Startups Category
Venture Capitalists Tap Out On Funding Our Fitness Goals
If you’ve been slogging through January on a mission to get in better shape, you’ve got company. Improving health and fitness is reliably the most popular New Year’s resolution. It’s no simple goal to achieve, of course. But these days there are almost infinite ways to spend money trying, including classes, gear, biometric trackers, supplements, and so on. Just don’t expect newly funded startups to get you to the finish line. Venture investment in the fitness and wellness space peaked about four years ago. It hit a cyclical low last year, with just over $5 billion in reported global funding. Where the money is going That said, it’s not as if investors have abandoned the space, and there are still companies securing big rounds. In recent months, the standout was Oura, maker of a smart ring that collects data on dozens of personal health and wellness metrics. In October, the 12-year-old Finnish company announced that it closed on more than $900 million at an impressive $11 billion valuation. Another longtime player in the space, fitness app Strava, reportedly reached a $2.2 billion valuation earlier this year after raising an undisclosed amount of new funding led by Sequoia Capital. And on the wellness front, LetsGetChecked, an at-home testing platform, picked up $165 million in a Series F early last year. Getting a good night’s rest is also fundamental for healthy living, and in this arena smart sleep system developer Eight Sleep was a standout. The 12-year-old company raised $100 million for its Series D last summer. Below, we put together a list of some of the larger funding recipients this past year. Outside the venture sphere, private equity and growth investors are also eyeing the intersection of fitness and AI. Last week, fitness and wellness brands Mindbody, Booker, ClassPass and EGYM announced they are merging under a parent company, Playlist. The transaction includes $785 million in new equity investment, led by Affinity Partners, and values the combined company at $7.5 billion. Where the money isn’t going Yet while investors are keen on some fitness startups strategies, others have fallen out of favor. So where is the money not going? Connected fitness equipment startups are one of the areas that have lost financial support in a big way. Shares of what used to be the sector’s most famous success story — Peloton — are down over 95% from the pandemic-era highs. Others that raised considerable capital have been mostly running on existing reserves. This includes rowing machine startup Hydrow, which raised more than $360 million between 2018 and 2022, but hasn’t had a reported financing since, per Crunchbase data. Another, smart home gym maker Tonal, secured $580 million but has not landed a fresh round in nearly three years. Prediction: More AI As we look ahead to contemplate what fitness and fitness-adjacent areas might be best primed to attract investment, it’s not quite obvious. For now, IPO activity in the space looks muted, though last week’s Playlist rollup offers a sign that acquirers see some value. Perhaps for now, the only thing one can be comfortable prognosticating is the same thing that applies to every sector on earth: that AI-enabled offerings will be more widespread and more heavily funded. Now, if only the AI could lift weights and go on runs for us too. Related Crunchbase queries: Illustration: Dom Guzman
OpenEvidence, An AI-Powered ‘Brain Extender’ For Doctors, Doubles Valuation To $12B With $250M Series D
OpenEvidence, an AI platform for doctors, announced Wednesday it has raised $250 million in a Series D funding round that doubled its valuation to $12 billion. Notably, the round marks the fourth fundraise for the Miami-based startup in less than a year. In total, OpenEvidence has raised nearly $700 million in funding since its 2021 inception and was valued at $6 billion at the time of its Series C in October. Thrive Capital and DST co-led its latest raise. Other backers include GV, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Coatue, among others. OpenEvidence describes itself as a specialized AI-powered medical search engine that serves as a “brain extender” for clinicians by providing citation-linked answers from medical literature. It reached $100 million in annual revenue in January. The platform is free to doctors and ad-supported. The raise comes at an interesting time, considering that many of the large AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are incorporating “health” offerings into their products (ChatGPT for Health and Claude for Health). For its part, OpenEvidence says that in December it supported about 18 million clinical consultations from verified physicians in the U.S., up from about 3 million consultations per month a year ago. The startup also claims that its platform is used on a daily basis, on average, by more than 40% of physicians in the U.S. today in over 10,000 hospitals and medical centers. Last year, more than 100 million Americans were treated by a doctor using OpenEvidence, according to the company. Daniel Nadler, CEO of OpenEvidence. [Courtesy photo] AI-related healthcare is one of the spaces that has seen a significant rise in funding globally, Crunchbase data shows. Overall funding to the space rose in 2025, as more startups are tackling high-pain and high-cost parts of the healthcare system. Investors put an estimated $14 billion into seed- through growth-stage funding to companies in AI-powered health tech categories in 2025, Crunchbase data shows. That means 2025 funding was 63% higher than the $8.6 billion raised in all of 2024. Related Crunchbase queries: Related Reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
European Venture Funding Nudged Higher In 2025, While AI Led For The First Time
Venture funding to Europe-based startups last year gained only slightly, around 9% year over year, reaching $58 billion, with AI emerging as the region’s leading sector for startup investment for the first time, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows. While Europe’s venture investment did not grow significantly year over year, the region saw a shift to deep tech funding in 2025. Startup investment has also now maintained well above pre-COVID levels for the past three years. Still, Europe notably has not seen the same AI-driven boost that North America has. Venture investment in North America-based companies last year soared 46% year over year, with mega rounds into AI-related companies leading the way. Table of contents Quarterly uptick European venture funding did gain steam in Q4, reaching $16.6 billion — up 20% quarter over quarter and 27% year over year — per Crunchbase data. The largest rounds in Q4 were raised by London-based energy software provider Kraken, Finland-based smart ring Oura, Paris-based customer engagement platform Brevo, Dutch online grocer Picnic, and London cloud GPU provider Nscale. AI led for the first time Last year, artificial intelligence was the leading sector for venture investment in Europe for the first time, with around $17.5 billion in funding to AI in 2025 compared to just over $10 billion in 2024. Paris-based frontier lab Mistral AI raised the largest round in the year, close to $2 billion led by Dutch chip machine manufacturer ASML. Other large European funding rounds raised last year in AI went to Nscale and Brevo as well as Munich-based defense manufacturer Helsing, London-based AI drug discovery Isomorphic Labs, and Freiburg, Germany-based image frontier lab Black Forest Labs. The second-largest sector in Europe in 2025 for startup investment was healthcare and biotech, with companies in the space raising around $13.4 billion. The third-largest sector was hardware with around $10.8 billion invested. The total demonstrates Europe’s renewed focus on deep tech including investment in data centers, wearables, defense, quantum, aerospace, robotics and energy. Financial services, once the leading sector in Europe’s venture scene, was only the fourth-largest sector for funding in 2025, with around $7.4 billion invested. UK leads but other countries gain The U.K., the leading country in Europe, raised around $17 billion. That represents about 29% of total European venture funding in 2025, down from a third of all funding in 2024. Startups based in France raised $8.5 billion and Germany-based companies came in a close third with $8.4 billion. Each nation’s startups represented about 15% of funding to the continent last year. Switzerland was the fourth-largest European country for venture investment in 2025, with $3.6 billion invested in its startups last year. The Netherlands was the fifth largest at $3.4 billion, and was followed by Spain ($2.9 billion) and Finland ($2.2 billion). With the exception of the U.K., each of those countries raised more venture funding in 2025 than in 2024. Late stage grew in Q4 Late-stage funding in Q4 reached the highest amount in two years. A total of $9.2 billion was invested across 87 deals, up 65% by amounts year over year. Early-stage funding reached $5.3 billion in Q4 across more than 250 funding rounds, down 4% year over year. Seed funding reached $2 billion in Q4 across more than 750 deals, inline with totals year over year. Leading investors Investors that led or co-led the largest fundings into the region’s startups last year were dominated by Europe-based venture and private equity firms. Firms that led or co-led from outside of Europe included a mix of venture or private equity firms from the U.S. or Asia. Above pre-COVID funding Funding in Europe did not grow significantly year over year in 2025, but was well above pre-COVID funding levels and growing in deep tech and AI. With a renewed focus on science, funding has also shifted toward cities across Europe with leading research institutes. Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Jan. 4, 2026. Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Glossary of funding terms Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less. Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million. Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.) Illustration: Dom Guzman
Humans& Raises Huge $480M Seed Round At $4.48B Valuation For ‘Human-Centric AI Lab’
Humans&, a new company founded by top researchers from Google, Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI and Meta, among others, announced Tuesday that it has raised a massive $480 million seed round at a staggering $4.48 billion valuation. So far, not much is known about the company, founded in September 2025, which says its mission is to design an AI tool “around how people connect and work together, where collaboration and human insight remain central.” humans& co-founders from left: Noah Goodman, Andi Peng, Georges Harik, Yuchen He and Eric Zelikman. [Courtesy photo] SV Angel 1 and co-founder Harik also led the round, which included participation from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, GV (Google Ventures), Emerson Collective, Forerunner, S32, DCVC, Human Capital, Felicis 2 and CRV, among “many others,” according to the company. The seed round was raised all cash unstructured. The startup says its AI lab aims to set “the standard for how AI supports human connection.” Its tool, it adds, will act as a connective tissue to facilitate collaboration between people and intelligent systems. In a blog post, the company wrote: “No one changes the world alone. AI models are rapidly learning to reason better, code faster, and take actions in the world with increasing autonomy. But for humans, progress happens when we understand one another, build trust, make connections, and work together. That is where we believe the next chapter of AI should begin.” Peng told Crunchbase News via email that humans& will spend the majority of the capital on compute for training models. Huge seed rounds for AI While huge funding rounds are not unusual in the artificial intelligence space, the Humans& raise is believed to be one of the largest seed rounds ever raised. The largest, however, was raised by Thinking Machines Lab last year. Launched and led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, and joined by AI heavy hitters from Meta, OpenAI, Google and Mistral AI, the San Francisco-based company last year announced a $2 billion Andreessen Horowitz-led financing at a $10 billion valuation. It was by far the largest seed round in the Crunchbase dataset. Crunchbase data showed that seed investors poured money into AI startups in 2025 at an even more exuberant pace than in 2024, which was already record-setting. More than 41% of the $38.4 billion invested in global seed funding in 2025 went to companies in AI-focused industry categories, per Crunchbase data. That was up from 30% in 2024. The numbers also got bigger. Just over $15 billion had gone to AI-focused seed rounds as of Dec. 12, per Crunchbase, up about 50% from 2024. Below, we take a look at AI investment total and share for the past six years. It was also a record-setting year for really, really huge seed rounds. By this, we mean financings of $100 million or more — once unheard of, but now not that uncommon. We kept the dataset of these deals to U.S. startups for simpler vetting. But even with this limit, the total was enormous — topping $3.6 billion in 2025, as of Dec. 12, a new record. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Fintech Forecast: Momentum Builds With Big Deals, IPO-Ready Companies And More AI
Global venture funding to fintech and financial services startups last year rose 27% to total $51.8 billion, again topping pre-pandemic levels, per Crunchbase data, despite fewer funding deals. On the heels of that momentum, investors in the space say they expect funding growth in 2026 to continue to concentrate into pre-IPO companies, for M&A to tick up, and to see robust investment into startups that add value to their fintech offerings with AI. IPO momentum The IPO dam finally seems to have broken in 2025, with several companies in the fintech space either going public or filing to do so last year. That could work in the funding environment’s favor going forward, since startup investment often follows the lead of public-market counterparts. However, despite impressive debuts, shares have settled for many of the fintech companies that went public in 2025. Stablecoin issuer Circle, digital bank Chime, buy now, pay later plan provider Klarna, and enterprise expense management platform Navan are now all trading near or below their first-day closing prices. Still, investors are eager to back pre-IPO companies such as Plaid, Ramp, Monzo or Revolut, according to Nik Milanovic, general partner of The Fintech Fund. “The story of fintech funding this year will probably be dominated by those $100M+ rounds as these companies get ready to go public,” he told Crunchbase News. At the same time, he also predicts that “M&A will go crazy” in 2026 and that more companies will follow the lead set by Stripe and Revolut in providing tender offers to their employees in order to defer the decision to go public. “Venture firms will both sell and buy into these rounds,” he said. The AI effect The AI conversation has shifted the VC mindset into bubble territory from a valuation perspective, yet the underlying growth and performance of companies in the age of AI is “astounding and unlike anything we’ve seen before,” even relative to 2020 and 2021, according to Amias Gerety, partner and head of U.S. investments at QED Investors. “Absent a broader recession, we expect some pullback and return to rationality in the funding market,” he said, “but we believe funding in fintech and at the AI application layer should remain quite strong.” Still, “we just don’t expect fintech funding to ever recover to the highs we saw in 2020 and 2021, when fintech and crypto were the hottest themes in venture,” Gerety said. “The tourists have moved on to chasing the AI-hype cycle.” Jake Gibson of Better Tomorrow Ventures believes we’ll continue to see more AI companies across the fintech spectrum and that in general “there’s a lot of innovation going on in fintech right now.” “The current administration has been much more friendly to fintech innovation, so we expect that in 2026 we’ll see more fintechs getting bank charters and vertically integrating,” he said. “We’ll see more activity around stablecoins and crypto … and a lot of new products in the wealth stack.” Who’s getting funding Overall, “the best teams will increasingly pull ahead,” especially as startups building in AI and stablecoins scale faster than prior generations of fintech companies, according to Jordan Leites, vice president at Norwest. “These businesses can move more quickly and reach meaningful adoption earlier in their lifecycles,” he wrote in an email interview. Looking ahead, he expects stablecoins, agentic payments, and AI-native tools for financial services to command a disproportionate share of funding. “These categories sit at the intersection of technological inflection points and clear customer demand,” he said, “which is where capital tends to follow.” Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: A Busy Time For Robotics, Defense Tech And AI
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. The pace of big funding rounds continued to hold up at brisk levels this past week, led by a $1.4 billion financing for “robot brain” developer Skild AI. More big rounds went to startups in sectors including AI chips, brain-computer interfaces, defense tech, biotech and airplanes, among others. 1. Skild AI, $1.4B, robotics: Skild AI, a robotics company building an “omni-bodied” brain to operate any robot for any task, announced it raised $1.4 billion, tripling its valuation to over $14 billion. SoftBank Group led the Pittsburgh-based startup’s latest financing, which comes just over seven months after it raised a Series B at a $4.5 billion valuation. 2. Etched.ai, $500M, AI and semiconductors: Etched.ai, a startup working on chips for AI superintelligence, reportedly secured $500 million in new funding. Stripes led the financing, which was said to set a $5 billion valuation for the Silicon Valley-based company. 3. Merge Labs, $252M, brain-computer interfaces: Merge Labs, a Sam Altman-founded startup based in San Francisco, which is working on brain-computer interfaces that interact with the brain at high bandwidth and integrate with advanced AI, reportedly locked up a $252 million seed round. According to reports, OpenAI was the largest backer. 4. Mirador Therapeutics, $250M, biotech: San Diego-based Mirador Therapeutics, a precision medicine startup developing therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory and fibrotic diseases, says it closed on $250 million in Series B funding. The company said the round brings total capital raised to more than $650 million since it launched in March 2024. 5. (tied) Onebrief, $200M, defense tech: Defense tech startup Onebrief has raised another $200 million and reportedly acquired a small battle simulation company, Battle Road Digital. Battery Ventures and Sapphire Ventures led the Series D funding for Honolulu-based Onebrief, which makes AI-driven collaborative and planning software used for military operations. 5. (tied) Beast Industries, $200M, media: Bitmine Immersion Technologies, an Ethereum treasury company, announced that it made a $200 million equity investment into Beast Industries — also known as MrBeast — the Greenville, South Carolina-based entertainment and consumer products company founded by YouTube creator Jimmy Donaldson. 7. JetZero, $175M, aerospace: Long Beach, California-based JetZero, a developer of planes with much higher fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions than existing commercial airliners, picked up $175 million in Series B financing led by B Capital. Founded in 2020, JetZero says it is looking to enter commercial service in the early 2030s. 8. Deepgram, $143M, voice AI: Deepgram, an API platform for voice AI, secured $130 million in Series C funding led by AVP at a $1.3 billion valuation. San Francisco-based Deepgram also announced that it acquired OfOne, an AI voice platform for restaurants and drive-thru operators. 9. Defense Unicorns, $136M, defense tech: Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Defense Unicorns, a provider of software delivery for national security mission systems, locked up $136 million in a Series B round led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities. 10. (tied) Mytra, $120M, robotics: Mytra, a developer of industrial robotics technology for warehouse operations, raised $120 million in a Series C round led by Avenir. Founded in 2022, Brisbane, California-based Mytra has raised close to $200 million to date, per Crunchbase data. 10. (tied) Tulip Interfaces, $120M, AI for manufacturers: Boston-based Tulip Interfaces, a developer of AI-enabled tools for manufacturers to digitize processes and improve production, says it secured $120 million in Series D funding backed by Mitsubishi Electric. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Jan. 10-16. 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
It Was A Big Year For Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity startup investment for 2025 hit the highest level in three years, bolstered by big rounds for AI-focused companies in the space. Overall, investors put $18 billion into seed- through growth-stage rounds for companies in Crunchbase security and privacy categories last year. That’s up about 26% from 2024, with particularly pronounced growth at early stage. It’s also the third-highest annual total in 10 years, as charted below. Table of contents Supersized rounds boosted totals A handful of supersized rounds contributed heavily to boosting annual funding tallies. Per Crunchbase data, cybersecurity companies raised at least seven rounds of $400 million or more last year. Of those, two went to the year’s biggest fundraiser, AI-powered data security platform Cyera, which picked up two rounds totaling $940 million. Saviynt, provider of an identity security platform for humans and AI agents, was another investor favorite, closing on $700 million last month at a valuation around $3 billion. And NinjaOne, the endpoint management automation and security provider, secured $500 million in Series C funding early in the year. For a bigger-picture view, below we put together a list of seven of the year’s largest cybersecurity-related funding rounds. But overall, fewer deals got done While investment rose, deal counts declined some last year, as more capital concentrated around a handful of hot startups. Across all stages, we saw just under 1,000 reported cybersecurity financings last year, the lowest total in at least 10 years. We expect the 2025 tally to rise slightly over time, however, due to delays in some seed rounds being added to the dataset. Early stage outperformed, US led Even as overall deal volume contracted, early stage posted a gain in 2025, with more than 300 reported deals. That exceeded deal count in each of the prior two years. Early-stage investment was also particularly strong last year, with $7.5 billion invested around Series A and Series B. That’s up a whopping 63% from year-earlier levels, driven largely by heightened investor enthusiasm for deals at the intersection of AI and security. Cybersecurity investment was also largely to U.S. companies. Per Crunchbase data, 74% of funding to the space last year went to U.S.-headquartered startups. These companies also generated the largest exits. Exits were big too That brings us to our next and final point, which is that higher cybersecurity funding also coincided with big M&A and IPO events. For acquisitions, of course the headline deal of the year was Google’s planned $32 billion acquisition of cloud security company Wiz, which has yet to be finalized. Another megadeal came in late December, when ServiceNow announced an agreement to acquire Armis, a provider of cyber risk management tools, for $7.75 billion in cash. As for IPOs, the standout for 2025 was network security provider Netskope’s September debut. The Silicon Valley company was recently valued around $6 billion. Not a lot of negative For a sector that prides itself on the ability to ferret out risks that others miss, cybersecurity seemed to have relatively little to fret about regarding the investment environment. For companies able to integrate AI in compelling ways, investors have plenty of capacity to write big checks, and exit markets look receptive as well. Surely, there must be some unforeseen risk in the mix. There always is. But for now, things are still looking up. Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Jan. 4, 2026. Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Glossary of funding terms Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less. Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million. Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.) Related Crunchbase queries: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Fintech Funding Jumped 27% In 2025 With Fewer Deals But Bigger Checks
Global venture funding to fintech startups climbed in 2025 to its highest level in several quarters, boosted by later-stage deals, Crunchbase data shows. Total global funding to VC-backed financial technology startups totaled $51.8 billion for the year, per Crunchbase data. That’s a fairly significant – 27% – increase from 2024’s total of $40.8 billion raised. Unsurprisingly, the numbers are still much lower than the peak of $141.6 billion raised in 2021 and the $90.2 billion raised in 2022. But they are trending upward at least, unlike in 2024, when they fell below 2023 levels. And, for the first time in recent years 2025 funding totals came in above pre-pandemic sums, which were $50.8 billion in 2020 and $49.3 billion in 2019. Deal flow, however, was down — signaling fewer, but larger rounds. The year saw 3,457 deals consummated, a 23% decline from the more than 4,486 completed in 2024. Table of contents Large deals The fact that the sector experienced an increase in funding despite a lower deal count indicates that the first half of 2025 saw a number of large rounds. Interestingly, several of the largest deals involved blockchain or crypto companies and prediction marketplaces. Other sizeable deals that occurred during the year include U.K. payments platform Rapyd’s $500 million haul in mid-March; HR and payroll startup Rippling’s $450 million Series G in May; and expense management platform Ramp’s $500 million Series E-2 at a $22.5 billion valuation in late July and $300 million raise at a $32 billion valuation in November. ‘Chasing the AI-hype cycle’ All the VCs we spoke with said they believe 2021 and 2022 were outlier periods for venture funding. The record funding during those years were driven by “the Covid-19 rebound and ultra-low interest rates,” said Raph Osnoss, managing director at General Atlantic, who is based in New York and focuses on investments in the firm’s financial services sector, including financial technology. “After a reset, a more constructive overall market in 2025 has driven renewed investor appetite, albeit with investor selectivity around scale and quality in a world with continued uncertainty,” he wrote in an email interview. VCs appear to be just fine with funding not returning to those elevated levels. Better Tomorrow Ventures’ Jake Gibson put it this way: 2021 and early 2022 were not healthy markets for the tech or startup industry as a whole. Fintech got a disproportionate amount of capital because of the COVID “everything is going digital” craze. “Too much money was chasing too few great founders,” he said. “There would be four to five companies building the same thing, with business models that shouldn’t have been funded in the first place, and in many cases none of them were successful because none of them got to scale.” ‘Flight to quality’ Returning to the pace and exuberance of 2021, isn’t necessarily desirable or sustainable, according to Norwest Venture Partners VP Jordan Leites, who believes fintech is seeing a continued flight to quality with capital increasingly concentrating on companies with differentiated ideas, clear execution and “bona fide traction.” Meanwhile, it has become meaningfully harder for others to raise. “That dynamic helps explain why total funding dollars are up even as deal volume is down,” he told Crunchbase News. “I think the level of activity we saw in 2025 is healthy. At the earliest stages … the pipeline remains very strong, particularly across AI and stablecoins. Those areas have real structural tailwinds.” Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Jan. 4, 2026. Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Glossary of funding terms Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less. Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million. Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.) Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman