A boom year for North American startup funding ended on a positive note.
Investors invested $280 billion in seed growth rounds for U.S. and Canadian companies in 2025, according to Crunchbase data. This is the highest annual total in four years, with funding up 46% from 2024.
The fourth quarter also helped close out 2025 on a high note with $67 billion in reported investments, the second-highest quarterly figure of the year. 1 Initial deals have been particularly strong, reaching their highest level in the last four quarters.
Although funding increased, the number of deals declined slightly in 2025 and Q4 as more capital was concentrated in larger rounds. Overall, the number of transactions was down approximately 16% year-over-year, with just under 10,500 cycles reported.2 The number of transactions also declined by approximately 14% sequentially in the fourth quarter.
Of course, AI was the dominant technology trend of the year, capturing a record amount. Beyond new funding rounds, investors also saw gains, with IPOs, M&A and multibillion-dollar deals framed as acquisitions all contributing to ROI.
Below, we examine these trends along with a more detailed look at Q4 funding.
Artificial intelligence
We’ll start with AI, because that’s where most of the money has gone.
According to Crunchbase, about $168 billion – or about 60% of all North American startup funding – has gone to companies in AI-related categories. Investments held steady in the fourth quarter, with about $36 billion, or more than half of total funding, going toward AI.
The tally included several rounds of more than $1 billion. In the fourth quarter, the largest AI deals were a $2.3 billion Series D for Any sphere and its coding automation platform Cursor and a $2 billion Series B for software development AI startup Thinking AI.
For the full year, the biggest AI cycles were OpenAIthat’s 40 billion dollars SoftBank-financing carried out in March and Anthropicof $13 billion Series F in September.
Advanced stage
Startup funding was also strong at most stages in the fourth quarter and throughout 2025. This held true for late-stage and tech growth deals, which attracted $191 billion for the full year, up 75% from 2024.
Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter, investors invested approximately $41 billion in late-stage and growth deals, down slightly from the previous quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the largest late-stage deals included a $1.5 billion Series E for Lambdaa provider of supercomputers for AI inference, and a $1.4 billion Series E data center developer for AI. Crusoe.
Early stage
Investors have also been quite generous in writing checks to startup companies last year.
Overall, nearly $69 billion was allocated to Series A and B companies in 2025, an increase of approximately 5% year-over-year. Funding peaked in the fourth quarter, with $21.6 billion dedicated to early-stage deals.
In the fourth quarter, some of the largest deals included a $700 million Series B for an identity security provider. Savynt and a $600 million Series B for an AI robotics startup Physical Intelligence.
Seed
Seed-stage investors were also not left out in 2025, investing approximately $20.4 billion in reported funding rounds for the most nascent startups. However, this is a slight decrease compared to 2024, when known investments had increased by around 9%.
The number of deals also declined last year, reaching a low in the fourth quarter, with just over 1,300 seed fundings reported. (As always, we expect this total to increase a bit over time as more transactions are entered into the dataset.)
Of course, the idea that seed cycle means small is now an outdated concept. This was evident in the fourth quarter, which saw several high-profile startup deals, including $475 million in funding for Unconventional AIwhich focuses on energy-efficient AI computing.
Outings
2025 and Q4 have also been reasonably active periods for significant exits of the IPO and M&A varieties.
IPO: For IPOs, the fourth quarter closed out the year with some big debuts, including that of the electric plane maker. Beta Technologies and corporate travel and spending platform Navan. For the year as a whole, the biggest IPOs were from the AI infrastructure provider. Basic weave and design software platform Figma.
Mergers and acquisitions: It was also a year full of significant M&A transactions. The greatest of them was Googlethe planned purchase of Ace for $32 billion, announced in March.
Most of the notable deals took place in the fourth quarter. The most important of them was NvidiaDecember deal to acquire assets of AI inference chip developer Groq in a transaction that would have estimated to 20 billion dollars.
Furthermore, Trump Media and Technology announced in December its intention to merge with the merger company TAE Technologies in a transaction estimated at $6 billion. And Palo Alto Networks bought Chronospherea provider of data observability tools, for $3.35 billion.
Indicators do not point to a slowdown
There is little in the 2025 and fourth quarter data to suggest a slowdown ahead. In particular, the year ended on a positive note both for major tours, particularly at the start of the phase, and for large releases.
Yes, there is a lot of talk about an AI bubble. But for now, investors seem comfortable enough backing subsequent rounds for hot companies at ever-higher valuations and exit markets appear accommodating. Generally speaking, the trend is still upwards.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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