North American startup funding fell 35% sequentially to $92 billion in Q3, per Crunchbase data, largely due to the absence of megarounds for Open AI and Anthropic that inflated prior quarters. Despite the drop, funding remains 50% above year-ago levels, and deal volume held steady across stages. AI dominated, attracting roughly two-thirds of total capital, or $61 billion.
Large rounds went to Databricks ($5 billion), Crusoe ($3.9 billion), The Boring Co. ($3 billion), and Cognition ($2 billion). Early-stage investment totaled $20.6 billion, down from a multiyear peak but above 2023 levels, led by River AI ($1.1 billion), Valar Atomics ($660 million), and Fab2 ($500 million). Seed funding reached $5 billion, slightly below recent quarters, with Walden Robotics ($300 million) and Veeda AI ($90 million) notable.
The IPO market was sluggish post-Space X's Q2 debut, while M&A was highlighted by Nvidia's September acquisition of Hugging Face. Crunchbase notes the decline reflects missing mega-deals, not a broad venture slowdown.
Source: Crunchbase News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing