, the IPO market was fairly sluggish in Q3, with a few biotech, energy and consumer-facing offerings, but no blockbuster tech debuts. M&A activity was more exciting, topped by ’s September acquisition of .

Below, we look over the quarterly numbers in more detail, breaking out investment by stage, charting AI funding, and analyzing exit activity.

Table of contents

• Late-stage and technology growth funding
• Early stage
• Seed
• AI
• Exits
• M&A
• IPOs
• Slower, but not a slowdown
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Late-stage and technology growth funding

We’ll start with late stage, since that’s where most startup funding went.

For Q3, investors poured $66.45 billion into late- and growth-stage deals, per ������Ƶ data. That’s up about a third from year-ago levels, but down sharply from Q1 and Q2 of this year, when OpenAI and Anthropic pulled in financings of $110 billion and $65 billion, respectively.

For the just-ended quarter, the largest late-stage and growth rounds went to Databricks ($5 billion), AI infrastructure unicorn Crusoe ($3.9 billion), ($3 billion), and AI coding startup ($2 billion). Overall, more than a dozen startups attracted late-stage or growth rounds of $1 billion or more, per ������Ƶ data.

Early stage

Early-stage investment also held up at historically high levels in Q3, albeit down from prior highs.

Overall, investors put $20.6 billion into early-stage rounds in the just-ended quarter, per ������Ƶ data. That was down sequentially from the prior quarter but still well above prior year levels.

A few exceptionally big rounds pushed up the latest quarterly tally. The largest funding recipients included open source AI company ’s $1.1 billion Series A, nuclear startup ’ $660 million Series B, and chip hardware and software developer ’s $500 million Series A.

Seed

Seed-stage dealmaking was also quite busy in Q3.

At least $5 billion went to seed, angel and pre-seed rounds in the just-ended quarter, per preliminary ������Ƶ data. That’s a bit below both the prior quarter and year-ago comps. However, we expect the Q3 tally to rise a bit over time as seed deals commonly get added to the dataset a few weeks or months after they close.

The AI space delivered some particularly large seed rounds. Of these, standouts were physical AI startups , which picked up $300 million, and . which secured $90 million.

AI

The percentage of funding going to AI-focused startups also held up at high levels in Q3, per ������Ƶ data.

A total of $61 billion went to AI-focused rounds, per ������Ƶ data. While that’s down sharply from the prior two quarters, it’s still one of the highest tallies on record.

Exits

As for exits, Q3 featured a number of large M&A deals, particularly in the AI space. The IPO market was a bit quieter, with much of the market’s attention looking forward to enormous offerings from foundational AI pioneers in coming months.

M&A

Acquisition activity was fairly robust in Q3, boosted by a handful of large AI-related purchases. Of these, the biggest was Nvidia’s acquisition of open model development platform Hugging Face for $12.93 billion.

The next-biggest M&A deal was ’s purchase last week of , an AI model and research lab led by AI pioneer , in a stock deal valued around $8.2 billion. Not far behind, in third place, was ’s acquisition of , a startup that routes prompts through different AI models, in an August transaction reportedly valued around $7.5 billion.

In total, there were 11 North American startup acquisitions at reported prices of $1 billion or more in Q3, per ������Ƶ data. We list them below.

IPOs

Overall, it was a light quarter for IPO activity. Per ������Ƶ data, 17 venture-backed North American companies went public on major U.S. and Canadian exchanges in Q3, per ������Ƶ data, collectively raising just under $4 billion.

Three biotech companies raised the largest sums in their IPOs: , focused on mRNA; , a developer of cardiovascular therapies; and , which is working on antibody therapeutics.

Other venture-backed companies that carried out good-sized debuts included , a developer of advanced nuclear fuel, and , the scooter and e-bike rental platform.

Notably, however, it was the IPOs that didn’t happen this quarter that attracted the most attention. By this, we are referring of course to Anthropic, which is reportedly eyeing a�� public list as early as November, and OpenAI, which filed confidentially for an IPO in June and is expected to make its debut in 2027.

Slower, but not a slowdown

Overall, Q3 seems to exemplify the notion that funding activity can decline from peak levels without a clear indication that the investment climate has turned bearish.

Yes, giant funding rounds contracted. However, the maturation of the two most valuable startups, OpenAI and Anthropic, into even more valuable pre-IPO companies, is the kind of thing venture investors want to see.

Moreover, big rounds are still closing at a brisk clip. The AI space is still regularly minting fresh unicorns. And acquirers are snapping up leading names at historically high valuations.

Could things go south from here? Sure. But for now, the AI-driven momentum continues.

Related ������Ƶ query:

Related reading:

• North American Startup Funding Shattered Records In First Half Of 2026, Driven By AI

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 2, 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.)

Illustration:

Funding to private companies has skyrocketed this year, totaling $679 billion in venture funding globally in Q1 through Q3 2026, per ������Ƶ data. That is the highest amount in the first three quarters of any given year.

While global venture funding in Q3 was down 25% quarter over quarter from the $212 billion raised in Q2, it was up 53% year over year from the $104 billion raised in Q3 2025.

��Table of Contents

• Billion-dollar fundings
• US and sectors
• Late-stage funding
• Early-stage funding
• Seed
• Exits: IPOs and M&A
• Robust market
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Billion-dollar fundings

A notable shift in 2026 has been the number of startups that have raised billion-dollar-plus rounds. An all-time record of 27 companies raised such sizable rounds in Q3 2026, an increase from the previous record, set in Q2, of 16 companies and Q1’s total of 14 companies.

Around a third of all global venture capital raised in Q3 went to those 27 companies. In the two prior quarters, billion-dollar raises pushed total funding to well above historical norms.

No single company raised funding in the tens of billions last quarter. However, eight companies raised funding rounds of $3 billion or more, with frontier labs and data centers leading by company counts for the biggest raises. Of these eight companies, five were founded within the past four years.

The largest funding deals went to and , which each raised $5 billion. Close behind, , , , , and each raised more than $3 billion.

US and sectors

U.S.-based companies continued to raise the dominant share of venture capital with $91 billion invested in American startups, or around 57% of the global total in Q3. The San Francisco Bay Area alone accounted for 24% of global venture investment in the quarter.

AI-driven startups across the stack raised $102 billion, or 64% of global venture capital, down from the two previous quarters, but still 14 percentage points above Q3 2025 global funding.

The realm of physical AI has attracted significant capital in 2026. That continued in Q3 with the aerospace, robotics, data centers, semiconductor and energy sectors each raising $10 billion or more in the quarter.

Late-stage funding

Late-stage venture funding totaled $105 billion in Q3, down 23% from Q2 but up 73% from Q3 2025, ������Ƶ data shows. Funding rounds of $100 million and above accounted for close to 90% of late-stage financings.

Early-stage funding

Early-stage funding totaled $40.6 billion in Q3, up by 25% from a year earlier. The number of companies raising jumbo sized rounds at $100 million and over, represented 50% of early-stage financings.

Seed

Global seed funding totaled $13 billion in Q3, ������Ƶ data shows. Of that, $2.6 billion went to seed rounds of $100 million and over, around 20% of seed financings.

Exits: IPOs and M&A

Q3 was a fairly strong quarter for exits. China dominated on the IPO front for the largest exits�� with semiconductor and robotics listings surging on their first day of trading.

• China-based , developer of DRAM chips, was the largest IPO in Q3, raising�� $8.6 billion at an $85.5 billion value. Its stock surged more than 500%�� on its debut to become the most valuable listed company in the local market.
• The second-largest was Singapore-based fast fashion company listing at a $26.3 billion valuation, well below its 2022 valuation peak of $100 billion. Shein was the one exception that closed its first day around its opening price, after falling by about 10%;
• Shanghai-based AI chipmaker , a competitor to , went public in September, raising $912 million at a valuation of $25.5 billion.
• Milan-based , acquirer of and , raised $1.6 billion on its debut at a value of $18.4 billion.
• Hangzhou-based humanoid robotics company went public raising $905 million debuting at a valuation of $9 billion.

U.S.-based companies, meanwhile, dominated the largest M&A deals.

Semiconductor companies were the largest acquirers in Q3. bid to acquire New York-based open-source AI platform for $12.9 billion. Semiconductor giant announced its intent to acquire ’s , a San Francisco-based builder of models for physical intelligence, for $8.2 billion. The third-largest acquisition was payments provider ’s acquisition of New York-based AI model router for $7.5 billion.

Robust market

Over the past few quarters, larger checks across funding stages have pushed venture investment higher as young AI companies gained traction rapidly. Half of startup capital invested in Q3 went to companies founded since 2022.

Venture funding has also expanded beyond software into physical infrastructure and robotics, reindustrializing economies. And a dynamic seed funding climate for AI-native startups signals continued appetite for the next wave of companies.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 2, 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.)

Related reading:

• VCs Pour Billions Into Physical AI As The Next Wave Of AI Investing Takes Shape
• Jumbo-Sized Series A Rounds Are On The Rise

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The 2026 IPO pipeline is sending a clear signal. Public-market activity is returning selectively, led by companies that used the slower years to build scale and strengthen their financial and operating foundations.

The IPO market peaked in 2021, then slowed as interest rates rose, valuations fell and recession concerns weighed on issuance. market describes 2022 and 2023 as the weakest period since the global financial crisis. Activity improved in 2024 and stabilized further in 2025, but many companies stayed private longer, raised additional private capital, built scale and waited for stronger public-market conditions.

������Ƶ , which tracks venture-backed offerings, also shows a sharp rebound — but one driven disproportionately by the largest listings. In the first half of 2026, 58 venture-backed companies valued at $1 billion or more went public globally, up from 27 during the same period in 2025 and approaching the 69 recorded in all of last year. Collectively, venture-backed startups raised $110.8 billion through IPOs, compared with $12.6 billion a year earlier. Yet $86 billion — nearly 78% of the first-half total — came from alone. The figures point to a reopened market, but one still dominated by exceptional scale rather than a broad-based recovery.

Data from my company, , offers a forward-looking view. Capital-raising projects — new transaction workspaces opened for financing processes — rose 32% globally in the first half of 2026 from a year earlier, while an IPO-related subset rose 33%.

Project kickoffs are not completed offerings, and some processes may be paused, abandoned or redirected. Even so, they can serve as a directional leading indicator because deal teams typically begin organizing diligence materials before a public filing or announcement. On Datasite, which facilitates about 16,000 new deals annually, this activity can precede announced outcomes by about six to nine months.

For founders, late-stage startups and investors tracking exit readiness, the message is not simply to wait for a better market.

The strongest candidates can close their books quickly, produce public-company-quality reporting, explain a credible path to durable growth and profitability, operate with an experienced board and finance team, withstand regulatory and cybersecurity scrutiny, and show that the business can meet quarterly obligations after listing. They are building those capabilities now so they can choose among an IPO, another private round, or a sale when conditions permit.

Prepared companies are finally coming forward

That delay raised the bar for going public. Growth alone was no longer enough. Companies had to show stronger margins, more predictable revenue, cleaner governance, tighter controls and a longer record of operating performance. Public investors continue to scrutinize valuation, growth, profitability and governance, making disciplined preparation a prerequisite rather than a final-stage task.

IPO readiness creates optionality

That preparation creates strategic flexibility. A company positioned to go public can remain private, raise another round, pursue a sale or return to the IPO process when conditions improve. The same work supports each path and allows leaders to act when an opportunity emerges.

Readiness also must keep pace with the business. Acquisitions, expansion into new markets, and changes to the capital structure can alter disclosure obligations, internal controls and regulatory exposure. Companies that reassess those issues as they arise are less likely to face delays when diligence begins.

AI is changing preparation, not diligence judgment

Technology is shortening the administrative work that can otherwise delay readiness. On Datasite, from 14 days to 12 days year over year during the first half of 2026, while median diligence time remained at 181 days.

For an IPO candidate, AI and automation can help classify files, apply redactions, identify missing materials, and keep disclosures current as the business changes. That creates more time for finance, legal and leadership teams to address substantive gaps. It does not compress the judgment-intensive work of testing controls, resolving accounting issues, responding to regulators, or earning investor confidence.

The thesis can still fail. A sustained rise in rates or volatility, weaker economic growth, widening gaps between private and public valuations, regulatory or geopolitical shocks, or poor trading by newly listed companies could cause issuers to pause again. The most important test is conversion. If early project activity does not lead to more filings and completed offerings over the next six to nine months, or if new issues fail to hold their valuations after listing, the pipeline will have signaled preparation without a durable reopening.

What to watch next

The mix of issuers: Continued growth in proceeds alongside fewer listings would confirm that public markets remain concentrated among larger, more established companies.

The conversion of early activity: Capital-raising and IPO-related projects will matter most if they translate into filings and completed offerings over the next six to nine months.

Aftermarket performance: Durable valuations and trading performance beyond the first day will show whether investor demand can support a broader reopening.

The current IPO pipeline reflects years of corporate preparation, not simply a better market window. Rising IPO-related project activity offers an early view of possible issuance in 2027, but it is not a forecast of completed offerings. The next stage depends on whether projects convert into filings, listings and durable aftermarket demand. Today’s IPO calendar is the result of decisions made years ago. The next one is already being built.

is chief revenue officer, enterprise, at , an M&A infrastructure platform that helps companies, investors, and advisers find opportunities, manage complex transactions and make better decisions. In this role, he leads global commercial strategy for Datasite’s transaction business in more than 180 countries. Previously, he was chief revenue officer, Americas, for Datasite. He’s also held sales leadership roles at a variety of SaaS companies, including (now part of ) and . He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from , England.

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Meanwhile, on Monday, details from AI giant ’s IPO prospectus, giving potential investors a peek into its financials.

Oura had planned to offer 50 million shares at $40 to $44 apiece and was expected to begin trading Wednesday. At the top of that range, the offering would have raised $2.2 billion. The company says it is delaying the deal despite strong demand and has not set a new date. CEO said Oura has “the luxury of choosing our moment.”

Anthropic is still moving toward an IPO, although its timing remains unclear. A prospectus leaked by Reuters showed that revenue climbed twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025 with an operating loss of $8.06 billion. Its staggering nearly $42 billion net loss included roughly $34 billion in accounting charges tied largely to earlier financing.

The document also outlined an eye-watering $518 billion in future cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations. Reuters has reported that a listing is likely to come after the November midterm elections.

Anthropic, the world’s most valuable venture-backed startup, has indicated it plans to beat rival to the public markets. The company could debut as soon as October and raise up to $100 billion via the offering, according to a recent in , while OpenAI, which Reuters says filed confidentially in June, is reportedly now looking toward early 2027.

(������Ƶ’s predictive intelligence tools, meanwhile, point to a slightly longer timeline for an Anthropic IPO, saying it’s more likely to happen in six to 12 months.)

Who’s next

So far, the 2026 IPO class already has a record-setting headliner in .

There are some other candidates. -backed AI cloud provider filed publicly this month , reporting $140.6 million in first-half revenue and a $1.02 billion net loss. , a -backed specialty insurance underwriter, on Sept. 24.

Neither has announced a trading date.

Data center operator is another possible fourth-quarter entrant. Reuters that it had hired banks for an IPO that could raise as much as $10 billion, although the timing remains subject to change.

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From January through August U.S. tech layoffs reached at least 94,046, up 16.8% from 80,486 in the same period of 2025. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly, many of the cuts came as tech companies redirected spending toward AI and restructured operations to reduce costs.

The year started off on a busy note on the layoff front. After job cuts dropped sharply in December 2025 to 5,151, they surged in January to over 20,000. May was particularly brutal. The month drove the year-to-date increase, recording 31,513 layoffs — including ’s 8,000-job reduction — the highest monthly count since March 2023, when layoffs reached 36,602.

Recent months indicate a slowdown. Layoffs fell each month after May, reaching 2,347 in August. Overall, June-August 2026 layoffs totaled 19,331, down 16.2% year over year. The decline suggests recent easing, though it is too early to establish a lasting reversal.

Artificial intelligence has become a much more common explanation for layoff decisions, noted , founder of AI was cited in 33% of tech layoff events this year, up from just 1% in 2024. His tracker attributes 92,913 layoffs globally, or 72% of this year’s total, to AI.

“There’s been little evidence that AI is actually replacing the work of the human employees let go,” Lee said of this year’s largest AI-attributed layoffs. He believes established tech companies are spending heavily on AI and cutting costs elsewhere, hoping to increase productivity with smaller workforces.

Companies cutting

This year, we’ve seen a number of Big Tech and publicly traded companies, as well as startups, make deep cuts.

But interestingly, as with last year, public tech companies have dominated layoff headlines in 2026 so far, led by and Meta.

“Big companies [have] made up about 87% of everyone laid off in 2026, which is similar to last year, when they made up 85%,” Lee said.

Amazon accounted for 17,388 cuts this year so far through August. Those included a 16,000-worker RIF announcement in January and several smaller subsequent rounds. Meta was next with 10,400 layoffs, including an 8,000-job reduction carried out in May that represented 10% of its workforce.

and recorded the next-largest totals, letting go of 4,800 and 4,760 employees, respectively. , and each recorded 4,000 layoffs, followed by with 3,000, with 2,900 and with 2,600. Notably, the Top 10 list spans a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, social media, payments and enterprise technology.

We should also note that according to reports, ’s workforce fell by about 21,000 employees in its fiscal year ended May 31, 2026, but the worker count and exact timing for each of�� those reported cuts was unclear, so we did not include that total in our tracker.

Among privately held companies in the tracker, recorded the largest disclosed total at 1,000, followed by HR software provider with 950 and with 500. Those figures were substantially smaller than the largest public-company reductions, although undisclosed layoff counts limit comparisons between the two groups.

And in early September, reportedly laid off 3,300 workers, or 10% of its workforce.

An AI focus

, of , says AI is affecting jobs in two ways. Some work, including coding, can now be done with fewer people. “There are jobs that are literally being replaced by artificial intelligence,” he told ������Ƶ News.

But companies are also changing their priorities. They’re putting more money into AI and cutting teams working on other parts of the business. “They’re letting people go from one area of their organization while they might even be hiring in an area that is focused on AI,” Challenger said. That’s why a company may lay people off and advertise new jobs at the same time.

Tech has announced more job cuts than any other industry this year, Challenger said. Across the U.S. economy, layoffs are down somewhat from last year, though that comparison is skewed by the large number of federal job cuts in 2025. When compared with the period just after the pandemic, when employers struggled to find workers, layoffs remain elevated.

Few companies outside tech have blamed job cuts on AI so far, Challenger said.

It’s not all negative though, in his view. There’s potential upside for programmers, he said. If AI makes software less expensive to build, companies in other industries might embark on projects they couldn’t afford before. That could mean new jobs outside tech, though it’s too early to know whether those jobs will make up for the ones being cut.

Also, it appears that some companies might be regretting their layoff decisions. Amazon is reaching out to eligible former employees about open roles across the company, including in its cloud-computing and AI businesses, according to a�� report.

Methodology

Layoffs figures are from The ������Ƶ Tech Layoffs Tracker, where we record reported job cuts at U.S. tech employers. The tracker includes layoffs conducted by U.S.-based companies or those with a strong U.S. presence — both privately and publicly traded — and is updated at least bi-weekly. Layoff and workforce figures are best estimates based on reporting. Actual layoff figures are likely much higher than reported as many companies do not disclose the number of jobs cut when announcing layoffs. For more about our methodology for tracking layoffs, refer to the tracker’s methodology section.

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U.S. venture-backed technology��1 companies have secured nearly $90 billion in domestic public offerings this year, per ������Ƶ data. That’s already the second-highest annual tally on record, and we’ve still got a few months to go.

However, virtually all the money went to two companies. alone accounted for 83% of the $90 billion raised this year, while AI infrastructure company scooped up another 6%. A potential offering from , meanwhile, could be even bigger.

The remaining field is comparatively modest. Just 21 other venture-backed technology companies went public this year in sizable or offerings 2, per ������Ƶ data. Collectively, their offerings, which include traditional IPOs and SPAC deals, pulled in less than $10 billion.

This small cohort is intriguing for what it excludes as well as what it includes. Enterprise software, long a staple industry among venture-backed IPOs, was essentially a no-show this year. Energy, defense and space tech, by contrast, were well-represented. We also saw smaller offerings from other sectors, including medical devices and consumer-facing startups.

Here are some of the key findings in more detail:

Energy powers the most IPOs: About a quarter of this year’s tech startup offerings hail from the energy sector. The largest of these was from geothermal energy provider . Several nuclear power-focused startups also made their debuts, including and , developers of small modular nuclear reactors, as well as , focused on advanced nuclear fuel.

A dash of quantum, defense, aerospace, devices and consumer: Beyond energy, quantum computing company delivered one of the year’s larger debuts, as did equipment rental platform . Defense tech and aerospace were also strong performers, with offerings from satellite intelligence provider and spacecraft developer . And on the consumer front, e-bike and scooter platform finally made its market entrance, albeit at a valuation below its one-time .

An IPO SaaS-pocalipse: But what about SaaS? Mostly MIA. The paucity of enterprise software offerings this year isn’t entirely surprising given the impact of AI on the sector. VCs are pouring capital into a newer generation of AI-first platforms in legal tech, accounting and other enterprise software sectors. Existing SaaS unicorns are also moving fast to incorporate more AI in their offerings.

One end result is there are an awful lot of SaaS unicorns and former unicorns that have concluded this year is not the time to pursue an IPO.

Winner-takes-almost-all

Another end result is that investment returns are looking more concentrated than ever.

Of course, winning big or not at all is far from a new thing in the startup world. Tech venture returns have always been propped up largely by a few enormous wins, with the remainder of portfolio companies producing either losses or smaller profitable exits. But lately, the winner-take-almost-all-the-IPO-proceeds tilt is more pronounced than ever.

The pipeline of tech companies that have filed for future IPOs doesn’t offer much consolation that this pattern will change. Giant potential market debuts from Anthropic and still dominate IPO chatter. Enterprise SaaS offerings do not.

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