Global venture funding in October totaled $59 billion, a 45% jump from a year earlier, per Crunchbase data, in large part due to a record-setting deal for China’s DeepSeek. The company’s $15.9 billion funding round marked the largest-ever venture deal for a Chinese company ever, and came in the same month that two other frontier labs raised blockbuster Series A rounds totaling at or close to $1 billion.

The bulk of October’s venture funding was invested in the two leading countries for startup investment, with companies based in the U.S. and China raising $28 billion and $20.6 billion last month, respectively. The last time more than $20 billion was invested in China in a single month was June 2018, when Ant Group raised $14 billion in its Series C funding.

Funding concentration

Funding concentrated in seven companies that raised billion-dollar rounds, accounting for just over 40% of October’s venture funding. These large amounts were invested in frontier labs, manufacturing, energy, semiconductors, prediction markets and spend management software. Private equity led much of this funding, along with a few multistage venture firms including Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Lux Capital.

DeepSeek’s $15.9 billion raise at a valuation of $90 billion marked the largest private funding by a Chinese tech company on record. The deal places DeepSeek among the Top 10 most highly funded private companies. It also makes it the second most highly valued Chinese company after ByteDance, and the third most highly valued private frontier lab after U.S. companies Anthropic and OpenAI.

DeepSeek wasn’t the only Chinese frontier lab to raise big in October. Moonshot AI, a rival open-source lab, reportedly reached a $50 billion value in October, making it the 11th most valuable private company on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board. The startup has also reportedly confidentially filed to go public on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Massachusetts-based manufacturing startup Re:Build raised the second-largest funding deal last month, a $2.1 billion round. The company partners with industrial companies and innovators from the product design phase to large-scale production and says it has 2.4 million square feet of manufacturing capacity.

Other large rounds last month went to Axiom, which raised $2 billion for power and grid capacity build out for data centers; spend-management platform Ramp, which raised $1.85 billion and said its ARR has reached $2 billion; open-source semiconductor company Tenstorrent, which says it raised a $1.5 billion Series E funding and recently moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley from Canada; prediction market Kalshi, which raised a $1 billion Series E; and frontier lab Flapping Airplanes, which raised a $1 billion Series A.

AI-driven

A further eight companies raised rounds north of $500 million last month. They spanned industries ranging from frontier labs, robotics, legal and chips, to agentic AI and healthcare. Among the most notable was TypeSafe AI, which says it raised an $870 million Series A funding on the heels of rapid developer adoption of its decision model Jev.

A total of 66% of global funding was in AI-driven companies in October, with semiconductor companies gaining market share this past month.

Exits

The U.S. IPO market was slow in anticipation of Anthropic’s November IPO. The offering could surpass even SpaceX’s record-setting June listing that raised $85.7 billion.

On the M&A front, at least nine venture-backed companies were acquired for more than $1 billion last month, including Uber’s acquisition of 19-year-old ezCater for $2.3 billion.

Looking ahead

With two months remaining, 2026 has already set records for acquisitions, IPOs and funding rounds across major venture markets. October extended that momentum, but also highlighted how concentrated this cycle has become: Seven companies accounted for more than 40% of global funding, while AI-driven businesses captured two-thirds.

The question heading into year-end is how widely that momentum will spread, as Anthropic prepares to list in what could be the largest IPO of all time.

Related Crunchbase queries:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Nov. 2, 2026.

Cohere is targeting a $5 billion funding that was announced in October, without reporting an initial or final close. This funding was not included in the October monthly totals.

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: Dom Guzman