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The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: World Labs Leads Another AI-Heavy Lineup
Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding deal roundup here. This week’s largest U.S. funding rounds once again featured an AI-heavy cohort, along with sizable financings around fintech and energy tech. By far the largest deal was a $1 billion financing for World Labs, developer of AI models that interact with the 3D world, followed by a $385 million round for savings platform Vestwell. 1. World Labs, $1B, spatial AI: San Francisco-based World Labs, a startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li that develops foundational models to generate and interact with the 3D world, raised $1 billion in fresh funding. Investors in the round include AMD, Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity, Nvidia and Sea. 2. Vestwell, $385M, fintech: Vestwell, an online provider of multiple types of savings accounts and tools, raised $385 million in Series E funding at a reported $2 billion valuation. Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth led the financing for the 10-year-old, New York-based company. 3. Temporal Technologies, $300M, workflow management and fault tolerance: Bellevue, Washington-based Temporal Technologies, a provider of tools that allow developers to make workflows more reliable and fault-tolerant, closed on $300 million in Series D funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the financing, which set a $5 billion valuation for the 7-year-old company. 4. Heron Power, $140M, energy tech: Heron Power, a developer of hardware designed to move electricity from renewable sources into the grid and data centers, picked up $140 million in a funding round backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The Scotts Valley, California-based company is founded by former Tesla SVP Drew Baglino. 5. Code Metal, $125M, AI coding: Code Metal, a provider of verifiable code translation tools, raised $125 million in Series B financing led by Salesforce Ventures 1. The round comes just three months after the Boston-based startup secured its Series A. 6. (tied) Render, $100M, cloud for developers: Render, a cloud provider for application development teams, secured $100 million in Series C extension funding. Georgian led the financing for the San Francisco-based company, which said it now has over 4.5 million developers on its platform. 6. (tied) Utility Global, $100M, clean energy: Houston-based Utility Global, developer of a technology to produce hydrogen and capturable carbon from industrial gases, raised $100 million in Series D funding. Ara Partners and APG Asset Management led the financing for the 8-year-old company. 6. (tied) ZaiNar, $100M, location tracking: ZaiNar, developer of a technology for wireless networks to sense the location of things without satellites, cameras or heavy compute power, emerged from stealth and disclosed that it has drawn over $100 million in investment to date and a valuation of over $1 billion. Backers in the Belmont, California-based company include Steve Jurvetson, Jerry Yang, Tom Gruber and Jaan Tallinn. 9. Jump, $80M, fintech: Salt Lake City-based Jump, developer of an AI agent for financial advisers and financial services providers, raised $80 million in a Series B round led by Insight Partners. 10. Braintrust, $80M, AI observability: San Francisco-based Braintrust, a developer of AI observability software for development teams, raised $80 million in a Series B round led by Iconiq Capital. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Feb. 14-20. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week. Illustration: Dom Guzman
AI Seed Trends: More Multimedia, Backend Automation, Agentic Security, And Yes, Robots
Every so often at Crunchbase News, we take it upon ourselves to review every sizable seed round of the past few months, seeing what trends arise. This time around, given the excitement around artificial intelligence, we honed in exclusively on AI-focused startups. The goal was to pick out a few themes that appear to be resonating. Turns out, the hard part was narrowing it down. Investors poured over $9 billion into global AI-focused seed rounds over the past six months, per Crunchbase data. Areas they favored include cybersecurity, multimedia AI, robotics and desk work automation. Below, we look at these seed hotspots in greater detail. No. 1: Cybersecurity The intersection of AI and cybersecurity has two main areas of interest. One is tools that use AI to do established security tasks more efficiently and effectively. The other is applications aimed at security issues that AI itself itself brings to the fore, such as tracking and verifying autonomous agents. Put together, it adds up to a well-funded sector for seed, with more than $400 million invested at this stage in the past six months. Using Crunchbase data, we put together a sample list of eight AI and security-focused startups that raised some of the more significant recent seed rounds. Silicon Valley-based Armadin Security, a stealth startup, picked up one of the bigger rounds for tools using AI to automate security testing and identify vulnerabilities that hackers could use AI to exploit. Another standout was identity management startup Opti. No. 2: Robotics and drones Robotics features frequently in our roundups of seed trends, and this time is no exception. Per Crunchbase data, investors poured more than $850 million into seed rounds for AI-enabled robotics and drone startups over the past six months. It’s a geographically diversified lineup, with many of the largest rounds going to China-based startups. To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to put together a list of seven recently funded companies from multiple countries. Per Crunchbase data, the largest recent seed funding recipient is Mochi Intelligence, a Chinese company developing a universal humanoid robot that can do household work. Another high-profile round went to Mind Robotics, a spin-out of EV maker Rivian that is focused on AI-powered industrial robots. No. 3: Multimedia and content creation tools for AI Seed-stage startups are also innovating around how to better incorporate more language and multimedia features in AI offerings, including audio, translation and video. To demonstrate, we used Crunchbase data to assemble a list of six companies in these areas that raised sizable seed financings in the past few months. The biggest round on our list went to Paris-based Gradium, which picked up $70 million in initial funding in December to scale audio language AI models designed to deliver voice with ultra-low latency. Others are moving quickly up the funding ladder. San Francisco-based Runware, developer of an API for image, video and audio generation, raised a $13 million seed round in September and a $50 million Series A in December. No. 4: Automating niche desk work The notion that AI tools can perform a lot of tedious screen-facing work is now fully embedded in the public consciousness. In addition, many earlier pioneers in bringing these tools to market are already well-established unicorns, including AI legal tech company Harvey and clinical note-taking platform Abridge. But it’s not game over for newly launched startups that want to play in this space. Of late, we’re seeing seed funding to various ventures around this theme, with a particular focus on upstarts taking on niches within the vast realm of traditional deskwork. This includes areas like claims processing, procurement, healthcare call centers and building plan review. To illustrate, we aggregated a sample of 10 companies that raised seed investment in the past six months with $10 million or more in total funding. ClaimSorted, a New York-based insurtech startup that uses AI to do what its name suggests, is the most heavily funded on our list, securing a $13.3 million seed round in October. Another big round that month was a $10 million seed financing for Spacial, an AI-enabled structural engineering startup that reviews building plans to enable faster permitting. Big picture: More things we don’t pay attention to get automated One of the intriguing things about this particular AI seed-funding data dive is that it didn’t provide many startups that triggered an immediate “I want that” reaction. For the most part, it wasn’t a highly consumer-facing sample set. To the extent upstarts are disrupting established spaces, it was in areas the average person doesn’t think about much, like healthcare recordkeeping or next-gen security. So efficiency gains will likely be more apparent for enterprises than end users. There are some exceptions, of course, like household robots. But these aren’t innovations likely to make it into our shopping carts anytime soon. Related Crunchbase lists: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Exclusive: Ownwell Lands $30M To Help Homeowners Lower Their Property Tax Bills
Ownwell, an AI-powered startup that appeals property taxes on behalf of homeowners, has secured $50 million in financing, including $30 million in equity and $20 million in debt, the company tells Crunchbase News exclusively. With the latest Series B raise, Austin-based Ownwell says it has now raised $54 million in total equity funding since its 2020 inception. Alpha Edison and Mercato Partners co-led its latest round, which included participation from Intuit Ventures, Left Lane Capital, First Round Capital, Long Journey Ventures, Proof Fund and Wonder Ventures. Western Alliance Bank provided the $20 million in debt financing. CEO Colton Pace said he and CTO Joseph Noor started Ownwell to “democratize access to the tools and resources real estate experts use to build wealth and financial freedom.” As a former asset manager, Pace said he worked for some of the wealthiest families and individuals in the world on the investment management side. Colton Pace and Joseph Noor, co-founders of Ownwell. (Courtesy photo) “I saw firsthand how billionaires manage their 28 homes and their apartment complexes and their retail across the country, and how everything is perfectly optimized,” he told Crunchbase News in an interview. “And so we built software for the purpose of providing tools for everyone, regardless of the value of their asset.” Ownwell launched for customers in 2021, initially handling the property-tax appeal process. Pace said its tech automates “complex steps and analyzes millions of local records” to surface the strongest case to present to local municipalities to argue for a lower home assessment and, in turn, a lower property tax bill. “We market to people that are typically very underserved,” Pace said. “That law firm down the street doesn’t want to help a $200,000 home [owner] appeal their property taxes. They want the skyscraper.” Pace claims that Ownwell is the only multistate company of its kind. It currently operates with local tax consultants in about a dozen states: Texas, New York, Florida, California, Illinois, Georgia, Washington, Maryland, Colorado, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Part of the newly raised capital will go toward expanding to other markets, and “going deeper” into existing markets, he said. A million appeals Ownwell doesn’t charge customers unless it lowers their tax bill. Depending on the market, its contingency fee is 25% to 35% of the savings it earns for property owners. (The fee depends on its cost to operate in that market.) “The majority of homeowners do not appeal or even think to appeal, so bringing consistent awareness to this for the average homeowner is the biggest challenge,” Pace said. Recently, the company surpassed more than 1 million appeals processed, and says it has saved its customers over $400 million in property taxes. Over the years, Ownwell has expanded its offering to include helping people get property exemptions, compare insurance providers and explore refinancing options. The company is also integrated with Realtor.com, and has partnerships with Valon Technologies and Amplify Credit Union. Ownwell gets commissions from carriers or lenders that it refers homeowners to, similar to Credit Karma’s model, Pace said. The startup also markets a nationwide property tax packet to help people outside of the 12 states in which it is operating to file their own appeals. “We’re taking the internal data that we’ve collected over the past six years and over hundreds of thousands of appeals across the country, and figuring out what wins,” Pace told Crunchbase News. “We’re prompting AI tooling with all this proprietary data that we have to give customers a useful packet that basically is the ultimate ‘how to appeal’ in markets that we are not in yet.” Ownwell has over 500,000 customers, including residential and commercial property owners throughout the country, in addition to homeowners. Since inception, Ownwell has maintained an annual growth rate of over 100% every year, according to Pace. In 2025, it grew customers by over 180%. Pace said the company is currently profitable (both cash flow and net income positive) but “is prioritizing growth.” A ‘customer-obsessed experience in a much larger market’ In 2025, global real estate-related startups pulled in about $10.5 billion in seed- through growth-stage financing, per Crunchbase data. That’s up about 17% from $9 billion in 2024. For its part, Ownwell is not sharing its current valuation, with Pace saying only that it “has grown significantly from round to round.” Presently, it has 108 employees. Vinny Pujji, managing partner at Left Lane Capital, which led Ownwell’s Series A round, notes that he served on Truebill’s board during its $1.5 billion acquisition by Rocket. “I’ve seen firsthand that helping consumers save money never goes out of style,” he wrote via email. Ownwell, in Pujji’s view, has built a “customer-obsessed experience in a much larger market.” “With a tech-enabled agentic product built for complex, local markets, “the team has achieved something you rarely see: tripling customers served annually at scale.” In a blog post, Intuit Ventures said it was impressed with Pace’s vision “to help millions of homeowners and save money for the consumers who need it most.” The firm added: “We’re proud to support the Ownwell team as they continue to deliver a product that creates holistic, money-saving experiences for consumers.” Related Crunchbase queries: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Innovation Is A Game Of Two Halves
Somewhere in the past 25 years, we began to confuse two things that are not the same. We started treating “innovation” as something that only happens in private markets, and “funding innovation” as a synonym for venture capital. The creation myth is familiar: founders in a garage, a seed check and then (many years, and many rounds later) an IPO that serves as a liquidity event for insiders. In this story, the public markets are where the startup goes to retire. But this is historically illiterate. Amazon went public in 1997, three years after founding, at a market cap of $438 million. It had $15.7 million in revenue. Nearly everything Amazon would become (the marketplace, AWS, the logistics empire) was built after it became a public company. The same is true of Microsoft, Cisco and Nvidia, the latter of which went public at under $1 billion and has since become the most valuable company on Earth. In the 1990s, the median tech company went public when it was 4 to 7 years old. Public investors didn’t buy the tail-end of innovation — they funded the vast majority of it. It remains true today. Just look at the “Magnificent 7.” Amazon vs. WeWork When the dot-com bubble burst, Amazon’s stock collapsed to single digits. That crisis forced Jeff Bezos to restructure the cash conversion cycle, close distribution centers and lay off 15% of staff. Amazon posted its first profitable quarter in Q4 2001. The public market’s ruthlessness was the forge that hardened the business model. Now compare this to what the “Private-for-Longer” era has produced. By 2024, the median VC-backed company went public at age 14, a full decade later than many 1990s counterparts. Shielded from quarterly accountability, short sellers and skeptical analysts, companies like WeWork accumulated $47 billion valuations while hiding behind metrics like “Community Adjusted EBITDA.” When WeWork finally tried to list, the market rejected it instantly. But by then, billions had been wasted. Private market opacity had delayed diagnosis until the rot was terminal. Discipline creates strength The data is damning across the board. The 2010–2020 cohort of VC-backed IPOs generated a negative 9.5% return relative to the S&P 500. In 2021, only 25% of IPOs were profitable. Instacart went public at a 77% discount to its 2021 valuation. Bird went bankrupt. The Renaissance IPO ETF fell over 50% from its peak. Meanwhile, Hamilton Lane’s research shows that roughly 90% of a company’s lifetime value creation now occurs in private markets, accessible only to institutional investors. The returns to innovation have been privatized while the risks have been socialized. The central paradox is that more private funding has not produced more innovation, it has simply inflated consensus. Abundant capital allowed “blitzscaling,” promoting growth over efficiency, far longer than the market would naturally tolerate. In the 1990s, a company could burn cash for three or four years before facing discipline. Today, it’s well over a decade and the result is companies that eventually go public with slower growth, less profit and greater risk. None of this means venture capital is unimportant. Early-stage risk absorption remains vital. But innovation is a lifecycle, and the lifecycle includes a public chapter that is not optional. What matters is the handoff, the transition from private incubation to public maturation, where ideas are tested, funded and held accountable by the broadest possible base of investors. The most consequential companies in technology history made that handoff early. The generation that delayed it has delivered the worst returns and the most spectacular failures. If innovation is the goal, the handoff matters. And we have been fumbling it. Dan Gray, a frequent guest author for Crunchbase News, is the research lead at Odin, a platform that allows VCs and angel syndicates to raise and deploy capital globally. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Crunchbase Data: The AI Boom Has Drastically Changed Who’s Funding The Hottest Companies In 2025 Vs. 2021
As global venture funding in 2025 ratcheted up to the third-highest total on record after the peak years of 2021 and 2022, capital also concentrated further, with the number of companies raising rounds of $50 million or more drastically shrinking roughly by half to a cohort of just 1,440. The investors backing the hottest companies in this highly competitive venture capital market have also changed drastically since 2021, Crunchbase data shows. While private equity investors dominated during the pandemic boom, Silicon Valley’s traditional VC firms have reclaimed ground in leading rounds of $50 million and over, our analysis indicates. A review of Crunchbase data shows the extent to which peak-year investors such as Tiger Global Management and Insight Partners, both headquartered in New York, have ceded ground back to the big names of Silicon Valley. The firms that dominated in those larger financings in 2021 — when over $500 billion in capital went toward deals of $50 million or more — were private equity and alternative investors. At that time, the two firms topping the list were 4x more active by counts when compared to those at the top two slots in 2025. In 2025, by contrast, venture capital firms dominated the list of most-active leads in those larger financings with eight of the 10 most active being VCs. Last year, roughly $300 billion went to $50 million-plus deals. In 2021, the top 20 firms leading rounds north of $5 billion were predominantly private equity. But in 2025 a smaller cohort of investors, 10 in total, each led or co-led rounds totaling $5 billion. That included five private equity or alternative investors; three venture capital firms, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Accel; and more active corporate strategic investors with Meta and SpaceX joining the top 10, each with a single outsized investment. Private equity was also still active in leading by dollar volume in 2025, though less dominant. PE leaned in One year into COVID, as digital services took off, global venture funding doubled to $702 billion. And the most-active investors in the largest rounds invested at an unprecedented pace. The top five most-active investors in $50 million-plus rounds were all private equity firms, including Insight Partners, which operates as both venture capital and private equity. But the majority of these active investors have scaled back counts significantly at this size in 2025. Leading the list, Tiger Global Management and the SoftBank Vision Fund have cut back more than 95% by count. Insight Partners, Coatue, Temasek Holdings and General Atlantic, while still active in 2025, led or co-led fewer deals last year, by as much as 75%. Of the seven venture capital firms that make this list, two firms — Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures — noticeably cut back deal counts by 35% and 60%, respectively, in 2025. Venture capital more active in 2025 In 2025, by contrast, the most active in $50 million-plus deal counts were largely venture capital firms. However, counts by the leading firms were far lower than in 2021 with 30 at the top of the list compared to 182. General Catalyst has the highest count at 30, followed by a16z at 24, and Lightspeed and Accel matching at 22. Each of these firms was slightly more active in leading deals in 2021 compared to 2025, while Lightspeed Venture Partners counts match 2021. A host of venture capital firms have increased counts by more than 100% at this size including Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Eclipse Ventures and Balderton. The firms also were all up by more than 100% in led or co-led counts when compared to 2021 for deals at this size, along with one private equity firm Forbion Capital Partners, which invests largely in biotech. Dollar volume in 2021 Of the 21 most-active firms in 2021 by led or co-led deal amounts north of $4.8 billion, 18 were private equity firms and three were venture capital firms. However, the largest funding deal that year — a $3.6 billion funding to Flipkart led by SoftBank Vision Fund, GIC, CPP Investments and Walmart — was much smaller than the largest deal in 2025. Not surprisingly, the firms that led or co-led the largest rounds in 2021 were SoftBank Vision Fund and Tiger Global Management. Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Temasek round out the top five, all down by more than 75% when compared to 2025. Three venture firms make the list of investors leading the largest rounds. The most-active venture firm, Sequoia Capital, cut back on amounts led or co-led by more than 50%, while Ribbit Capital cut back by more than 75%. The other venture firm to make this list, Andreessen Horowitz, led or co-led more by dollar amounts in 2025 compared to 2021. New guard in 2025 In 2025, the largest deals were much larger, in the tens of billions of dollars rather than the single-digit billions seen in 2021, with the five leading investors propelled to the top of the list due to a single deal at $10 billion and above. SoftBank topped the list in 2025, leading the $40 billion funding to OpenAI. It was followed by Meta, which led the $14.3 billion funding to Scale AI. Lightspeed, Fidelity and Iconiq Capital co-led the $13 billion funding to Anthropic. The top five firms leading by amount in 2025 all led individual deals north of $10 billion. Of the 27 firms most active by deal amounts led in 2025, four were strategic investors, nine were venture capital firms, and 14 were either private equity or alternative investors. Looking forward An analysis of Crunchbase data makes it clear: Venture capital has reclaimed its lead in this AI wave, as private equity, overindexed in private companies, has scaled back significantly since 2021. In 2025, large rounds and valuations picked up once again, setting the stage for a very active funding environment in 2026. Despite the shift from private equity to multistage venture actively leading the largest deals, the question remains: Will this new cohort of highly valued companies deliver outsized returns in the coming years? Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Digital Savings Startup Vestwell Lands $385M, Doubles Valuation
Vestwell, a digital savings platform, has raised $385 million in a Series E funding round co-led by Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth. The New York-based startup says its new valuation is $2 billion, double the $1 billion valuation it achieved when raising its $125 million Series D round in December 2023. In total, Vestwell says it has raised $660 million in capital since its 2016 inception. Also participating in the latest round were Neuberger Berman, Silver Lake Waterman, Morgan Stanley, Franklin Templeton, TIAA Ventures and HarbourVest Partners. Aaron Schumm, founder and CEO of Vestwell. (Courtesy photo) Vestwell is growing “profitably,” according to CEO Aaron Schumm, who said the company’s annual recurring revenue is now more than $200 million. The platform has more than 2 million active savers and works with more than 500,000 businesses. In total, Vestwell has over $50 billion in assets administered across workplace, institutional and government channels. The company grew nearly 50% year over year, Schumm said, and is operating with “strong unit economics and improving margins.” Vestwell’s revenue model is dependent on its customers and their preferred structure, according to Schumm. Typically, it’s a monthly fee per employer and/or a monthly fee per employee. The company works with financial institutions, payroll and HR platforms to distribute or integrate its white-labeled savings products to employers and employees nationwide. Those partners include Assure, BambooHR, Deel, Franklin Templeton, Intuit QuickBooks, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Paylocity, Rippling, Square and Toast. Overall funding to wealth management startups totaled $1.9 billion in 2025, per Crunchbase data, roughly the same amount as in 2024. That’s down from about $3.8 billion raised by such startups in the peak funding year of 2021. Connecting the dots Schumm founded Vestwell with the goal of addressing the problem of “fragmented” savings. “[There were] separate systems for retirement, emergency, education, disability and other savings programs. Each had its own rules, vendors and barriers to participation,” he said. “Vestwell solves that problem by connecting these programs into one interoperable platform.” Describing the company as an enterprise fintech platform, he said Vestwell makes it easier for employees and employers “to save, manage and grow their money, no matter the size of the company.” It supports a range of savings vehicles, including retirement: 401(k), 403(b) and IRA savings programs; education such as 529 savings plans; emergency savings accounts; and ABLE accounts for people with disabilities. Its offering is accessible across more than 20 languages. Presently, Vestwell has 500 employees. Expansion plans The company plans to use its new capital to expand its distribution. For example, it is working to embed savings more deeply into payroll, benefits platforms, financial institutions and government-led public programs. It’s also continuing to invest in AI-native capabilities with the goal of having them personalize guidance, automate administration and surface “actionable” insights for users and their employers. Before Vestwell, Schumm co-founded wealth management startup FolioDynamix, which was acquired by Envestnet in 2017 for $195 million. Tim DeGrange, principal at Blue Owl, describes Vestwell as “a standout company.” “Vestwell is taking a holistic approach to savings, making it far more durable than just a recordkeeping platform,” he wrote via email. “It has created the infrastructure layer that connects payroll providers, financial advisors, enterprises and state programs into a unified savings ecosystem.” Related Crunchbase Pro query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman Clarification: This story has changed since its original publication to confirm the company’s current valuation.
Biotech Startup M&A Is Reliably Delivering Some Big Exits
In a world where AI unicorns are securing valuations in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars, biotech startups can’t compete for giant rounds. But while the space may be lower-profile, it’s still steadily generating M&A outcomes that look high by other historic standards. Over the past two calendar years, acquirers have agreed to pay more than $38 billion to purchase 1 venture-backed companies in Crunchbase biotech industry categories. So far, 2026 is off to a brisk start as well, with Eli Lilly agreeing this month to pay up to $2.4 billion for Orna Therapeutics, a startup focused on engineering immune cells in vivo. Per Crunchbase data, 2025 and 2024 were two of the strongest years on record for biotech M&A. While we’re still below the 2021 peak, we’re also well past the subsequent low point, as charted below. Largest deals in recent quarters Since last year, at least nine funded U.S. biotech companies have sold in transactions valued at $1 billion or more, including potential milestone payments. Using Crunchbase data, we assembled a list, ranked by deal size. The largest deal was Johnson & Johnson’s purchase of Halda Therapeutics, a developer of targeted oral therapies for solid tumors, for $3.05 billion in cash late last year. The pharma giant expressed particular interest in adding Halda’s clinical stage oral therapy for prostate cancer to its portfolio. The two next-biggest acquisitions were both in the area of in vivo therapeutics, which enable a patient’s own body to generate cell therapies that can treat underlying disease. One was Lilly’s aforementioned purchase of Watertown, Massachusetts-based Orna, which had previously raised over $320 million in venture funding from lead backers including Merck, F2 Ventures and MPM Capital. The other was AbbVie’s mid-2025 acquisition of Capstan Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech developing targeted in vivo RNA technologies, with an initial focus on autoimmune diseases. AbbVie agreed to pay up to $2.1 billion in cash to acquire the San Diego-based startup,which previously raised $340 million in venture funding. Biotech funding share slides, and IPO volume remains weak While some large acquisitions are happening, the overall picture for biotech funding and exit activity looks more muted. Last year, less than 9% of all U.S. startup funding went to companies in Crunchbase biotech categories. That’s the lowest share in years, and largely a function of more capital going to companies in other hot sectors like generative AI. In terms of total finding, biotech looks more stable. In 2025, just over $25 billion went to U.S. startups in the space, roughly flat year over year. IPO activity is lower than usual. Last year, just 21 biotech, pharma or medical device companies went public, per Crunchbase data, the lowest number in years. So far this year, we’ve had four debuts, including most recently the debut this month of Eikon Therapeutics, a developer of cancer therapies recently valued around $900 million. Not a slump, and not a boom Overall, biotech funding and exit data paints a picture of a sector that’s neither booming nor in a protracted slump. That’s not the most exciting place to be, but it can be quite viable for quite a long time. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Only 2 States Saw Their Share Of US Venture Funding Rise Last Year
A rising tide may lift all boats. But lately it lifts California boats the most. In 2025, only two states with a sizable venture scene saw a year-over-year gain in their share of U.S. venture funding: California and Washington. This held true even though several others, including New York and Texas, actually saw a pretty big bump in investment. What gives? Well, last year saw a dramatic upward swing in North American venture investment, with annual startup funding up 46%. Artificial intelligence was the driver, with most investment going to companies in AI-related categories. Not all geographies benefited equally. Across all categories, California drew the largest share of investment, at 64%. The next runners-up were New York, Massachusetts and Texas. Overall, there were six states that captured 2% or more of U.S. venture funding last year, per Crunchbase data. That’s a small group, but it’s not too atypical, as a few hubs reliably attract virtually all the capital. To illustrate, we charted how investment share for the top six states breaks down over the past two calendar years. Funding also rose year-over-year for each of the six states, as we chart below. Deals and sectors that drove gains, by state Leading sectors and rounds varied broadly by state. We previously covered the California companies whose huge funding hauls drove gains. Here are leaders in the other top states: New York: For the second-largest funding hub, two of last year’s biggest funding rounds went to predictions marketplaces Polymarket and Kalshi. AI coding startup Reflection AI and food delivery provider Wonder were also investor favorites. Massachusetts: The Boston area is known for its deep-tech prowess, and this showed up in the funding tallies. Fusion energy pioneer Commonwealth Fusion was the biggest funding recipient, followed by BrainCo, a developer of brain-computer interfaces, and Kailera Therapeutics, which is focused on weight loss drugs. Texas: Austin companies topped the list for Texas funding rounds last year. This included Base Power, a provider of residential backup battery systems, and Saronic, a developer of autonomous naval and maritime vessels. Washington: The Pacific Northwest powerhouse has a fairly diversified startup scene, as evidenced by the largest funding recipients.These include nuclear power company TerraPower, and reusable rocket developer Stoke Space. Colorado: There’s very little snow in Colorado this winter, but plenty of capital has accumulated. Lead funding recipients include AI infrastructure company Crusoe, which secured a $1.4 billion Series E in October, and quantum computing startup Quantinuum, which raised a $600 million Series B. Other states OK, so you may have noticed that there are 44 other states we didn’t discuss and which also do attract some startup investment. This includes five that are under 2% of national funding but still pulled in over $2 billion last year: Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Carolina and Virginia. Seven others — Utah, Tennessee, Maryland, Ohio, Minnesota, Georgia and New Jersey — attracted $1 billion or more in startup funding last year and most saw year-over-year gains. But because venture is so heavily concentrated elsewhere, these 12 states only drew about 11% of all nationwide investment. Catalysts for change? There’s no law, of course, that says venture investment must remain so geographically concentrated. Certainly there are base characteristics that make for a sustainable startup hub, including well-regarded research universities and a concentration of tech and biotech talent and employers. But a number of places meet these baselines, making them potentially fertile ground for greater investment. Of late, however, capital seems to continue to concentrate on bold new ventures in the biggest existing hubs. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman