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:

Overall, investors put $38.5 billion into reported seed- through growth-stage financings for countries in the region in Q3, per ������Ƶ data. Of that, a majority went to AI-focused companies, echoing the trends we’ve seen globally.

Deal counts, meanwhile, were relatively flat. That indicates concentration of capital into favored startups remains pronounced but is not intensifying.

Table of contents

• An AI-driven quarter
• China leads by far in country-by-country breakdown
• Late stage
• Early stage
• Seed
• A big quarter for China
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

An AI-driven quarter

Around 55% of investment — an estimated $21 billion — went to AI-focused companies. Total funding is down substantially from the prior quarter, which was boosted by a $7.4 billion financing for China’s , but still the second-highest tally on record.

For Q3, a couple of extra-large rounds bolstered the AI investment tally. The largest went to Beijing-based foundational model company , which secured $3.5 billion in July at a reported $35 billion valuation.

, the AI spinout of China-based short video platform , was the second-biggest fundraiser. The generative video startup raised around $3 billion in a July financing that included and .

China leads by far in country-by-country breakdown

China was the leading Asian destination for venture investment by a very wide margin.

Per ������Ƶ data, roughly $27 billion — or 70% of all Asian startup funding in Q3 — went to China-based companies. India was a distant second, with $2.9 billion, followed by Singapore, with $2.5 billion.

For perspective, below we charted third-quarter startup funding tallies for the six countries with the largest totals.

Late stage

Most capital went to late- and growth-stage funding rounds.

Per ������Ƶ data, investment at this stage totaled around $20 billion in Q3. That’s down a bit from the prior quarter but nearly double year-ago levels and the second-strongest showing in four years.

Multiple jumbo rounds kept the total high. The largest was Moonshot AI’s aforementioned $3.5 billion Series F.

Several others raised financings in the multiple hundreds of millions. Shenzhen-based , a provider of robotics hardware and software, for instance, picked up $400 million in a September Series C. And Hong Kong-based , an e-commerce fintech platform, secured $300 million in Series C funding as it eyes an IPO.

Early stage

Early-stage investment drifted lower in Q3 but remained at historically high levels.

Per ������Ƶ data, financing for startups at the Series A and Series B stages totaled $13.6 billion for the just-ended quarter. That’s a decline of 28% from the prior quarter but up 65% from year-ago levels.

Seed

Reported seed funding hit its highest level in years, boosted by investor enthusiasm around AI.

In total, investors poured $4.9 billion into reported seed and angel deals across Asia, per ������Ƶ data. That’s up around 22% from the prior quarter and more than double year-ago levels.

A big quarter for China

Overall, Q3 was a robust period for venture funding to China-based companies, with far smaller sums going to other Asian startup hubs. Funding to startups based in India and Singapore was down significantly quarter over quarter, while Israel’s investment totals declined slightly.

We’ll keep an eye out in the coming months to see if this divergence of fortunes persists.

Related ������Ƶ query:

Related reading:

• ������Ƶ Data: Q3 2026 Posted A Record Count Of Billion-Dollar Rounds As The Global AI Race Heats Up

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:

������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 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.)

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At , we are regularly asked to put numbers on something that is, by nature, hard to pin down: the health of an innovation ecosystem. Governments, corporates and investors all want the same thing: A benchmark that tells them how their country or region stacks up against the rest of the world.

The problem is that no two ecosystems look alike, and any methodology rigid enough to allow cross-country comparison risks flattening exactly the traits that make a place distinctive.

This is the tension we have been working on for years, refining a model that is standard enough to compare Boston with São Paulo, Tel Aviv with Turin, yet flexible enough to capture what is genuinely different about each. This week in Seoul, we presented the latest application of that work: The Innovation Economy of South Korea. It’s a good occasion to lay out, briefly, how we think the exercise should be done.

Start from the Pyramid

Every innovation ecosystem can be represented as a pyramid. At the base sit startups: venture-backed technology companies still in the process of building and proving their business.

Move up and the base narrows into scaleups, or companies that have shown enough traction to raise more than $1 million in venture capital. Scaleups are the most structured, most visible output of an ecosystem, and for that reason they are among the best proxies for its maturity: You can plot their number, growth rate and sector mix against the Innovation Ecosystems Life Cycle Curve and get a reasonably honest read of where an ecosystem stands.

At the very top of the pyramid are the outliers that matter disproportionately: scalers and super-scalers, companies that have broken out of their home market and achieved real international scale. A handful of these can do more for a country’s innovation profile than thousands of early-stage startups —��which is why counting them separately, rather than burying them in an aggregate “startup” number, is essential to any serious methodology.

Alongside this VC-backed pyramid runs a second, often under-measured population: innovative SMEs, or established, revenue-generating small and mid-sized companies that compete on technology and innovation rather than venture funding.

Ignore them and you miss a large part of the real economy’s innovation capacity, particularly in ecosystems — Korea among them — where corporate-led and government-backed innovation has historically mattered as much as the VC route. Many emerge as bootstrapped companies. Some remain independent, while others may eventually raise external funding and move upward into the startup and scaleup layers.

All these tech companies stem from the knowledge base generated by local universities and research centers. Together, these layers represent the technology supply of an ecosystem.

Why the supply side alone isn’t enough

Counting tech companies gives you the supply side of the equation. But supply only turns into economic impact when it meets demand, and demand is largely, though not exclusively, represented by corporates, both local and international.

Corporates benefit from the solutions developed by startups, scaleups and innovative tech companies, while also potentially supporting their industrialization and growth through acceleration programs, venture client models, CVC and M&A. This interaction between technology supply and corporate demand is what turns innovation into economic impact and company growth — which is why measuring it, not just the supply side, is essential.

The supply side also interacts with local, regional and global B2C markets: Consumer demand is the other half of the demand equation, particularly for companies whose growth path runs through the market rather than through a corporate relationship.

The evolution of an ecosystem is everywhere, fueled by capital and public support. Private capital comes from angels, VCs and CVCs, providing companies with the resources to develop, commercialize and scale. Public support comes through subsidies, grants and government programs, delivered either directly or indirectly through innovation agencies, ecosystem builders and other innovation brokers.

The stronger the connection between these different sources of capital and the companies sitting in the pyramid, the faster companies can move from one layer to the next. The less advanced an ecosystem is, the more public capital needs to be fueled into the ecosystem to bridge the gap.

When an ecosystem reaches critical mass

As a local ecosystem reaches a certain threshold in volume, density and quality of companies — typically the Star stage of the Innovation Ecosystems Life Cycle Curve — it starts attracting increasing interest from external players. Investors, multinational corporations and government agencies begin establishing a local presence, because proximity provides better access to talent, technology, deal flow, partnerships and market opportunities.

One concrete way to measure this external attractiveness is by counting corporate innovation outposts set up by multinationals, alongside government innovation outposts set up by foreign countries, regions or cities. It’s an indicator that tends to lag the ecosystem’s real progress by a couple of years, which makes it a useful confirmation metric rather than an early signal, but a valuable one nonetheless.

The Korean innovation pyramid

As for our latest count, 3,359 scaleups sit at the top of the South Korean innovation pyramid.

This makes South Korea the eighth-largest national innovation ecosystem in the world, with Seoul ranking as the 11th most developed ecosystem globally.

Below the scaleup layer sits a much larger base of approximately 10,000 startups, alongside an even broader base of approximately 25,000 technology companies (innovative SMEs) that are not venture-capital backed.

The enabling ecosystem includes approximately 700 investors and more than 550 innovation brokers, both public and private, powering more than 800 unique programs in support of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Beyond the number of scaleups, which is calculated analytically, all other figures represent our best-effort assessment of the different components of the ecosystem. The analysis starts from government data and consolidates available data sources. While this work is continuously refined, we believe that open-sourcing this data through the MTB Innovation Ecosystem Platform provides a further opportunity to build (innovation) bridges.

The demand side completes the picture:

• About 130 local companies with structured open innovation activities.
• Roughly 90 international companies with an identified innovation outpost in South Korea.

These figures are also subject to continuous monitoring and refinement as the ecosystem evolves and new players and activities emerge.

The point of measuring

None of this is an academic exercise. The output of this kind of methodology — as we discussed applying it to Korea this week — is meant to be actionable: It should tell a government where its ecosystem sits on the Innovation Ecosystems Life Cycle Curve, where the bottlenecks are, and how it compares to peer economies pursuing the same transition from startup nation to scaleup nation.

Get the methodology right, and the numbers stop being a scoreboard and start being a diagnosis.

A decade of divergence

This is exactly what happened in South Korea.

Just 10 years ago, Korea was about 40% smaller than Japan and Germany, comparable in size to Australia and Spain, and slightly ahead of Singapore and Italy. Fast-forward 10 years, and Korea had become the clear leader of the pack. With 3,233 scaleups in 2025, Korea:

• Started pulling away from Germany and Japan, building a positive gap that appears difficult to close;
• Grew to more than double the size of Spain — Korea’s most comparable ������Ƶ tech ecosystem in 2015; and
• Nearly doubled the size of Singapore, the other Far East tech haven.

Strategy, not luck

The extraordinarily rapid growth of the Korean innovation economy is not the result of chance, but rather of more than two decades of forward-looking strategic government direction.

After establishing the basic framework for a radical increase in R&D spending — from 2%-3% of GDP to a minimum of 5% in 2008 — Korea, in 2013, underscored the centrality of tech entrepreneurship as a strategic pillar of the economy, alongside the launch of TIPS, or Tech Incubator Program for Startup, to boost the early-stage segment. Subsequent policies expanded on this framework by supporting the scaling process of local tech companies. In particular, between 2014 and 2015, 17 regional centers of innovation (CCEI — Centers for Creative Economy and Innovation) were established, bringing together local large conglomerates (chaebols) and startup incubation activities.

New regulatory frameworks allowed greater freedom for experimentation by tech companies, opened the door to new forms of financing, and provided incentives for scaleup financing. More recently, starting in 2022, new dedicated strategies and instruments have contributed to a major shift, concentrating investments and tools on deep technology innovation.

The figure below highlights the impact of some flagship innovation-related policies enacted by the Korean government, juxtaposed with the historical growth of the overall scaleup ecosystem.

Get the full story in Mind The Bridge’s report, available for free download .

is chairman of and a professor at . He is a serial entrepreneur who has started three startups in his career, the last of which is , among the five Italian scaleups that have raised the largest amount of capital. He is recognized among the leading international experts in open innovation and has wide experience in setting up and managing open innovation projects —��venture clients, venture builders, intrapreneurship, CVCs — with large multinational companies, as well as advising and training on this subject. Onetti has a column on () and several other tech blogs.

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led the round, with participation from co-leads Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by , and existing investor .

The financing comes nearly one year to the day after Mistral’s $2 billion Series C, which valued the company at $13.7 billion. Mistral has now raised $7.5 billion since its 2023 inception.

Mistral’s new raise means it retains its spot as the most highly valued foundation model company out of Europe. There are currently seven private frontier labs valued above $20 billion on The ������Ƶ Unicorn board — eight including China’s , which is also building its own model — though the rest are all based in the U.S. and China.

In a statement, the company says the new capital will “significantly expand Mistral’s frontier research” and help it “expand infrastructure and accelerate” its commercial growth and international footprint. Mistral currently operates across 20 countries and counts more than 125 global enterprises as customers, including , , and .

Mistral builds AI models for tasks such as generating text, writing code and analyzing documents, putting it in competition with U.S. companies including , and .

However, unlike many of its U.S. rivals, Mistral touts greater control for businesses by offering models they can customize and run on their own systems rather than relying entirely on a third-party cloud provider.

Europe’s VC momentum

This year has marked a turning point for ������Ƶ venture funding. In Q2, Europe posted its strongest quarter in four years for venture funding, ������Ƶ data shows. All told, Europe-based startups raised $24 billion in the quarter, up around a third quarter over quarter and two-thirds higher than the $14.4 billion raised in Q2 2025.

At the time of Mistral’s $2 billion Series C, that raise represented the largest venture round ever raised by a ������Ƶ AI company.

This latest round has now eclipsed that, and several other large AI-related deals in Europe have also closed this year. They include London-based Google spinoff , which raised a $2.1 billion Series B in May led by and AI data center provider , which raised a $2 billion Series C at a $14.6 billion valuation in March co-led by and . (It has also since raised several billion in debt financing, per ������Ƶ.)

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Related reading:

• Europe Posted Its Strongest Venture Funding Quarter In 4 Years As UK Gains, M&A Holds Up
• Mistral’s $2B Series C Is Europe’s Largest AI Round By A Lot

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We spoke with to talk through the firm’s evolution and how it is meeting this AI moment. She is a partner at the firm who relocated to Silicon Valley from Mexico City.

When the firm was founded in 2005, Brazil didn’t yet have a startup ecosystem —��there was no network of founders, no LPs backing VC firms based there, and no follow-on investors. That has changed drastically in the couple of decades since, with the country emerging as LatAm’s startup powerhouse and a place where U.S. investors and tech giants are increasingly courting business.

Brazil is an exceptionally digitally savvy market. It is the for and the third-largest . Its real-time payment rail , created by the , was rolled out in 2020 and is used by more than 90% of adults in the country.

Latin America has also become an important market for U.S. AI labs and technology companies. Monashees recently announced a partnership with called the in which the two companies co-invest up to $2 million in AI-native and deep tech pre-seed or seed-stage startups in Brazil. Its first summit is planned for later this year in San Francisco, where it will gather Latin American startup founders building businesses with AI.

Monashees makes around eight to 10 new investments per year and is finalizing the deployment of its $370 million fund into roughly 35 companies.

The firm opened an office in Mexico City in 2022 and in September 2025 set up an office in San Francisco.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Gené Teare: To set this up, tell me about Monashees.

Fabiola �ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: Monashees is the pioneer of venture capital in Latin America. It started 20 years ago, in 2005, with the premise that what had happened in Silicon Valley with tech could also happen in LatAm — that many of the structural problems could be solved with tech.

and , Monashees’ co-founders, were crazy enough to believe this could happen, so that’s when they started Monashees. Just to give you a little context, back in the day there was nothing. It really took time for this flywheel to get started, because if you don’t have funding, you don’t have great talent.

Finally, after five years, they managed to crack that. In 2010, you started to have the first wave of tech companies in the region, and Monashees started positioning Brazil on the global tech map.

As a second phase, the team realized that what was happening in the Brazilian ecosystem was also starting to happen in other countries in the region. Great teams were starting to build great companies. That’s when Monashees decided to expand across Latin America and back these teams. That’s when we led ’s seed round, one of the flagship companies of Latin America.

The third wave, which is what we’re focused on right now, is Global LatAm: backing Latin American founders who are building global businesses, regardless of whether they are building in Latin America or globally.

That has also been the rationale for opening an office in San Francisco. In the context of AI, you have many Latin American founders starting businesses from here because you have to be close to the labs and the talent.

We’re early-stage investors. We invest at pre-seed, seed and Series A. Seed and Series A are our sweet spot, and we are lead investors. We’re also generalists. We’re not sector-specific, we’re mostly sector-agnostic.

I see this trend when I talk to a lot of ������Ƶ VCs with earlier-stage investors, establishing a U.S. presence. It seems fairly recent, and it seems to be driven by this AI wave. Do you think it’s the VCs coming here and the founders following, or are the founders coming first and the VCs realizing they need more of a presence here?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: I think initially it was mostly founders. Now, it’s a little bit of both; they’re feeding each other.

The reason we started the office in San Francisco is that the pace at which AI evolves is unseen, even compared with other technology paradigms in the past. If you’re not here, it’s very difficult to keep pace and stay up to speed with where the AI frontier is going. You even have a gap with Wall Street, so imagine the gap with Latin America.

If you want to build an AI-native company as a Latin American founder, part of that is coming to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. San Francisco is now the magnet for all of this. It’s highly dense and concentrated. You have to be here to absorb the tools and understand what other people are doing.

I also think it’s super important because founders realize that Silicon Valley is the champions league. In Latin America, you do have great talent, but you don’t know what great looks like if you’ve never worked here.

The reason we opened an office here is to bridge that gap: to help founders be here, see what is happening at the frontier, and understand what the best companies are doing so they can replicate that back in LatAm.

The talent in the region is now sophisticated enough. It has been a 20-year process to get to a point where you have great, ambitious founders who believe they can build global businesses.

You already have success stories like from or from . Founders realize they can build globally.

In the context of AI, many of these global companies have to be based here because you have access to AI talent, but also to funding. Being close to all the Silicon Valley funds is also crucial for them.

I do think several founders are coming here to build, but that also creates some issues. One important thing to note is that many of these founders are building for the Latin American market, where your revenue is in Brazilian reais or Mexican pesos. In terms of headcount, you need to be very careful that you don’t have a U.S. cost basis when your revenue is in Brazilian reais or Mexican pesos.

These very early-stage startups also cannot compete with the big labs here that are paying a lot of money for talent. Right now in San Francisco, finding AI talent is really difficult and it’s very expensive.

I think it’s more about coming here, learning and bringing back the best practices. That’s where the real arbitrage opportunity comes from. You have amazing talent in LatAm, and you can teach them. Now, in the context of AI, you have much better ways to do that and you can operate with a smaller headcount.

That’s the rationale for founders coming here and for us being here as a bridge. We help our portfolio companies stay close to AI innovation, but we also get access to Latin American founders who are building from the U.S.

We hired a researcher for the Monashees team. Andrés [Campero] has a Ph.D. from in AI. He’s one of the disciples of , who is a very renowned researcher. The rationale for having Andrés, who is Mexican, on the team is to help us connect with the research diaspora here in San Francisco. It’s very different to talk about business than it is to talk to researchers.

This is important because most researchers from Latin America don’t stay in Latin America. They come to the U.S. and work at the different universities here. It’s important for us to be connected to where most of the innovation is happening. Andrés also helps us identify the best companies emerging in the region from a technology standpoint.

Of those, how many are coming to the U.S. at the earlier stages? What proportion do you expect to come here?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: Some of the companies we’re seeing start in LatAm and then expand to the U.S.

We have a portfolio company called . It’s AI-native, and it develops preventive-maintenance software. The company started in Brazil.

Its customers were global businesses, and those customers started pulling the company into the U.S. Its product was much better than what was available here. The company is now headquartered in Atlanta, so you could say it’s a U.S. company now.

Most of its revenue comes from the U.S. I think examples like that — companies born in LatAm that expand globally — will tend to be around 30% of the portfolio.

Companies we invest in from the U.S., where most of the revenue will be U.S.-based, will probably be around 20%, because we continue to be a LatAm-focused fund. But we’re also going to see more LatAm-born companies coming here.

You mentioned the focus on Latin America, and talent is obviously very difficult to find here in the U.S. right now. For the companies that are based here, do you see them setting up offices in LatAm to attract talent? Are most of them using a hybrid model, or are some completely U.S.-based?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: It depends on the stage they’re at. Later-stage companies — think Series C or Series D — tend to have most of their technology teams in Brazil, Argentina or elsewhere in LatAm.

Another example is . It’s headquartered in Salt Lake City, but most of its technology team is in Brazil, in a smaller city called João Pessoa.

The company is building very sophisticated AI infrastructure. It was able to do that because it was very good at hiring a senior team that could teach and transfer knowledge to the local team.

We’re seeing more of that. You start with senior people, senior researchers or senior data scientists in the U.S., while much of the junior team is in LatAm.

Now, with AI, you can have fewer junior people. But you also have talent in Latin America that is strong enough to act as the senior engineers.

What are the standout companies in the Monashees portfolio that you would highlight?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: I’ve shared a couple. One is Tractian, the preventive-maintenance software company. The company has been growing. It’s a success story for us because it started in Brazil, and it has proprietary technology. It combines software and hardware, and it owns the patents for its hardware.

Today, it is really conquering the U.S. market. It’s a perfect example of an AI-native company born in Brazil, where the AI lab lives in Brazil, but the company is competing at the global level.

We also have Music.AI, which is in a fun industry. If you’re an amateur musician, its platform allows you to play whatever song you want and play with the instruments in the background. You can play the drums, the flute or whatever you want while having the other instruments behind you. The company has both a B2B and a B2C business. It has more than 50 million users or downloads and is growing very fast. It won iPad App of the Year two years ago. It’s another success story. It is based in Salt Lake City, but has its technology team in Brazil.

We recently invested in a company called . It’s an accelerator, so it’s similar in some ways to what we’re doing with Google. Shiva is trying to capture this new wave of entrepreneurs who might not have pursued entrepreneurship if Shiva and AI didn’t exist. , the founder, is a second-time founder. He was one of the early co-founders of one of our portfolio companies, which later went public. You can think of Shiva as the of Latin America in the sense that it is very community-driven. It is also trying to capture these solopreneurs: companies started by just one person that can go global from day one and have revenue from day one.

I think it’s a super-interesting and very different investment. It speaks to how we’re always trying to keep pace with how the ecosystem is going to evolve, because this ecosystem is also likely to be disrupted by AI.

I can also tell you about some of the companies in the portfolio that are focused specifically on Latin America.

We have a company called . It’s an HR platform. It’s very specific to the Brazilian ecosystem because regulation requires employers to provide certain benefits to employees. Flash managed to build a technology product around that, and now the company is expanding into a full HR platform. It’s one of the flagships of Fund IX. It’s growing very fast, and it has become a flagship company in Latin America. Fintech is one of the largest and most important markets in Latin America.

Another company was actually the first investment I made at Monashees. It’s a payment-orchestration platform called . The company is at the Series B stage. We invested at seed back in the day. It gives an e-commerce company a single integration through which it can manage all of its payment methods. If you’re a multinational company — think about — and you want to enter Brazil, Colombia and Peru, you have to deal with so many payment methods. With Yuno, you have just a single integration. In the context of AI, Yuno has developed a very strong agentic platform that helps with fraud and conversion. Fraud in LatAm is a big issue, and the platform helps companies manage fraud and increase conversion across these marketplaces.

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For this matchup, “¡Gooooooooool!” is really the only acceptable way to announce a new score. And if you can make that a good 21 seconds in one breath, all the better.

Here at ������Ƶ News, meanwhile, we’ve been prepping for the final in a less vocally demanding but much more data-intense manner. Since both contenders are far more famous for soccer than accomplishments in the startup realm, we figured a small step to rectify that was in order.

To do this, we put together a snapshot of recent startup funding tallies and trends for both Spain and Argentina. As you’ll see, neither accounts for a particularly large share of global or even regional investment. Both however, have an intriguing pipeline of recently funded companies.

Argentina

We’ll start with our second World Cup-related profile of Argentina. After it won the final in 2022, we wrote a venture funding-themed story calling the country’s startup scene “small, scrappy and sometimes very successful.”

Four years later, that description still holds. Argentinian startups typically pull in a few hundred million dollars in venture funding annually. Investment is, however, lower than for Brazil and Mexico, the two most populous Latin American nations, which commonly lead in funding.

Argentina’s startup ecosystem has also delivered some big hits over the years. The most famous Argentine-founded internet company — online marketplace �� — commands a market cap around $94 billion on . (It’s currently headquartered in Uruguay but traces its roots to a Buenos Aires garage.)

More recently, Buenos Aires-based fintech has been making waves in the regional startup scene. It’s raised $1.1 billion in known funding to date, including a $195 million March financing.

Others that have raised good-sized rounds this year are also in the fintech space, including:

• , a payments infrastructure startup, closed on a $55 million Series C round co-led by and .
• , a provider of payments and collections infrastructure, secured $27 million in Series B funding in February.

So far, 2026 is shaping up as a strong year for funding, with investment already ahead of last year’s total. Funding tends to fluctuate quite a bit from year to year as the presence or absence of a single large round or two can heavily skew the totals.

Spain

Oddsmakers say Spain is the favorite going into the final. However, it’s well known that often the underdog also prevails. That was the lesson from Spain’s 2:0 defeat of favorite France this week.

But while it may have prevailed over France in soccer, Spain continues to lag in venture funding. So far in 2026, Spanish startups have raised less than $2 billion in funding across stages, which is roughly one-third France’s total for the same period.

While not large, Spain’s funded startup pipeline is not lacking in pizazz. Take this year’s largest funding recipient — — which closed a $206 million Series C in March. Its anything-but-modest mission is to be a “global space transportation service provider to support cargo and human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars.”

Other standouts among the bigger rounds this year include:

• , an AI-enabled HR and payroll platform, scooped up $150 million in Series D funding at a $2.5 billion valuation in June. To date, the Barcelona-based company has raised over $350 million in equity funding.
• ��, a Madrid startup focused on infrastructure for near space, space tourism and aerospace data, closed on $140 million in Series D funding in May.
• , a Madrid-based developer of AI tools for analyzing geospatial data, picked up $130 million in Series B funding in April.

Overall funding to Spanish startups is also trending higher, with 2026 on track for a year-over-year gain. For the past few years, annual Spanish startup funding has ranged between $1.8 billion and $2.8 billion, as charted below.

Rooting for the underdog

While both Spain and Argentina have a long track record of soccer success, a case could be made that both are underdogs in the startup space. It’s a familiar situation for secondary hubs in the current AI-driven investment cycle. Capital has been concentrating even more heavily in Silicon Valley and other leading venture hubs.

Given all the follow-on effects a successful startup can have on its region, it’d be encouraging to see investors spreading their bets more broadly across a wider geography. Spain and Argentina have already proven they have what it takes to prevail in one very competitive arena. Given the capital and opportunity, there’s no reason to doubt their abilities in the venture-backed startup game either.

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Overall, investors poured $42.8 billion into startup funding rounds across all of Asia in Q2 2026, per ������Ƶ data. That’s by far the highest quarterly total in more than three years, as charted below.

Investment rose sharply at both seed and early stage, driven by megarounds for foundational AI startups. Capital was highly concentrated among a few favored names, with deal counts actually hitting a multiyear low in Q2, even as investment skyrocketed.

Table of contents

• AI leads the surge
• China leads, followed by India and Singapore
• Late stage gets a boost
• Early stage was on fire too
• Seed holds strong
• An up quarter
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

AI leads the surge

Artificial intelligence-focused startups scooped up more than 60% of all venture funding to Asia-based startups in Q2. Altogether, those companies pulled in just over $26 billion, by far the highest sum on record.

A handful of companies accounted for a big chunk of the total. Of those, China-based large language model developer was the fundraising leader by a wide margin, raising $7.4 billion at a reported $50 billion valuation in June.

Two other companies tied for second, each raising $2.5 billion. One, foundational AI startup , is based in China. The other, AI data center developer , is headquartered in Singapore.

China leads, followed by India and Singapore

Alongside the AI surge, the other standout investment trend for Q2 was the sharp rise in funding to China-based startups.

Overall, Chinese companies pulled in just over $30 billion in venture funding across stages during the quarter. Investment was up a staggering 424% over year-ago levels and rose 76% from the prior quarter.

The next-largest funding destinations were Singapore, which attracted about

$3.6 billion, and India, with $3.3 billion. Below, we charted the funding share among the six Asian countries with the highest levels of startup investment in Q2.

Late stage gets a boost

The Q2 funding gains weren’t limited to a particular stage, as both early- and later-stage dealmaking saw increased investment.

Late stage pulled in the largest share. Per ������Ƶ data, nearly $21 billion went to late-stage and technology growth rounds for startups in Asia in the just-ended quarter, the highest total in more than four years.

Funding was more than triple year-ago levels. Gains have steadily mounted over the past five quarters, as charted below.

Early stage was on fire too

Early stage investment also soared, hitting its highest point since 2021.

Overall, an estimated $18.4 billion went to early-stage rounds in Q2, roughly triple year-ago levels and up 57% from the prior quarter.

Seed holds strong

Seed, meanwhile, also held strong, with $3.7 billion in reported investment at this stage in Q2, roughly flat with the prior quarter. (As always, we expect the final number for Q2 to come in higher, as deals may be entered into the dataset weeks or months after the close.)

An up quarter

Broadly, the second quarter tallies paint an upbeat picture for Asia’s startup funding scene, at least compared to a year or two ago. That said, investors continue to be quite selective about who they fund, meaning that while chosen founders are attracting big checks, others may still be struggling to secure backing, even at much smaller sums.

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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 July 10, 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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