Size increase

Median seed round sizes have been climbing since 2023, Crunchbase data shows, with the median U.S. seed round last year now standing at around $3 million. That’s 3x larger than it was in 2018.

The upper quartile median last year was around $5.6 million — more than double what it was in 2018�� — and the lowest quartile was $1 million. (Although, underlying those medians is a much wider range of deal sizes.)

At seed, “What we see is everything from the inception stage, which is typically $3 million to $5 million, unless it’s a truly unique and obvious founder, all the way through to $8 million to $10 million-plus rounds,” said , managing partner at , one of the earliest institutional Bay Area seed funds founded in 2004.

McLoughlin noted that the typical check size his firm writes for a seed round has almost doubled from 18 months ago. “We’re still trying to buy at least 10% ownership, ideally more, and our average check has grown from $2.5 million or less, to $4.5 million,” he said.

The speed at which those round sizes have accelerated is mind-bending, he said. “If you’d asked me 18 months ago, would the $8 million to $10 million-plus seed round become de facto, I would have said you were crazy”

Series A rounds have also grown in size, per Crunchbase data. Last year, the median U.S. Series A deal was $15 million, with the upper quartile at $25 million and the lower quartile at $7 million. That trend has continued into 2026, with median Series A rounds moving still higher.

Longer time frame to Series A

But while companies that are funded at the seed stage are typically raising larger checks, they’re also taking longer to move on to Series A and face lower odds of graduating to that phase at all, Crunchbase data shows.

Since 2023, U.S. startups have been taking longer to raise a Series A round following an initial seed round of $1 million and over, per Crunchbase data, with that time frame now stretching to more than two years.

That continues a general upward trend since 2018 of startups taking longer to raise a Series A round after seed, with notable exceptions in the previous peak funding years of 2021 and 2022, when the timeline shrunk by six months.

The threshold for raising a successful Series A is no longer $1 million in annual recurring revenue, said McLoughlin. In the AI era, startups are expected to show $2 million to $3 million — even $4 million — in ARR as proof that the business has the momentum to scale, he said.

“When you’re fundraising for your [Series] A, you’re not in competition with the startups you deem to be competitors,” said McLoughlin. Rather, he noted, you’re in competition with every other deal floating around in the venture ecosystem — not just the partner you’re talking to and their ability to do the deal, but what the entire team is doing, how far along they are, how far ahead of pace they are on their investment cycle, and whether they’re being pushed to only do things that truly look like breakouts.

Fewer graduates

Since 2021, drastically fewer companies that raised an initial seed round of $1 million or more have progressed to a later-stage funding or exited, Crunchbase data shows.

Through 2020, companies that raised a seed round of $1 million-plus had a typical graduate rate of 55% or higher.

Since then, graduation rates appear to be falling dramatically. Of the companies that raised a $1 million-plus seed round in 2023, only 24% have progressed further, Crunchbase data shows. For the 2024 cohort of seed-funded companies, that’s even lower: just 16%.

While these cohorts are staying at the seed stage longer, still McLoughlin predicts, “we’re going to see the mortality rate from seed to A will be much, much higher.”

As the dynamics of seed funding change, investors are being forced to rethink their portfolio strategies — adjusting to the right number of bets, reserving enough capital for follow-on rounds, and deciding whether to invest earlier or in larger seed rounds with potentially less ownership.

“We’ve also got to be comfortable with this notion that there will probably be more early outcomes or failures in the portfolio, but if we do our job well, the big outcomes will be bigger than they’ve ever been before,” said McLoughlin.

Related Crunchbase queries:

Related reading:

• Data: The Seed Funding Boom Is Concentrating Capital In The San Francisco Bay Area
• Seed Funding Is Bigger Than Ever — And Harder To Get

Clarification: The rates of graduation from seed stage in 2023 and 2024 have been updated.

Illustration:

In 2025, 70% of U.S. funding — more than $200 billion — was invested in 389 companies that raised rounds of $100 million and over, Crunchbase data shows. Of that, $90 billion went to just six companies that each raised more than $5 billion last year.

Contrast that with around 6,000 companies that raised the remaining 30% of U.S. venture capital in 2025, a total of $88 billion in rounds starting anywhere from $1 million to less than $100 million.

Those numbers point to 2025 as the year of the most U.S. venture capital concentration on record, with investment clustering in top private companies even more so than it did in the previous peak year of 2021, when startup funding more than doubled year over year.

The capital concentration at the top did not come entirely at the expense of smaller startups, however. While private-market investment accumulated into the larger rounds, funding to the sub-$100 million rounds did not decline, but increased around $8 billion to roughly the same number of companies last year.

Looking back at 2021

In 2021, when capital concentrated into the largest rounds, 60% of capital went to companies that raised rounds of $100 million or more.

The difference between 2021 and 2025 was that in the earlier year, a greater portion of capital went to companies in the $100 million to $500 million range — around 770 companies — while in 2025 a greater portion of capital went to just 50 companies in rounds of $500 million and over.

Further concentration in 2026

Capital concentration shows no signs of abating this year.

Already just through April, U.S. venture capital totals in 2026 are on par with funding for all of 2025, and 80% of startup investment this year so far has gone to rounds of $500 million and more, across 29 companies.

A growing venture capital market

Crunchbase data indicates that the private markets are concentrating heavily into the largest companies, but also growing overall for startups across the size spectrum, albeit much more modestly for all but the largest companies.

While more funding and value accrued to the top in 2025, the rest of the market also increased year over year, with the exception of rounds between $1 million and $10 million. Even at the smaller round size, however, funding and deal counts were down less than 10% year over year.

Looking ahead

The fundamental question for the venture world now is: Does the rapid growth and capital concentration for the largest companies come at the expense of smaller startups, or does the success of , and the like expand the total addressable market for tech startups so drastically that it promises to grow and reshape opportunities across the entire ecosystem?

“While Anthropic and OpenAI are absolutely amazing companies, by virtue of the capital they’ve raised, they are going to have to go after incredibly large markets,” , managing director at , said during a recent Crunchbase News-hosted “There’s just so much white space around that, where really interesting founders and startups can play.”

, partner at This is a moment where I’m extremely excited about betting on seed and Series A, especially in spaces that do compete with Anthropic and OpenAI,” she said during the event. “I think they’ve really struggled to focus at this point in time, and they’ve been spending so much time trying to win lots of different use cases.”

, co-founder of , said he looks for startups to invest in that can build a defensible position in the new market: “If you’re very deeply embedded into a company’s workflow, where you’re doing many different tasks, not to mention you’re assembling a proprietary corpus of data that you can train your models on, we think that can be a sustainable moat over time.”

Related Crunchbase queries:

Related reading:

• The Crunchbase Unicorn Board
• The Seed Funding Boom Is Concentrating Capital In The San Francisco Bay Area
• The AI Boom Has Drastically Changed Who’s Funding The Hottest Companies In 2025 Vs. 2021
• Get To Know The Latest Class Of Ultra-Fast Fundraising Unicorns
• This Is A Momentous Year For Early-Stage Unicorns
• The Largest Recent Seed Rounds Are All For AI Companies

Illustration:

The energy sector necessary for AI compute also garnered significant funding this year.��

All told, roughly half of European venture funding in 2026 to date has been in AI-related companies, Crunchbase data shows.

The uptick in artificial intelligence investment has coincided with an overall gain in startup funding in the region the last past quarters. Funding was up a third year over year in Q4 and Q1, reaching more than $17 billion each quarter.��

AI talent hubs

One area where Europe is seeing momentum is with frontier labs.

Employees from — the original AI lab established in London in 2010 and acquired by Google in 2014 —��have spawned two new labs in London: and . And , previously Meta AI’s lead, formed in Paris. Just this year, the three companies have altogether raised $2.6 billion.��

Last year, German-based AI lab raised hundreds of million in funding. One of the earlier model companies from Europe, , founded in 2023, has raised $4 billion in total.��

Europe is also home to one of the early diffusion model companies, . from Heidelberg, Germany, recently merged with Canada-based in April for sovereign and commercial AI deployments, valuing the merged entity at $20 billion, creating a transatlantic competitor to U.S. model companies.��

The recent spate of new AI lab formation and renewed momentum on the funding front could be a driver for talent hubs to concentrate in Europe. Still, although foundation labs in Europe have raised more than , that represents a tiny percentage of the amount raised by frontier model companies in the U.S.

AI-native

In the European report, found 81% early-stage companies, largely pre Series A, are AI-native — up from 50% a year ago. Leading by company count this year were 12 companies in dev tools and infrastructure and 11 companies in industrials and robotics.��

The advantages of building in Europe are “access to strong engineers in the very beginning — having people that want to build and be part of a founding business, and access to good quality talent that you can retain,” said , a principal at Notion Capital who co-wrote the report.��

He also noted that in earlier vintages, the trend was to “build a company, expand to the U.S. at some point around the Series B. Now, from the start, founders tend to think globally from day one.”

The single most dramatic change, however, is how much leaner teams are ahead of the Series A, he said.

US bound

Despite the more recent pickup, European funding growth has lagged behind the U.S. since 2024.��

The leading San Francisco-based model companies — and — have raised $254 billion since 2023 and recentered the Bay Area post-pandemic as the place to be for ambitious founders.��

“The companies that start in the UK, France, Germany, and the Nordics, then come to Silicon Valley to grow,” said , managing partner at , speaking on current market trends.��

“You can build an amazing business anywhere in the world now. The barrier to building greatness has shrunk,” said McLoughlin, who himself relocated to�� San Francisco from the UK in 2010. “But, the chances of building a generational company are so much higher, if you come to the Bay Area.”

UK-founded incubator (EF) relocated to the U.S. in 2024. EF sources founders�� from leading universities around the globe to start companies but incorporates each business it funded in the U.S.��

“The Bay Area program is not just about proximity to capital,” said , CEO and co-founder on announcing EF’s recent fund raise. “It changes the ambition gradient. Founders move faster, think bigger and compete on a global stage from day one.”

“I’m seeing more than ever, companies that started in these emerging markets, and then going to the U.S. very early in their journey — not to sell themselves, but to sell to customers,” said , general partner at global investment firm . The firm invests on a global basis day zero at pre-seed, with its Elevate fund investing at later stages.��

“The time to copy a business is a month or two months, as opposed to years,” said Abdel-Nour,�� “You have an incentive to go and capture these big markets before your U.S. competition has really reached escape velocity,” he said.��

Related Crunchbase queries:

Illustration:

Two newly founded AI labs, both based in London and both with researchers from , raised large rounds out of the gate and made their Unicorn Board debuts. The two companies, and , both raised large initial fundings out of the gate, though take very different approaches to training AI.�� They were joined by another new unicorn in the foundation AI sector: , an open-source model company from China with on-device smaller models.��

Six companies working on humanoid robotics —��five from China and one from Japan — also received billion-dollar-plus valuations last month. Quite a few of these companies are building models for robotic intelligence using simulated data.��

The financial services, defense, developer tools, energy and healthcare sectors each added two or three new unicorns in April.��

Of the 28 companies, 12 are U.S.-based and eight are from China. The UK counted two new unicorns last month, while Germany, Spain, Switzerland, India and Japan each added one.��

April’s new unicorns

Here are April’s new unicorn companies. Of the 28 companies, 26 are AI-related.��

Foundational AI��

• , a London-based AI lab using reinforcement learning rather than human-generated data, raised a $1.1 billion seed round led by and . The less than 1-year-old company was founded by of AlphaGo and . It was valued at $5.1 billion in its first funding.��
• London-based , a new AI intelligence lab with the goal of continuous learning improvement, raised a $500 million Series A led by and . Founded by DeepMind researchers and ’s 1 previous AI lead, the less than 1-year-old company was valued at $4.5 billion.��
• Beijing-based , an on-device foundation model developer, raised funding led by and . Its open source MiniCPM is deployed in automotives, smartphones, PCs and home devices. The 3-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.��

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• Shanghai-based is a robotics AI company building a foundational model as well as hardware. It uses simulated training to create a model for grasping and spatial awareness. The 1-year-old company raised a Series A round and was valued at $2 billion.
• Shanghai-based humanoid robotics company raised a $513 million seed round led by and HSG. The 1-year-old company was valued at $1.9 billion.��
• Beijing-based , a hardware and software developer of models for robotics using simulated data, raised a $220 million Series B. The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.��
• Shenzhen-based , a builder of humanoid and quadruped robots, raised a $200 million Series B led by and . The 2-year-old company robots will be deployed for traffic, security and retail. It was valued at $1.5 billion.��
• Shenzhen-based , a commercial robotics company for delivery and commercial cleaning, raised a $146 million funding led by and . The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.��
• Tokyo-based , a humanoid robotics company to address public safety and urban maintenance, raised a Series A led round. The 1-year-old company co-founded by was valued at $1 billion.

Financial services��

• , which automates research for investment banks, raised a $160 million Series D led by . The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• Bangalore-based , a consumer and small business lending service, raised a $220 million Series E led by , , and . The 8-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.��
• , a banking and expense management service targeting small businesses and solopreneurs, raised a $100 million Series C led by , and . The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company, founded by college dropouts at the time, was valued at $1.4 billion.��

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• Space defense company raised a $600 million Series D led by and . The company has built software for space operations and an autonomous orbital vehicle called Jackal. The 4-year-old, Colorado-based company was valued at $2.2 billion.��
• Defense aviation company raised a $200 million Series C led by Khosla Ventures. The 7-year-old El Segundo, California-based builder of autonomous aircraft was valued at $1 billion.��

Developer tools��

• , a web search provider for AI agents used by and , raised a $100 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital. The 2-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $2 billion.��
• , an agentic software coding tool for enterprises, raised a $150 million Series C led by . The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.��

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• , developer of small nuclear reactors to provide direct power for AI data centers, raised a $340 million Series B funding. The 2-year-old El Segundo, California-based company was valued at $2 billion.��
• , a long duration energy storage battery provider, raised a $58 million Series C led by . The 12-year-old Bayern, Germany-based company that supports energy needs for grids, data centers and industry, was valued at $1.2 billion.��

Health care��

• Shanghai-based , a developer of a model for healthcare that includes computer vision and large language models, raised a $73 million Series A round. The 12-year-old company has built an assistant for doctors for screening, diagnosis and patient care, and was valued at $1 billion.��
• Switzerland-based , a developer of a peptide product to address enamel repair without needing surgery, raised a private equity funding led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.��

Data platform

• has built a semantic layer between data and agents necessary to interpret data and provide guardrails for AI. The 4-year-old San Francisco-based company raised a $120 million Series C led by and was valued at $1.5 billion.��

Manufacturing

• Shanghai-based , a collaboration tool to make factories more efficient, raised a $146 million Series D funding. The 10-year-old Shanghai-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Agentic AI

• , which builds agents trained on company data, raised a $80 million funding led by . The 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.��

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• Madrid-based , which is building data from satellites tracking changes in the earth for various commercial needs, raised a $130 million Series B led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.��

Marketing & sales��

• , a provider of booking and customer service for the services industry using AI, has raised a Series B funding led by and . The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion. The company has raised $125 million in funding from seed through its Series B.��

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• , an AI biotechnology infrastructure platform speeding up drug discovery, raised a $40 million Series E. The 8-year-old Waltham, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1 billion.��

Waste management��

• converts unused food products into energy. It raised a Series C funding led by strategic partner . The 19-year-old Concord, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1 billion.��

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:��

• (1,756)
• (611)
• (128)
• (187)
• (118)
• (102)
• (896)
• (516)
• (239)
• (38)
• (477)

Related reading:

• March Mints 11 New Unicorns, As $200B Is Added Through Up Rounds And Board Posts Strong Exits��
• Billion-Dollar AI Rounds Push April To Third-Highest Startup Funding Month In A Year
• This Is A Momentous Year For Early-Stage Unicorns��
• The Rising Investors Behind The New Unicorn Class��
• While OpenAI Shattered Records, Robotics and Semiconductor Startups Quietly Added The Most New Unicorns In February��

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.��

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.��

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .��

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.��

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

This increase was driven by large rounds to AI lab and Jeff Bezos’s , which is focused on AI manufacturing. The two companies raised $15 billion and $10 billion, respectively, together accounting for 45% of venture capital in April.��

Large rounds across multiple sectors

Billion-dollar rounds were also raised by Swedish green steel production plant , New York-based AI data operations provider , and London-based AI lab , which was founded by former employees.

Rounds $500 million and above were raised by Michigan-based modular electric pickup truck manufacturer , Colorado-based space defense company , Shanghai-based humanoid robotics startup , another London-based frontier lab, , and London-based , a global payments platform majority-owned by .

AI led

��������app funding in April reached $37 billion, accounting for 66% of global venture investment last month.��

AI model companies raised the lion’s share of capital at $26.7 billion. Physical AI in robotics, aerospace, drones and autonomous vehicles represented around $5.3 billion. And AI infrastructure in semiconductor and data centers raised $1.8 billion.��

The U.S. once again dominated startup funding, with American companies raising $39 billion, or around 70% of global venture capital.

Public markets and GDP growth

The first quarter of this year showed the dominance of AI in both the public and private markets, and that continued into April.

As the hyperscalers , and topped analyst revenue expectations and continued heavy AI expenditures, around half of the 2% U.S. GDP growth in Q1 was due to AI buildout, per an estimate from Oliver Allen, an economist with .

That was mirrored on the private-market side. Global venture investment is up 139% year over year through April, per Crunchbase data, with nearly 60% of that capital going to just five companies backed by deep-pocketed public technology companies, private equity and venture investors.

Related Crunchbase query:��

Related reading:

• Q1 2026 Shatters Venture Funding Records As AI Boom Pushes Startup Investment To $300B��

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of May 4, 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. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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 2025, the Bay Area expanded its dominance of U.S. seed funding — capturing a growing share of both deals and dollars — even as most startups remained geographically dispersed, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows.

The result is a more bifurcated landscape: a handful of major hubs, led by San Francisco and New York, pulling in a larger share of capital, while the rest of the country saw its slice shrink.

The Greater Los Angeles area and the Greater Boston area are the next-largest hubs for seed investment after the Bay Area and New York, but their share of funding at this stage, as measured by dollars, has dipped 1 or 2 percentage points each since 2024.

Where seed funding is clustering

The Bay Area and New York remain the two central hubs for U.S. startup activity. The New York area has largely held steady as a seed funding center, while the Bay Area is pulling ahead, led by heavy investment in AI startups headquartered there.

On a dollar basis, the Bay Area captured 45% of U.S. seed funding in 2025 — up sharply from 33% in 2024 and 28% in 2023, Crunchbase data shows.

New York retained its typical share at around 17%, while Greater Los Angeles and Greater Boston each accounted for about 5% of total funding.

That growth is in contrast to the rest of the country. Startups outside the top four metro areas represented just 28% of U.S. seed funding in 2025, the lowest share on record and well below the 40% average seen from 2018 through 2024.

Startup distribution remains diverse

Still, geography tells a more nuanced story when looking beyond dollars. Two-thirds of U.S. seed-stage startups in 2025 were based outside the Bay Area, underscoring how distributed startup formation remains even as capital concentrates.

And beyond the top hubs, a long tail of smaller ecosystems — including Austin, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Denver and San Diego — continues to produce a steady stream of new companies.

Another caveat: Strip out the largest seed rounds of $10 million or more, and the capital concentration looks less extreme. Without those outliers, the top four markets account for about 61% of seed funding amounts, within 2 to 3 percentage points, closer to historical norms.

Seed deal counts are also concentrating

While total seed funding has climbed, deal activity tells a slightly different story: Fewer rounds are getting done overall and a larger share of them are happening in the top hubs.

The Bay Area alone accounted for roughly one-third of all U.S. seed rounds in 2025, up 5 percentage points from the prior year, per Crunchbase data. New York has remained relatively steady at around 16% of deals since 2018.

Meanwhile, Greater Los Angeles and Greater Boston have each seen modest declines, falling to about 5% and 4% of seed deal share, respectively.

Taken together, the four leading metro areas made up 57% of U.S. seed deals in 2025, per Crunchbase data. The rest of the country accounted for 43%, a drop of about 5 percentage points from prior years.

Bay Area deal sizes shrink

Even as the Bay Area dominates in total capital and deal volume, it looks different on a per-deal basis. Median seed round sizes in 2025 were actually higher in other major hubs — including New York, Boston and Los Angeles — than in the Bay Area, which has seen typical deal sizes shrink since the market peak.

Overall, a more complex picture of the U.S. seed market has emerged in the past five years. Capital is concentrating geographically but not uniformly. The Bay Area is capturing more of the biggest rounds and overall dollars, but two-thirds of funded startups are still created outside of the region. And as a larger ecosystem, the Bay Area’s median seed round sizes were below the other leading hubs with fewer deals, but comparatively larger medians.

Related Crunchbase queries:

Related reading:

• Seed Funding Is Bigger Than Ever — And Harder To Get
• The Largest Recent Seed Rounds Are All For AI Companies
• Seed Funding Hasn’t Stalled, But It’s Skewing Larger And Is More Competitive Than Ever, Crunchbase Data Shows

Illustration:

While more funding is going into startups at this stage, seed funding saw a marked shift in 2025: More than half of seed dollars last year went into deals of $10 million or above.

At the same time, deal counts for seed-stage startups have fallen since the 2021-2022 peak, as has funding going into rounds below $10 million, Crunchbase data shows.

The data points to a growing dichotomy: For your typical young startup, it’s an increasingly challenging funding landscape, despite more seed investors writing bigger checks.

“Seed today is basically what Series A was seven years ago,” said , previously a partner at and now partner at .

The majority of these larger rounds came from about 350 deals in the $10 million to $50 million range, with another 20-plus deals at $50 million or above, Crunchbase data show.

The bulk of these larger seed rounds — though not all — are to companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, which gained a more dramatic lead in the overall startup funding landscape last year.

“One of the biggest determinants of how much you should raise is based on your access to capital,” said Bent. “You have greater access to capital if you are more experienced and tenured in your career, if you worked at a hotter company [in an area] that’s considered a hot spot, or if you have a network.”

Sizing up

In the AI era, in which seed rounds smaller than $10 million have declined, the two leading hubs for seed investment — the Bay Area and New York metropolitan area — have maintained or grown their share of U.S. seed funding, Crunchbase data shows.

The expansion in the seed market has been in rounds of $10 million or more, with some companies — though still fewer than 10% in 2025 — raising tens of millions of dollars within one to two years of founding.

A third of deals

The Bay Area, which includes the AI hotspot of San Francisco as well as nearby Silicon Valley — where many of the biggest tech companies in the world are headquartered — captured a third of seed funding deals in 2025, Crunchbase data shows.

In the region, deals below $3 million are generally considered pre-seed rounds, according to Bent. A seed round is generally from $3 million to $8 million, sometimes up to $10 million. And seed valuations are between $20 million and $50 million post-money, she said.

In this era, “the size of the outcomes and the prize are larger, and so that’s where they can afford to put in bigger check sizes if the potential return is bigger,” said Bent.

Related Crunchbase queries:

Illustration:

AI infrastructure also added four new unicorn companies focused on data center technology and provisioning. Fintech, including startups in wealth management, payment and digital assets, added four companies, while developer tools and defense each added three.

Twenty of March’s new unicorns are U.S.-based, including 11 from the San Francisco Bay Area. China added six companies in sectors ranging from robotics to AI and quantum computing.

From Europe, four new March unicorns are U.K.-based, while France, the Netherlands and Belgium each minted one. The UAE, Seychelles, India and Australia also each added one new unicorn to the board.

The most valuable unicorn newcomer last month was Seychelles-based crypto exchange , valued at $25 billion. The largest funding was a $1 billion round raised by AI pioneer ’s new frontier lab startup, Paris-based .

The board also saw a sizable cohort of very young companies earning their unicorn horns: 18 of the companies that joined the board last month were less than 3 years old. Five were not even a year old.

March’s new unicorns

AI-centric sectors by far led unicorn creation in March, with 14 of the 36 newcomers hailing from the robotics, foundational AI or AI infrastructure industries:

Robotics

• , a robotics for manufacturing company spun out by , raised a $500 million Series A led by and . The 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• Shenzhen-based , an intelligent sensor technology for robotics, raised a $145 million Series B led by , and . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Beijing-based , a humanoid robotics company, raised $145 million in funding. The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• , a humanoid robotics company for household tasks, raised a $165 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old Mountain View, California-based company was valued at $1.2 billion. The company plans to deploy robots to homes this year.
• Pudong, China-based , an intelligent layer for robotics in manufacturing, raised an $87 million Series D round. The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• , a provider of simulated data for robotic intelligence, raised a $146 million Series A. The 3-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Foundational AI

• Paris-based raised a $1 billion seed round led by , ,, and . The less than 1-year-old company was founded by LeCun, ’s former AI lead, and is working to develop models for physical AI. It was valued at $4.5 billion in the round, which is Europe’s largest seed round on record.
• , a robot foundation model developer trained on internet scale video, raised a $450 million Series A led by . The 2-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1.7 billion.
• , a math foundation model developer for verified AI useful for coding and other applications, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
• Beijing-based , a text-to-video startup with its own AI model, raised a $300 million Series C led by . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

AI infrastructure

• , a provider of networking hardware and software for data centers, raised a $500 million Series B led by and . The 2-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $4.2 billion.
• , a chip cooling technology, raised a $143 million Series D led by . The 8-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
• , which offers GPU rentals for startups, raised a Series A funding led by . The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Redmond, Washington-based , a company building data centers in space, raised a $170 million Series A led by and . The 2-year-old company�� was valued at $1.1 billion.�� It launched its first satellite with a H100 in November 2025.

Financial services

• London-based , an AI-native platform for debt providers including banks, asset managers and advisory firms, raised a $170 million Series C led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• Mumbai-based , a wealth asset advisory firm for high-net-worth individuals and family offices, raised a $53 million private equity funding led by . The 4-year old, venture-backed asset manager was valued at $1.1 billion.
• Brussels-based , an investment group for digital assets, raised a Series C led by . The 8-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion.
• Abu Dhabi-based , a payments infrastructure provider for regulated gaming markets, raised a $250 million funding led by . The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Developer tools

• , which promises to make your app enterprise ready with authentication and other features, raised a $100 million Series C led by and. The 8-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• , an observability platform for agentic AI, raised a $110 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a software developer for hardware testing and development, raised an $80 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old Austin-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense

• , a drone technology company built for defense, raised a $110 million Series B led by . The 7-year-old Huntsville, Alabama-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• Sydney-based , provider of advanced navigation beyond GPS for military and industrial capabilities, raised a $112 million Series C led by . The 13-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.
• London-based , a builder of unmanned systems used in the Ukrainian war, raised a $50 million seed�� funding led by and . The 1-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Biotechnology

• Austin-based , a biological AI research company spun out of�� , raised a $10 million seed extension. The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
• , a neurotech company focused on brain computer interfaces, raised a $230 million Series C led by and�� Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 5-year-old Alameda, California-based company, whose primary product, an implant to restore vision for those who suffer retinal disease, was valued at $1.5 billion.

Sales and marketing

• Amsterdam-based , a builder of agents for companies to deploy in customer service and business operations, raised a $150 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
• , an agentic layer that monitors customers and researches prospects, raised a Series B led by . The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Security

• , native AI security with its own human triage for customers, raised a $250 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old Sarasota, Florida-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , which uses AI for offensive security, raised a $120 million Series C led by and . The 2-year-old Seattle-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Cryptocurrency

• Seychelles-based , a global cryptocurrency exchange platform, raised a $200 million corporate round led by , the parent company of the . The 12-year-old company was valued at $25 billion.

Telehealth

• Miami-based , ‘s telehealth provider for GLP-1 medications through employers, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 5-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.

Professional services

• London-based , an AI notetaking startup, raised a $125 million Series C led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Consumer goods

• , a company with a mattress, thermal blanket and pillow designed to monitor and improve sleep, raised a $50 million Series D led by . The 11-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Accelerator

• London-based , an accelerator that sources founders from top schools, raised a $200 million Series D. The 11-year-old company, which hosts its latest cohorts in Silicon Valley, was valued at $1.3 billion.

Quantum computing

• Sichuan, China-based , a quantum computer and chip-production company, raised a $145 million Series B. The 5-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Autonomous driving

• Hangzhou-based , an intelligent driving platform, raised a Series A led by , and . The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

• (1,739)
• (609)
• (101)
• (188)
• (117)
• (102)
• (896)
• (510)
• (236)
• (38)
• (472)

Related reading:

• This Is A Momentous Year For Early-Stage Unicorns
• The Rising Investors Behind The New Unicorn Class
• While OpenAI Shattered Records, Robotics and Semiconductor Startups Quietly Added The Most New Unicorns In February

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

And as was the case in the Q4 as well, Q1 was well above the prior five quarters by funding amounts, signaling that European venture funding may be gaining momentum.

Table of contents

• AI above 50%
• UK and France grew YoY
• Europe by stage
• In summary
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Still, Europe saw more capital going into fewer companies in Q1, with deal volume plummeting 40% year over year. Much of the decline was at seed stage (down 44%) and early stage (down 30%), while late-stage deal volume was in-line with the previous four quarters.

AI above 50%

Funding to Europe-based AI startups increased significantly last quarter, reaching $9.2 billion, or more than half of total venture funding to the region. That marks the sector’s highest proportion in a quarter on record.

The largest four rounds to startups based in Europe in Q1 were for AI-related companies. Data center builder , autonomous driving developer , and frontier lab for physical AI raised more than a billion each, and AI legaltech ’s funding totaled more than $500 million.

UK and France grew YoY

Startups from the U.K. and France raised more funding in Q1, totaling $7.4 billion and�� $2.9 billion, respectively. Germany-based startups raised $1.9 billion, flat year over year.

France has emerged as the European leader for AI frontier labs. Last quarter, it saw Paris-based , founded by former AI chief , raise $1 billion in the continent’s largest seed funding round on record. The deal also marked only the second billion-dollar-plus funding deal for a European frontier lab, following s $2 billion round last year.

Europe by stage

In Q1, late-stage funding to Europe-based startups nearly doubled from a year ago. The largest rounds were across a variety of sectors, including AI hardware, fintech, agentic AI, productivity software, sensors, defense, e-commerce and energy.

A total of $9.2 billion was invested at late-stage across 83 deals, up 91% by amounts year over year.

Early-stage funding to the region’s startups fell from a year earlier — by around 20% — Crunchbase data shows. Early-stage investment totaled $5.3 billion in Q1 across more than 240 funding rounds. Within early-stage funding, larger Series A rounds predominated in semiconductors, energy and healthcare.

Seed funding reached $3.1 billion in Q1 across more than 790 deals. The funding total was up 50% year over year, but largely due to the $1 billion round for Advanced Machine Intelligence.

In summary

Larger rounds into critical sectors in AI drove European startup funding up in Q1. A mix of Europe- and U.S.-based investors led the largest fundings last quarter into AI infrastructure, frontier labs, autonomous systems and applications.

Overall, Europe is in-line with global trends as capital concentrates into the largest deals in sectors that are surging due to AI.

Related Crunchbase query:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of April 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. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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:

The first quarter of 2026 was unlike any other for venture investment, driven by unprecedented spending on AI compute and frontier labs. Crunchbase data shows investors poured $300 billion into 6,000 startups globally in the quarter, up over 150% quarter over quarter and year over year.

That marks an all-time high for global venture investment not approached by any other quarter on record. In fact, startup investment in the first quarter of 2026 alone totaled close to 70% of all venture capital spending in 2025. The quarterly sum also tops all full-year investment totals prior to 2018.

Q1’s startup investment largely went to AI startups and disproportionately to a handful of U.S.-based companies in record-setting deals. Four of the five largest venture rounds ever recorded were closed in Q1 2026, with frontier labs ($122 billion), ($30 billion), ($20 billion) and self-driving company ($16 billion) collectively raising $188 billion, or 65% of global venture investment in the quarter.

Overall, AI shattered records last quarter, with $242 billion — 80% of total global venture funding in Q1— going to companies in the sector. The previous record was set in Q1 2025, when AI accounted for 55% of global venture funding.

Table of Contents

• Valuation surge, capital concentration
• US above 80%
• Late-stage hike
• Early stage up over 40%
• Seed funding up over 30%
• IPO slowdown, M&A pick up
• Public pressure
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Valuation surge, capital concentration

Along with the three major frontier labs and Waymo, another 10 companies raised funding rounds of $1 billion or more in Q1, in sectors spanning generative and physical AI, autonomous vehicles, semiconductors, data centers, robotics, defense and prediction markets.

Those outsized rounds pushed overall startup valuations higher in Q1. The Crunchbase Unicorn Board added $900 billion in value during the quarter, marking the largest valuation bump in a single quarter.

US above 80%

U.S.-based companies raised $250 billion, or 83% of global venture capital in Q1, Crunchbase data shows. That’s up significantly from 71% in Q1 2025, which was already well above historical averages in the decade before 2024.

The second-largest market globally for venture funding in Q1 was China, with $16.1 billion invested. The U.K. followed, with $7.4 billion invested. Both countries were up quarter over quarter and even more significantly year over year.

Late-stage hike

The Q1 funding surge was concentrated in late-stage funding, which reached $246.6 billion — up 205% year over year — across 584 deals. A total of $235 billion was invested in 158 late-stage companies that raised rounds of $100 million and more.

Early stage up over 40%

Early-stage funding totaled $41.3 billion across 1,800 deals, Crunchbase data shows.

Funding was up marginally quarter over quarter but up 41% year over year from $29.4 billion. Much of that increase went to Series A rounds, Crunchbase data shows. Series B deals were down quarter over quarter but still up year over year.

Seed funding up over 30%

Seed funding totaled $12 billion, up 31% year over year, though the increase was entirely due to larger rounds, with deal counts falling 30% year over year to 3,800.

IPO slowdown, M&A pick up

Record venture investment in U.S. companies did not translate into a stronger IPO market in Q1.

In fact, the U.S. market for new listings slowed in Q1 amid a broader stock market selloff in software, although China’s IPO market picked up.

A total of 21 venture-backed companies exited globally above $1 billion in Q1. Thirteen of those were from China, four more from elsewhere in Asia, and four from the U.S.

The largest IPO in Q1 was Japan-based , a fintech for mobile payments valued at $10 billion upon listing.�� Two foundation lab companies from China — and — debuted on the , each valued at more than $6 billion.

While the IPO market was somewhat lackluster, startup M&A was strong in Q1 with exits cumulatively valued north of $56.6 billion, Crunchbase data shows. That marked the third-highest startup M&A quarter since the downturn of 2022.

The largest M&A deals in Q1 were ’s $6 billion planned acquisition of ’s gaming platform , and ’s planned $5.15 billion acquisition of fintech startup .

Public pressure

While frontier lab megarounds defined Q1 2026, a closer look at the data shows every startup funding stage grew last quarter, as did round sizes across the board.

And unlike the cloud and mobile era, this cycle is also being built in the physical world, with massive capital flowing not just into software, but infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, robotics and manufacturing.

Now, with startup valuations surging and a backlog of companies with unprecedented sums of private capital behind them, pressure is intensifying on the IPO markets to reopen in 2026.

Related Crunchbase queries:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of March 31, 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. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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: