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Active Investors Kept Busy In An AI-Centric Quarter
A familiar set of active investors led startup dealmaking in the third quarter, backing and leading the most rounds as well as spending heavily to do so. Y Combinator, the global leader at seed and an active follow-on investor, was a particular standout in Q3 for deal count. As for the highest-spending investors, backers in Anthropic’s $13 billion Series F led the pack. Overall, meanwhile, serial backers of AI megarounds topped our most-active investor ranks. These included well-known names like Insight Partners, General Catalyst, Accel, Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Capital. For more detail, below we break out the most-active investor ranks across multiple categories, looking at busiest lead dealmakers, highest spenders, and top venture and seed backers. Most-active lead investors Insight Partners was the most-active global lead investor in Q3, serving as lead or co-lead investor in 19 reported deals, per Crunchbase data. The largest rounds included a $1 billion financing for Databricks and a $260 million Series E for legal tech unicorn Filevine. Accel was next, with 14 deals, followed by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India and Southeast Asia) and General Catalyst. Spendiest investors We can also get a sense of who put the most capital to work in Q3 by looking at lead investors in the most expensive collection of rounds. It’s not an exact science, given that investors seldom disclose their share of a particular financing. However, it does give us an idea. At the top of the list are co-lead investors in the latest Anthropic round: Fidelity, Iconiq Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Among other investors who led multiple rounds last quarter, the most active were Andreessen Horowitz and Insight Partners. And as shown below, there were 19 investors who led or co-led one or more rounds valued at $1 billion and up. Busiest post-seed investors The rankings look quite a bit different when we stop focusing on lead investors and instead look simply at who backed the most post-seed rounds. By this measure, the far-and-away leader is Y Combinator, which rarely takes a lead role but does participate as a return investor in rounds for startups that came through its accelerator program. General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz tied for second place, with 29 reported deals each, followed by Insight Partners and Accel, with 25 and 24 rounds, respectively. Most-active seed investors For this past quarter, Y Combinator also claimed its usual spot as the most-active seed-stage investor. Per Crunchbase data, the famed accelerator backed at least 218 reported seed financings, up from Q2 but down a bit year over year. Next in the ranks was TechStars, followed by Antler. And below, we take a lengthier look at the most-active global seed investors. Chugging along The big picture from Q3’s active investor tallies is that established leaders among startup investors are still very much in the game. While there’s been some shuffling in the ranks in recent quarters, the top active investor slots on our lists still contain mostly the same names. Not coincidentally, many are also some of the biggest AI investors and already have some of the highest-profile startups in their portfolios. Given that so many of these companies continue to see big markups and red-hot investor demand, the immediate forecast is that many more big checks from these investors are likely to pile up before years end. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Polymarket And Reflection AI Lead A Varied Lineup Of Megarounds
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 rounds here. The past week brought a varied assortment of large startup financings, with big rounds in sectors ranging from events-based betting to AI to energy to biotech. Leading the pack for round size were prediction market platform Polymarket and open standards-focused AI startup Reflection AI, which each raised $2 billion. 1. (tied) Polymarket, $2B, prediction market: Intercontinental Exchange, the operator of clearing houses and exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange, announced that it will invest up to $2 billion into the prediction market platform Polymarket. The deal sets an $8 billion pre-money valuation for New York-based Polymarket, which lets users wager on event probabilities across markets, politics, sports and other areas. 1. (tied) Reflection AI, $2B, AI: New York’s Reflection AI, a developer of LLM training models based on open standards, raised $2 billion in a funding round backed by Nvidia and a long list of venture investors. The financing sets an $8 billion valuation for Reflection, which is reportedly 15x the valuation it secured just seven months ago. 3. Base Power, $1B, battery power: Base Power, an Austin, Texas-based provider of battery-powered home energy, secured $1 billion in Series C funding led by Addition. Founded in 2023, Base has raised $1.3 billion in known funding to date, per Crunchbase data. 4. Stoke Space, $510M, space tech: Stoke Space, a developer of reusable launch vehicles, picked up $510 million in Series D funding led by US Innovative Technology Fund in conjunction with a $100 million debt facility led by Silicon Valley Bank. The funding will be used toward expanding production capacity in its launch vehicle and activating its launch complex at Cape Canaveral. 5. Expedition Therapeutics, $165M, biotech: San Francisco-based Expedition Therapeutics, a developer of therapies for inflammatory and respiratory diseases, closed on $165 million in Series A funding co-led by Sofinnova Investments and Novo Holdings. Funding will support a Phase 2 study for its drug candidate to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 6. EvenUp, $150M, legal tech: EvenUp, a legal tech startup that creates artificial intelligence products for the personal injury sector, landed $150 million in Series E funding. Repeat backer Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which sets a valuation of more than $2 billion for the San Francisco-based startup. 7. Duos, $130M, health benefits: Minneapolis-based Duos, a digital health platform focused on Medicare beneficiaries, locked up $130 million in a growth equity investment led by FTV Capital. Founded in 2020, Duos has raised over $160 million in known funding to date. 8. Nilo Therapeutics, $101M, biotech: Nilo Therapeutics, a startup focused on developing therapies based on advances in neuro-immunology, launched with a $101 million Series A round. The Column Group, DCVC Bio and Lux Capital led the financing for the New York-based company. 9. Torl Biotherapeutics, $96M, biotech: Torl Biotherapeutics, a startup focused on antibody-based immunotherapies for cancer patients, closed on a $96 million Series C round. The Los Angeles company did not disclose investors but did say the funding would go to advance multiple clinical trials in progress. 10. Harvey, $59M, legal tech: Harvey, a provider of AI-enabled tools for legal professionals, raised $59 million from EQT Growth aimed at supporting international expansion. The financing brings total reported funding to date for San Francisco-based Harvey to $865 million, with most of that secured in 2025. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Oct. 4-10. 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
Brazil Back On Top In Q3 When It Comes To Venture Funding In Latin America
In the second quarter of 2025, Mexico emerged as the leader in terms of venture capital dollars raised in Latin America, per Crunchbase data. It marked the first time since the second quarter of 2012 that Mexico’s startups brought in more venture funding than their Brazil counterparts, our data indicated. Now in the third quarter, it appears that Brazil is back on top — and in a big way. Brazil-based startups raised $692 million in Q3, up 47% year over year and 92% quarter over quarter. Mexico-headquartered startups brought in $126 million, down 21% year over year and a 71% dip quarter over quarter. The largest raise in Brazil — and Latin America as a whole — was announced on Sept. 11. That was a $160 million Series D round for Sao Paulo-based Omie — which offers cloud-based management software for SMEs —- that valued the company at $700 million. Partners Group led the financing. In general, a boom in late-stage and growth funding helped buoy the region year over year, Crunchbase data shows. Overall, startups in Latin America raised a combined $1 billion across seed- through growth-stage deals in the third quarter, up 21% year over year and up 8% from the second quarter. Of that total, $477 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 176% year over year. That’s down 16%, however, from the $565 million in late-stage and growth financing the region saw in the second quarter of this year. Early-stage investment surged in the third quarter with $425 million flowing into startups, up 18% year over year and 48% compared to the second quarter. Seed and angel investment totaled $105 million for the third quarter, which marked a 34% increase compared to the prior quarter, but a 47% decrease year over year. For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 10 quarters below. Table of contents Late-stage boom While Omie’s venture round was the largest financing in Latin America, it was not the only nine-figure raise the region saw in Q3. Other large deals included Kapital, a Mexico City-based Y Combinator-backed digital bank, raising a $100 million Series C that propelled its valuation to over $1.3 billion. Pelion Venture Partners and Tribe Capital led that financing. Canopy raised $100 million in a round co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Cloud9 Capital. Founded in 2025, the Sao Paulo-based startup is a tech holding company that aims to acquire and scale B2B software providers. Investor POV Camila Vieira, head of Brazil at QED Investors, said the quality of the companies getting funded in Latin America as of late seems “high” and “like a step up from earlier in the year.” “We saw big rounds, a solid shift to AI taking over, and lots of activity in fintech both in terms of deals and market events,” she told Crunchbase News. “The AI hype felt like it was a wave behind the U.S. for a bit,” she said, “but now we are seeing application layer solutions getting funded in addition to companies leaning heavily into AI-enhanced strategies.” Fraud prevention and security are taking center stage on the backs of major breaches in Brazil. Vieira cited research revealing that in 2024, Brazil’s financial sector reported R$10.1 billion ($1.88 billion in USD) in losses related to fraud. “This is already increasing the regulatory thresholds in Brazil and is likely to put more scrutiny in fintech,” she said. Mexico was not excluded from the drama as a number of banks dealt with FinCEN issues — potentially delaying or postponing activity to push fintech forward, Vieira noted. “On the positive side, Colombia gave clarity around open banking and launched Bre-B, the country’s real-time payment network,” she added. Rocio Wu, partner at F-Prime, said her firm has long tracked the rise of alternative assets, or alts, as they “become a core piece of the modern investment portfolio,” and amid the subsequent rise of infrastructure players enabling their expansion. Within “alts,” private credit has been one of the fastest-growing and most overlooked segments, she noted. That led to F-Prime leading the $30 million Series B round into Kanastra, a platform that offers tech-driven back-office services for alternative investments, to “spearhead Brazil’s private credit infrastructure development.” Over the past 12 months alone, she said, the company grew 150%, with customers spanning Brazil’s largest banks, investment managers, private credit funds and originators. Overall, Diana Narváez, principal and head of LatAm investments at Flourish Ventures, believes that Latin American founders generally “are rewriting the rules of financial innovation.” “Fintech remains the region’s No. 1 funded sector because trust, access and agency are still the biggest pain points for consumers and businesses,” she told Crunchbase News. “In LatAm, entrepreneurs innovate under tighter capital and tougher consumer realities, producing solutions that are not just resilient but transformative. This is not a story of catching up, it’s a story of leapfrogging.” Recent LatAm investments for the firm include co-leading rounds for: Akua, which aims to modernize payment acquiring in LatAm, and Kamino, a Sao Paulo-based platform that integrates financial management software, a native bank account and corporate card for midsized businesses in Brazil. It also wrote a check into a $2.1 million round for Liquid, also based in Sao Paulo, which is building real estate credit infrastructure. The rise of stablecoins Vieira believes that “everyone continues to watch stablecoins, trade and other cross-border activity as a big opportunity for Latin America.” A stablecoin is a type of digital currency designed to maintain a stable value. Wu is also excited about the potential for stablecoins in the region. “We have increasingly high conviction that stablecoins are the killer use case for crypto, and cross-border payments are an ideal use case because they offer material benefits over current rails — faster, cheaper and more transparent — in a massive market,” she said. In addition, with upcoming regulatory clarity in Brazil, the local denominated stablecoin is on the rise, “with the promise of yield-bearing stablecoins and tokenization of real-world assets,” Wu noted. “Overall, the stablecoin market in LatAm has numerous nascent players with liquidity fragmentation, and we look forward to seeing more interoperability and consolidation,” she said. Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 6, 2025. 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
Exclusive: Payments Tech Startup Routefusion Raises $26.7M Series A
Routefusion, an Austin, Texas-based financial infrastructure provider, has raised $26.7 million in a Series A round led by PeakSpan Capital, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively. Silverton Partners also participated in the financing, which brings the company’s total funding raised since its 2018 inception to $40.7 million. Other backers include Initialized Capital and Forum Ventures, among others. Colton Seal, co-founder and CEO, declined to reveal at which valuation this round was raised, saying only that it was an up round. The company last raised in January 2022 — a $10.5 million seed round. Overall, global venture funding to financial technology startups has already reached $36 billion across 2,810 deals in 2025 as of Oct. 8, per Crunchbase data. That’s a 28.93% increase in dollars raised compared to the $26.9 billion raised across 3,508 deals during the same time period in 2024. Accessible unified networkRoutefusion co-founders Richard Scappaticci Jr., Colton Seal and Nabeel Siddiqui. Courtesy photo. Routefusion has created a single API that it says gives businesses the ability to embed accounts, payments, currency conversion and compliance into their products. Put more simply, it aims to make it easier for platforms and financial institutions to open global accounts and make international, or cross-border, bank-to-bank payments. It works with over 30 customers in the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Mexico and Brazil. Those customers span a variety of industries, including payroll and employer-of-record, B2B payments and banking, and include Payment Labs, Rise, Jeeves and Clara. What sets Routefusion apart, according to Seal, is that it was built as a unified network, with multiprovider and multibank redundancy. “We are highly configurable and have positioned ourselves to be adaptable to the most complicated use cases, both from a technical and compliance perspective,” he told Crunchbase News. And unlike traditional middleware, Routefusion manages integrations, onboarding and compliance in-house, which Seal said allows businesses “go live faster and scale globally without managing fragmented infrastructure.” Competitors include Airwallex and Wise. Those companies are more focused on consumers and SMBs, however, while Routefusion targets global platforms and financial institutions as customers, according to Seal. Over the past 12 months, Routefusion has seen its revenue triple, he said, although he declined to reveal hard revenue figures. The company operates with a usage-based revenue model and charges platform access subscription fees. “We operate capital efficiently and see ourselves as able to reach profitability with this round of funding,” said Seal, who previously worked as a network engineer for Citi. The company is also planning to use its new capital to invest in its engineering, product and compliance teams while also experimenting with GTM programs. Presently, Routefusion has about 25 employees. Justin Kelly, vice president at PeakSpan Capital, said his firm invested in Routefusion because it sees the startup as “a mission-critical infrastructure provider.” “Most providers are either application-first with an API bolted on or thin middleware that leaves customers to stitch together banks, FX, and compliance themselves. Routefusion is API-first at the surface but operated end-to-end underneath,” he told Crunchbase News via email. “What this means in practice is that, in addition to providing access to its network, the company also supports customers in running ‘the hard parts’ of a cross-border payments or global accounts program: integrations, onboarding, compliance workflows, and post-launch maintenance.” Related Crunchbase query: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Asia Startup Investment Up In Q3
Asia’s startup funding rose sequentially in the third quarter, boosted by a handful of hardtech-focused megarounds. Overall, investors put $16.8 billion into reported seed- through growth-stage rounds for companies across Asia, per Crunchbase data. That’s a 20% increase from the prior quarter and a 16% rise from the year-ago period. But while funding is up in the short-term, investment remains well below the levels typical a few years ago. In multiple quarters in 2021 and 2022, funding was more than twice current levels. Still, sequential improvement is a positive indicator. And for Q3, it’s also encouraging that reported round counts were up along with total funding, rising by around 10% from Q2. Table of contents China leads, India lags Funding gains were unequally distributed among countries in the region, with some posting sharp gains and others seeing investment fall. China: China, the region’s largest recipient of venture investment, was among those in the plus column. Funding to China’s startups hit $6.2 billion in Q3, up 13% from an unusually weak Q2. Even with those gains, however, China funding is down from a year ago and far below 2022 and 2023 levels. The largest financing went to Galactic Energy Aerospace Technology, a developer of commercial launch vehicles, that raised $337 million in a late-September financing. Two robotics-focused companies, X Square and EngineAI, also secured $140 million each. India: India, the second-largest venture funding destination in Asia, saw investment contract in the third quarter. Per Crunchbase data, a total of $2.7 billion went to reported rounds for India-based startups in Q3, down 22% quarter over quarter and the lowest tally in two years. Even so, there were some larger rounds in the mix. Truemeds, an online pharmacy and telemedicine app, picked up $65 million in Series C funding. And Flipspaces, a design tech brand, closed on $50 million. Singapore, Israel and other top funding destinations While China and India, with roughly 60% of Asia’s population, are predictably the continent’s largest venture markets, several smaller countries also proved popular with investors. Singapore: Startups in the Southeast Asian financial capital landed a combined $2.4 billion in Q3, nearly triple year-ago levels. The quarter included a $220 million Series C for Airalo, an eSIM provider for mobile devices enabling data connectivity for travelers. Israel: Funding to Israeli startups was estimated at $1.4 billion in Q3 — down from the prior quarter, but still up significantly from a year earlier. Noma Security, a cybersecurity platform for AI and autonomous agents, closed on the largest venture fund, a $100 million Series B. The next-biggest was a $96 million Series B for Exodigo, based in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, focused on underground mapping. UAE, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia: For other Asian nations, fluctuation was the only consistent attribute for funding levels. United Arab Emirates was one of the gainers, largely due to big rounds for Dubai-based companies. One standout was Xpanceo, a developer of connected smart contact lenses that pulled in $250 million in a July Series A. South Korea funding also ticked up in Q3. The largest round for the quarter was a $250 million financing for AI semiconductor startup Rebellions. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, clinched a big round with payments platform Hala closing on $157 million for its Series B. And in Japan, overall funding was down, but we did see some jumbo-sized rounds, including a $100 million Series B for back-office automation provider LayerX. Late stage, early stage and seed Overall, late-stage and technology-growth deals captured the largest share of funding across Asia. For Q3, investors put $8.3 billion into 151 reported rounds at these stages. In dollar terms, it was the highest quarterly total for the year. Early-stage dealmaking also saw a pickup in Q3, with reported investment hitting $6.7 billion, also a quarterly high for the year. At seed, meanwhile, it appears investment declined in Q3 based on reported totals. However, we expect these numbers to rise some over time, as deals at this stage are often recorded in the dataset weeks or months after they close. AI funding rises We also broke out the share of Asian funding going to AI-focused companies, given the popularity of this investment theme in recent quarters. For Q3, AI-related investment rose significantly, hitting the highest total on record. Better, but still room for improvement Overall, Asia startup funding tallies for the third quarter indicate some improvement in the flow of investment. Given that the region is home to most of the world’s population and still pulls in a disproportionately small share of total funding, clearly there’s room for growth. Perhaps we’ll see some more progress in that direction next quarter. Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 6, 2025. 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
Europe’s Venture Scene Held Steady In Q3, Buoyed By Early-Stage Funding And Klarna IPO
Klarna’s long-awaited IPO provided a standout moment for Europe’s venture ecosystem in Q3, but the more noteworthy signal may be what’s happening earlier in the funding pipeline. While late-stage startup investment in Europe remains relatively muted, early-stage funding has quietly become Europe’s engine of resilience — helping sustain overall funding levels even as global capital continues to concentrate around massive AI rounds in the U.S., Crunchbase data shows. All told, European startups pulled in $13.1 billion across more than 1,000 deals last quarter, flat quarter over quarter but up 22% year over year, per Crunchbase data. Early-stage investment accounted for roughly 60% of that total, buoyed by strong activity in deep tech, biotech and AI applications. This contrasts with North America, which has seen a surge of megarounds of $500 million or more, largely into AI-related companies, over the past four quarters. North American companies raised 68% of global funding in Q3, up 10 percentage points from a year ago, with two-thirds invested in later-stage financings. Table of contents Klarna debuts and strong M&A Sweden-based Klarna went public on the New York Stock Exchange in Q3 at a value of $15.1 billion, marking the completion of one of the most-anticipated European debuts in recent years. Still, while Klarna’s listing price was well above its most recent private valuation at $6.7 billion in 2022, it was still far below its 2021 valuation of $45.5 billion. Five European companies were also acquired for close to or more than a billion dollars each last quarter, including Sweden-based enterprise knowledge platform Sana, which was purchased by Workday, and Germany-based conversational AI platform Cognigy, acquired by Nice Systems. Other billion-dollar startup exits out of Europe last quarter were in healthcare — Vicebio and OrganOx — and Calastone, in asset management. AI stepped up Close to 40% of European funding was invested in AI-related startups last quarter, totaling $5.2 billion, per Crunchbase data. That was up from $2 billion in Q3 2024. The large fundraisers in the space were Paris-based frontier model company Mistral AI, which raised $2 billion, and London-based Nscale, a 1-year-old data center and cloud provider that raised $1.1 billion. (Within a week in early October, Nscale raised another $433 million from Nvidia, Nokia and Dell, among others.) Other large rounds in AI last quarter were raised by Sweden-based vibe coding startup Lovable, London-based accounts payable company Xelix, and Switzerland drone and robotics operations platform Auterion. Late stage Around $5.4 billion was invested last quarter across 75 deals into Europe startups at growth stage, per Crunchbase data. That represents around 9% of global late-stage venture funding, the smallest proportion compared to other funding stages. The Other late-stage fundings went to London-based smartphone and device maker Nothing, Netherlands-based website design Framer, and Italy-based embedded device security platform Exein. Early stage up Early-stage funding in Q3 was up year over year by 31%, with $6.1 billion invested across more than 257 funding rounds. European funding represented 20% of global early-stage funding. Early-stage rounds also went to Finland-based IQM Quantum Computers, Belgium-based Aerospacelab, and U.K.-based material science company CuspAI. Seed European seed funding totaled $1.7 billion in Q3 across 745 seed rounds, representing 18% of global seed funding. Large seed rounds were raised in energy, AI, biotech, fintech, autonomous driving and robotics, among other sectors. Robust early stage Early-stage funding to European startups picked up in Q3 with large rounds in deeptech, biotech and AI applications across many European cities. Europe’s early-stage funding represents around 20% of global venture funding, while funding lags at the later stages, coming in at 9% of global funding. So while Europe’s startups haven’t produced the splashy growth figures of their North American counterparts, the region has now delivered several sequential quarters of steady funding, not to mention resilient early-stage investment and strong exits in Q3. In fact, four of the nine companies acquired globally for more than $1 billion last quarter hail from Europe. As Europe and the U.S. come closer together, with many European founders launching in the U.S. market earlier, the question is: Will Europe continue to create those standout $10 billion-plus companies as it did most recently with Klarna? Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 6, 2025. 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
EvenUp, AI Software For Personal Injury Law, Doubles Valuation To $2B As Legal Tech Funding Hits Record High
EvenUp, a legal tech startup that creates artificial intelligence products for the personal injury sector, has raised $150 million in Series E funding at a valuation exceeding $2 billion. The financing comes nearly one year after EvenUp announced a $135 million Series D at a valuation of more than $1 billion. In total, the San Francisco-based startup has raised $385 million in funding since its 2019 inception — closing four rounds since 2023. Repeat backer Bessemer Venture Partners led the startup’s latest raise, which also included participation from REV — the venture capital arm of RELX, which owns LexisNexis Legal & Professional — as well as SignalFire, B Capital, Adams Street Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, HarbourVest Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Broadlight Capital. EvenUp’s platform is powered by an AI model that is trained on hundreds of thousands of injury cases, medical records and internal legal knowledge. The platform helps with document generation, and case and negotiation preparation. “Legal AI is no longer a side bet; it’s becoming the backbone of personal injury law,” said Rami Karabibar, CEO and co-founder of EvenUp, in a release. He said that in the past six months alone, volume on the company’s platform nearly doubled to 10,000 cases per week. Venture funding to legal tech startups has already hit a record high in 2025, driven by investor enthusiasm for AI’s potential to bring more automation to the legal profession. On Sept. 23, Filevine, a provider of legal practice management software, announced that it closed on two previously undisclosed rounds totaling $400 million. Insight Partners led the first round and joined Accel and Halo Experience Co. to co-lead the second. Per Crunchbase data, companies in the legal and legal technology sectors have raised just over $2.5 billion as of early October in seed through growth-stage funding. With three months left in the year, it’s already the highest annual total on record. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
North American Startup Funding Held High In Q3
North American startup funding held strong in the third quarter, boosted by investors’ still-voracious appetite for artificial intelligence. In total, investors put $63.1 billion into reported seed through growth-stage rounds for U.S. and Canadian companies in Q3, per Crunchbase data. That’s up incrementally from the prior quarter. However, it’s far above year-ago levels, with more than $20 billion in additional funding. The high funding level was the result of bigger rounds, not more of them. For Q3, 2,276 reported rounds got added to the Crunchbase dataset 1, down a bit from the prior quarter and far below year-ago levels. Round counts were down at all stages except later stage. In addition to being more highly concentrated, the past quarter’s dealmaking was heavily AI-centric. Per Crunchbase data, roughly 57% of all North American funding went to companies in AI-related categories. This included the quarter’s largest round, a $13 billion Series F for Anthropic, which alone accounted for more than a fifth of total startup investment in the region last quarter. Of course, headline-grabbing gargantuan rounds weren’t the only trends to watch. We also saw an uptick in funding at early stage, and exit activity was reasonably strong, lifted by Figma’s splashy market debut in late July. Below, we look at funding for each stage in greater detail, and also take a look at AI-related investment and standout exits. Table of contents Late stage and technology growth Late-stage dealmaking was up sequentially in Q3, so we’ll start there. Altogether, an estimated $42.9 billion went to late-stage and technology growth financings last quarter. As charted below, it was the third-highest tally in the past five quarters. The aforementioned Anthropic megaround went a long way to boosting the totals. And while no other deal came close in size, there were also some other big rounds in mix. Cerebras, a developer of AI processors, closed out the quarter by raising $1.1 billion in Series G funding, later withdrawing plans for an anticipated IPO. Next were humanoid robotics startup Figure and quantum computing company PsiQuantum, both of which secured $1 billion financings. Early stage It was also a pretty good quarter for early-stage fundraising. Companies at Series A and Series B stage pulled in $15.6 billion in Q3 — the highest tally of the past five quarters, as charted below. The rise in funding resulted from larger average round sizes, however, not more deals. In fact, the number of reported deals actually hit a low point for the year this past quarter. Moreover, not every round classified as early stage goes to an immature startup. This is the case, for example, for the largest early-stage Q3 round, Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ $863 million Series B2. Although technically an early-stage round, it’s worth noting that the company was founded in 2017 and closed its initial Series B tranche nearly four years ago. Other standout early-stage rounds for the quarter hailed from sectors such as quantum computing, AI and biotech. This includes quantum computing startup Quantinuum, which raised a $600 million Nvidia-backed Series B, AI robotics platform Field AI, which announced two rounds totaling $405 million, and scientific intelligence platform Lila Sciences, which secured a $235 million Series A. Seed stage Unlike early stage, seed investment contracted in the third quarter. However, it should also be observed that Q2 was a hard act to follow, with Thinking Machines Lab scoring $2 billion in what ranks as by far the largest seed round of all time. Over the course of Q3, by contrast, investors put a total of $4.6 billion into reported North American seed rounds. That’s a decline of 25% from the prior quarter and 14% above year-ago levels. While seed stage is best known for smaller rounds to nascent companies, Q3 did bring us some rather large deals as well. Periodic Labs, a developer of AI tools for scientific experiments, picked up $300 million in initial funding, while Upscale AI and Tala Health each closed on $100 million. AI in Q3 Recently, we’ve also been breaking out AI funding in our quarterly reports, to see how this ultra-hot investment theme is impacting our tallies. For Q3, AI startup investment totaled $35.7 billion, roughly flat with the prior quarter and nearly double the year-ago number. The broad takeaway here is that AI venture dealmaking isn’t taking off compared to a few months ago, but it isn’t slowing down either. Exits: IPOs and M&A The just-ended quarter was also a reasonably active period for exits, with some large IPOs garnering particular attention. The far-and-away most attention-getting debut of the quarter was design software company Figma’s IPO on Nasdaq. Shares more than tripled in initial trading. However, demand has subsided since, leaving the company recently valued around $26 billion. Other good-sized debuts this past quarter came from StubHub, Netskope and Firefly Aerospace. There was less high-profile M&A activity during the quarter, although we did see some good-sized purchases. Atlassian was among the more prolific dealmakers, announcing plans in Q3 to purchase developer AI platform DX for $1 billion and AI browser developer The Browser Co. for $610 million. OpenAI was also a big spender, agreeing to pay $1.1 billion for product testing startup Stasig. Not slowing down The Q3 report is the latest of several quarterly synopses that showcase a robust startup funding scene, with plenty of cash available in particular for compelling AI upstarts. But it would be remiss to leave the impression that all sectors are seeing a rise. Biotech funding, for example, has been trending lower and accounting for a smaller share of total investment. These are also not bullish times for cleantech. On balance, however, it’s hard to deny that the general direction of investment has been trending higher. And so far, there’s little indication this part of the cycle is on the way out. Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 6, 2025. 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