Funding to North American startups declined sequentially in the third quarter and came in well below the all-time peak. However, the dip is largely due to the absence of new megarounds for OpenAI and Anthropic and doesn't appear to reflect any broad weakening in the venture investment climate. In total, investors poured $92 billion into seed- through growth-stage rounds for U.S. and Canadian startups in the third quarter, per Crunchbase data. That's a 35% decline from the prior quarter but up 50% from year-ago levels. Artificial intelligence remained the prevailing theme for startup investors. Per Crunchbase 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 Databricks, Safe SuperIntelligence and Crusoe. As for exits, quarter-over-quarter IPO comps were always going to be challenging, given that Q2 featured SpaceX's record-setting market entry. Even compared to a typical quarter, however, the IPO...
learn more
