North American enterprise funding hit all-time highs within the first half of 2026, pushed by late-stage megarounds for AI business leaders, Crunchbase information exhibits.
If that introductory sentence sounds acquainted, that’s as a result of it’s the identical storyline we reported for the primary quarter, when OpenAI drove funding to stratospheric heights with the most important enterprise spherical of all time.
Complete funding for the second quarter of 2026 was comparatively decrease, however nonetheless ranked because the second spendiest on report. Traders continued to pour large sums into AI high-flyers, with an enormous financing for Anthropic accounting for about half of the quarterly tally.
Total, funding in U.S. and Canadian startups totaled a staggering $392 billion for the primary half of 2026, per Crunchbase information, dwarfing something we’ve seen earlier than.
For Q2, in the meantime, funding totaled $137.2 billion. That’s additionally massively larger than any prior comp, with the lone exception of Q1.
Capital focus was the secret. For each Q1 and Q2, traditionally excessive funding ranges had been the results of large rounds, not will increase in general deal rely. Deal rely remained properly beneath prior excessive marks for latest years, as charted beneath.
As normal, capital additionally concentrated at late stage. Nonetheless, early-stage funding nonetheless rose in Q2, boosted as soon as once more by AI.
After all, the previous few months had been a blowout interval for large exits as properly. SpaceX led in Q2 with the most important IPO of all time. It adopted up with the acquisition of Cursor, which was a record-setting startup M&A deal. As well as, we noticed a handful of comparatively smaller however nonetheless sizable public choices and acquisitions.
For a extra granular have a look at funding and exit dynamics for the second quarter, beneath we break down investments by stage and have a look at the function of AI in boosting totals. We additionally have a look at standout IPOs and M&A offers.
Desk of contents
Late stage
We’ll begin with later stage and know-how development offers, since that’s the place many of the cash went.
For Q2, funding for this class totaled round $101 billion. It was the second-highest tally in 5 quarters, as charted beneath, and in addition the second-highest of all time.
Anthropic was by far the quarter’s heftiest fundraiser, pulling in $65 billion at a $965 billion post-money valuation. The financing included $50 billion in a Could spherical led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, in addition to corporate-led rounds by Amazon ($5 billion) and Google ($10 billion). Anthropic adopted up in June by submitting confidentially for an IPO.
Protection tech unicorn Anduril Industries additionally picked up an enormous spherical, securing $5 billion in a Could Sequence H financing led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
Early stage
Early-stage funding hit the very best degree in additional than three years in Q2, providing contemporary proof that megarounds aren’t solely a factor for extra established startups.
Total, North American early-stage funding totaled simply over $31 billion, almost double year-ago ranges and up about 15% from Q1. Deal rely, nevertheless, hit the bottom level in 5 quarters, as charted beneath.
A single deal contributed greater than 40% of the quarterly early-stage funding whole. That was the $12 billion financing for Prometheus, a startup targeted on bodily AI that counts Jeff Bezos as a co-founder.
The three next-largest offers had been far smaller by comparability, however nonetheless fairly massive by early-stage requirements. Hark, an AI startup engaged on “personalised intelligence,” raised $700 million. Behind that got here Flourish, a startup constructing an AI system primarily based on the human mind that picked up $500 million, which was adopted by Generalist AI, an AI robotics upstart that closed on $400 million.
Seed
Whereas early-stage funding was up, seed funding in Q2 really declined a bit from prior quarter and year-ago ranges.
Per Crunchbase information, round $4.9 billion went to seed and angel rounds within the second quarter, down 15% from the prior quarter and down 27% from a yr in the past. Spherical counts additionally dropped, although we count on that quantity to rise a bit over time as smaller seed offers generally get added to the dataset weeks or months after they shut.
Nonetheless, seed totals additionally acquired a lift from a handful of unusually massive rounds. The most important was a $200 million financing for Mirendil, a foundational AI startup targeted on R&D. Total, at the very least 5 firms raised seed or angel rounds of $100 million or extra in Q2, per Crunchbase information.
AI
As soon as once more, enterprise funding for the quarter was overwhelmingly dominated by AI.
About 80% of funding throughout levels went to AI-focused startups in Q2, per Crunchbase information. Total funding to AI classes was almost triple year-ago ranges, although nonetheless down from Q1, which had the record-setting $122 billion OpenAI financing.
A majority of AI-focused funding for Q2 was from three beforehand talked about rounds for Anthropic, Prometheus and Anduril.
Exits
Along with backing large rounds, traders additionally scored some massive returns on prior funding within the type of IPO and acquisitions.
IPOs
On the IPO entrance, Q2 introduced us the historic public market debut of SpaceX. The rocket, satellite tv for pc and AI large raised $75 billion within the largest IPO of all time in June. With a latest market cap round $2.1 trillion, it’s at present the sixth-most priceless American public firm.
Whereas nobody else will come near topping that, the quarter did additionally carry us a handful of different sizable debuts by venture-backed firms. Of this, essentially the most intently watched was AI infrastructure and chip designer Cerebras Programs, which raised $5.6 billion in its Could IPO.
Quantum computing firm Quantinuum delivered one other massive debut with its June Nasdaq IPO, adopted by X-energy, a developer of modular nuclear reactors. For a broader view, beneath we listing the most important IPOs of the quarter by venture-backed North American firms.
M&A
The second quarter additionally delivered the most important startup acquisition of all time: SpaceX’s $60 billion acquisition of AI coding device Cursor and its guardian firm Anysphere. SpaceX first introduced an choice to buy the corporate in April and consummated the deal after its IPO.
In biotech, the most important buy was from Eli Lilly, which introduced in April that it was buying Kelonia Therapeutics, a developer of gene therapies, in a deal valued at as much as $7 billion in money.
Different standout offers embody Qualcomm‘s acquisition of AI chip startup Modular for $4 billion and Salesforce’s 1 acquisition of Fin, a supplier of AI-enabled buyer expertise instruments.
Beneath, we rank the most important transactions:
Uncharted territory
For these questioning the place we go from right here, it appears pertinent to notice that startup historical past doesn’t give a lot materials for case research to check with the primary half and second quarter of 2026. By no means earlier than have we seen such large funding rounds, such a extremely valued venture-backed firm debut, or a startup acquisition to rival the Cursor buy.
Trying ahead, it seems that high-flying startups and their backers count on the present unprecedented situations to persist, with Anthropic and OpenAI each signaling their intentions to go public at valuations near or exceeding $1 trillion. In the meantime, large startup funding rounds are nonetheless taking place at a gentle clip, with offers in extra of $1 billion now not an anomaly.
Will these developments persist? Who is aware of. At this level, nevertheless, it’s assumed in startup circles that there can be some huge winners within the age of AI. The query nonetheless is: Who will prevail?
Associated Crunchbase queries:
Associated studying:
Methodology
The information contained on this report comes instantly from Crunchbase, and relies on reported information. Information is as of July 2, 2026.
Notice that information lags are most pronounced on the earliest levels of enterprise exercise, with seed funding quantities growing considerably after the tip of 1 / 4/yr.
Please be aware that every one funding values are given in U.S. {dollars} except in any other case famous. Crunchbase converts foreign currency to U.S. {dollars} on the prevailing spot fee from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and different monetary occasions are reported. Even when these occasions had been added to Crunchbase lengthy after the occasion was introduced, international forex transactions are transformed on the historic spot value.
Glossary of funding phrases
Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase additionally contains enterprise rounds of unknown sequence, fairness crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equal) or much less.
Early-stage consists of Sequence A and Sequence B rounds, in addition to different spherical sorts. Crunchbase contains enterprise rounds of unknown sequence, company enterprise and different rounds above $3 million, and people lower than or equal to $15 million.
Late-stage consists of Sequence C, Sequence D, Sequence E and later-lettered enterprise rounds following the “Sequence [Letter]” naming conference. Additionally included are enterprise rounds of unknown sequence, company enterprise and different rounds above $15 million. Company rounds are solely included if an organization has raised an fairness funding at seed by way of a enterprise sequence funding spherical.
Know-how development is a private-equity spherical raised by an organization that has beforehand raised a “enterprise” spherical. (So mainly, any spherical from the beforehand outlined levels.)
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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