North American Startup Funding Hit Record Highs In H1 2026 As AI Megarounds Dominated

U.S. and Canadian startups raised $392 billion in the first half of 2026, according to Crunchbase data, far above prior venture funding benchmarks cited in the report. Q2 alone brought in $137.2 billion, making it the second-highest quarter on record behind Q1. The common thread was AI, with huge financings for leading companies driving totals rather than a broad increase in deal volume.

Late-stage and technology growth deals accounted for around $101 billion in Q2 funding, the second-highest total of all time. Anthropic was the quarter’s largest fundraiser, pulling in $65 billion at a $965 billion post-money valuation, including a $50 billion May round and corporate-led rounds from Amazon and Google. Anduril Industries also raised $5 billion in a May Series H led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

Early-stage funding reached just over $31 billion in Q2, nearly double year-ago levels and up about 15% from Q1, even as deal count hit the lowest level in five quarters. Prometheus, a physical AI startup co-founded by Jeff Bezos, accounted for more than 40% of that total with a $12 billion financing. Seed and angel funding moved the other way, falling to around $4.9 billion, down 15% from the prior quarter and 27% from a year earlier.

Q2 was also a standout period for venture-backed exits. SpaceX raised $75 billion in what the report describes as the largest IPO of all time, while Cerebras Systems raised $5.6 billion in its May IPO. On the M&A side, SpaceX’s $60 billion acquisition of Cursor and parent company Anysphere was described as the largest startup acquisition ever, with additional notable deals including Eli Lilly’s Kelonia Therapeutics purchase valued at up to $7 billion and Qualcomm’s $4 billion acquisition of Modular.