This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

Startups raised funding rounds with a lot of zeroes at the end this week. Three companies 鈥� , and 鈥� secured financings of $1 billion or more. Additionally, a robust lineup of companies in sectors including AI, e-commerce, cybersecurity, biotech and even mining also announced sizable new rounds.

1. , $1.37B, manufacturing: Hadrian, a developer of highly automated factories, raised $1.37 billion in Series D funding led by , , , , and . The financing sets a $7.87 billion valuation for the 6-year-old, Torrance, California-based company.

2. (tied) , $1B, energy storage: Austin-based Base Power, a developer of residential battery energy storage systems, secured $1 billion in Series D financing at a $13 billion post-money valuation. , , and led the financing, which coincided with the launch of the company鈥檚 Base Core home battery.

2. (tied) , $1B, nuclear power: Valar Atomics, a developer of technology and infrastructure to deliver nuclear energy, closed on $1 billion in Series B funding led by . The El Segundo, California-based company also secured a $200 million credit facility led by and .

4. , $700M, AI connectivity: Lumilens, developer of a connectivity platform for AI infrastructure, emerged from stealth and announced more than $700 million in new funding. , , , and led the financing for the San Jose, California-based startup.

5. , $545M, live shopping: Live shopping marketplace Whatnot bagged $545 million in Series G funding. The round reportedly a $20 billion valuation for the Los Angeles-based company, with , and as lead investors.

6. , $310M, critical minerals: Mariana Minerals, a software-focused developer of projects for supplying critical minerals, picked up $310 million in Series B financing led by . The 4-year-old company engineers, builds and operates mines and refineries using its software platform.

7. , $300M, AI infrastructure: Volta, a developer of AI cloud infrastructure, from stealth and said it raised a Series A at a $2.4 billion valuation, led by , , and .

8. , $250M, cybersecurity: San Francisco-based cybersecurity provider Horizon3, announced a $250 million Series E. and led the round, which set a valuation of more than $2 billion, triple the value set for its Series D last year.

9. , $188M, biotech: Watertown, Massachusetts-based drug discovery startup LifeMine Therapeutics secured $188 million in Series E funding led by . The funding will go toward clinical development of its lead program and advance its pipeline of transplantation and immunology therapies.

10. , $150M, agentic AI: HappyRobot, developer of an agentic AI platform geared for enterprises in sectors including logistics, financial services, utilities and manufacturing, raised $150 million in Series C funding led by and .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 兔子先生传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Aug. 1-7. 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.

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Among lead investors, topped the ranks last month, while was by far the busiest backer by deal count. The highest-spending investors for the period, meanwhile, appear to be and .

For more detail, below we ranked active investors for July by several metrics. These include most prolific venture dealmakers, most active lead backers, biggest spenders and highest-volume seed investors.

Active lead investors

We鈥檒l start with active lead investors for the month, which, as usual these days, featured a heavily AI-centric lineup of deals.

Khosla Ventures ranked as the most active lead investor in rounds of $5 million or more, with eight deals in July. The largest were a $300 million Series A for quantum computing startup and a $120 million Series C for AI-enabled legal tech provider .

took the No. 2 slot, with six lead deals, followed by , with five. Below, we charted the top eight lead investors for the month by deal count.

Busiest venture investors

The ranks looked quite different when we widened the category to include both lead and non-lead investments in rounds of $5 million or more.

By this metric, repeat frontrunner Y Combinator once again took first place, participating in at least 19 such rounds. The storied accelerator typically takes a non-lead stake in follow-on rounds for startups it incubated.

Insight Partners and Andreessen Horowitz were next on the list, with 10 deals each, followed by Khosla and , with nine each. For a bigger-picture view, below we ranked the top 18 busiest venture investors for July.

Highest spending investors

When we focus on investors who led the most expensive assortment of startup financings last month, the lineup shifts once again.

For July, Coatue ranked as the apparent highest-spending听1 lead investor, backing a $10 billion financing for 鈥� rocket company, . (It should be noted though, that Blue Origin, founded in 2000, is probably too old to be considered a startup, although it is still a private company.)

Nvidia also stepped up, backing a $5 billion financing for foundational AI startup . Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz ranked high as well, each leading or co-leading rounds collectively valued above $2 billion.

Below, we rank 18 of the highest-spending lead investors for the month.

Seed dealmakers

Seed dealmakers were a bit more challenging to rank for July, in part because there鈥檚 often a time delay before smaller deals enter the dataset. One thing that is apparent is that Y Combinator was the most prolific investor at this stage, while other 鈥渦sual suspects,鈥� like and , also ranked high.

Related reading:

• A Record 14 Billion-Dollar Rounds In July Pushed Venture’s Historic Run Higher

Illustration:

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

Another week, another bevy of big rounds. For this past week, the largest round was a reported $5 billion -backed financing for foundational AI unicorn , followed by a $1 billion investment in . Other sizable rounds went to companies in sectors including energy storage, health testing, nuclear power, fintech, and, yes, AI.

1.听, $5B, foundational AI: AI lab Safe Superintelligence announced a long-term with Nvidia to rapidly accelerate its growth. The deal included a $5 billion investment from the chip giant with an eye toward boosting compute resources for Safe Superintelligence, a Silicon Valley startup founded by co-founder .听

2.听, $1 billion, fusion energy: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup working on fusion energy technology and developing a grid-scale fusion power plant, raised $1 billion in fresh funding from unspecified investors. The round brings the total invested to date for the Massachusetts-based company to $4 billion.

3.听, $550M, thermal energy storage: Antora Energy, a company that provides energy through thermal batteries to data centers, announced that it has closed on $550 million in a Series C funding round. and co-led the financing for the nine-year-old, San Jose-based company.

4.听, $450M, health testing: Austin-based Function, a provider of lab testing, imaging, and personal health information that markets to consumers, secured $450 million in growth financing from .听

5.听, $370M, nuclear energy: Antares, a nuclear fission energy company that develops compact microreactors for defense and space applications, raised $370 million in Series C equity funding. and led the financing for the three-year-old company, which raised $100 million in debt funding alongside the equity investment.听

6.听, $200M, AI simulation: Simile, a developer of AI tools for running simulations, said it picked up over $200 million in fresh funding at a $2 billion post-money valuation. led the round, which comes just five months after the Palo Alto-based company launched its product.

7.听, $190M, cybersecurity: Cybersecurity provider ThreatLocker closed on $190 million in Series F funding to hone its platform and expand internationally. led the round for the Orlando-based company.

8.听, $170M, fintech: New York-based CAIS, an alternative investment platform for independent financial advisors, secured $170 million in Series D financing. led the round, which set a valuation for the company of more than $2 billion.

9.听, $160M, fintech: PEX, an AI-enabled provider of prepaid and charge cards for businesses, along with tools to track finances, raised $160 in equity and debt funding, with as lead investor.

10.听, $145M, AI infrastructure: Eliyan, a developer of connectivity technology for AI infrastructure, completed its Series C with a total of $145 million at a $1 billion valuation. led the financing for the five-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company.

Illustration:

That was the intent of our latest 兔子先生传媒 News data dive into seed-stage trends. For this installment, we focused on mid-sized rounds of between $5 million and $10 million, analyzing around 800 global seed financings that closed this year.听

Why this range? In a startup investment climate characterized by the ascendance of megarounds, the idea was to focus on rounds more representative of the classic seed deal: a risky bet on unproven founders, technologies or business models.

Using this methodology we identified multiple popular investment themes and zeroed in on five. The first 鈥� cybersecurity 鈥� we tackled in a separate piece. Here we delve into the other four: proptech, cancer therapeutics, space tech and robotics.

No. 1: Proptech

Real estate is the world鈥檚 most valuable asset class, providing startups a huge and varied addressable market. By one estimate a few years ago, real estate accounted for a staggering two-thirds of global net worth.

Given the size of the space, actual venture investment tied to real estate and construction looks comparatively meager. Last year, per 兔子先生传媒 analysis, proptech startup investment totaled just over $10 billion, far below peaks hit several years ago.

Seed investors seem to believe there鈥檚 a good case for startup driven growth ahead. In particular, they鈥檙e funding a lot of rounds in the $5 million to $10 million range for companies looking to add efficiencies to the planning and building process, streamline rental operations, reduce building power consumption, and more.

To illustrate, below we put together a sample set of 15 companies that closed seed rounds in our target range this year:

A few standouts include , an AI-powered home management system, , a developer of software to support real estate decarbonization, and , an AI-enabled construction supply chain platform.听

No. 2: Cancer treatments

Startup founders don鈥檛 need persuasive superpowers to convince investors that cancer is a sufficiently serious area to address. Today, it鈥檚 that 39% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives. Cancer also ranks as the second leading , behind heart disease.听

Seed-stage companies aren鈥檛 expected to bring down numbers in the near term, but as they progress, it鈥檚 increasingly plausible. That鈥檚 the apparent mindset for investors at this stage, who鈥檝e backed a good-sized number of rounds in the $5 million to $10 million range this year for developers of cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, charted below:

Three California startups secured $10 million, the largest financing in our sample set. They include: , which is working on AI-driven discovery of undetected cancer targets, , a developer of targeted therapies for solid tumors, and , which is focused on cancer diagnostics.

No. 3: Space and satellite tech

This year鈥檚 most attention-getting event in space tech finance was obviously the IPO of sector pioneer . But while that debut may have dominated headlines, quite a few smaller, earlier, lower-profile deals were also getting done.

Per 兔子先生传媒 data, space tech was a popular area for seed financings in the $5 million to $10 million range. To illustrate, below we put together a sample set of nine such companies that raised rounds this year:

The largest fundraiser in our target range was , which is focused on developing reusable satellites. Next was , focused, as its name implies, on in-space propulsion systems, followed by , developer of an ML-native operations platform for satellite fleets.

No. 4: Robotics

Robotics is a perennial favorite in our seed-funding data dives, including the last one, focused on AI. This time, the sector made the ranking again, thanks to a bevy of intriguing seed-stage companies that met our parameters.

Turns out, you can jumpstart some highly ambitious ventures on a $5 million to $10 million seed round. To illustrate, below we aggregated a sample of 18 funded this year:

Robotics was also the most geographically dispersed sector in our lineup, with startups hailing from Asia, North America, Europe and Australia. A few that stood out include , a developer of what it calls 鈥渋ntimacy robots,鈥� , a maker of autonomous underwater robots, and , focused on robots for greenhouse harvesting.

Big picture: Midsized seed rounds for outsized ambitions

Overall, seed funding trends reviewed above may tell us more about the kinds of companies investors are willing to bet on than about the sectors attracting interest, which are already well-established.

Clearly, startup investors still believe that small, modestly funded teams with grand missions remain a worthwhile and viable wager. That鈥檚 particularly encouraging these days, when the venture and seed financings we most commonly hear about tend to be the largest ones.

That鈥檚 not to diss large rounds. Startups that are led by prominent serial entrepreneurs or have established traction hold obvious appeal, even at pricier terms. But for those of us who enjoy rooting for the underdog, it鈥檚 encouraging to see lower-profile companies with outsized ambitions are still in the game.

Related 兔子先生传媒 lists:听

Related reading:

• AI Seed Investors Flock To Cybersecurity听
• In Charts: Seed Deals Keep Getting Bigger As Odds Of Reaching Series A Fall Dramatically听
• AI Seed Trends: More Multimedia, Backend Automation, Agentic Security, And Yes, Robots

Illustration:

It鈥檚 a worry that spilled over into headlines last week, after an agent the open-source AI platform . Turns out rogue AI agents causing mayhem is no longer听 a hypothetical problem.

Seed investors apparently saw this coming, judging by the plethora of good-sized rounds for companies at the intersection of AI and security. Startups in this cohort have raised $855 million across more than 150 reported seed-stage rounds this year, per 兔子先生传媒 data. That puts investment on track for an all-time high.

A large cluster of deals in the $5M to $10M range

Here at 兔子先生传媒 News, we took a particular interest in seed rounds in the $5 million to $10 million range, an area where cybersecurity investment was particularly robust.

Why this size range? It started as a broader data dive focused on top themes for mid-sized seed rounds, an often overlooked subset in a startup funding climate dominated by AI megadeals.听

An initial perusal indicated cybersecurity warrants a standalone analysis. We found both a high number and a wide breadth of funded companies in the space, with missions ranging from identifying AI hallucinations to building adversary simulations to verifying agents in finance.

To illustrate, below is a sample list of 14 AI-focused security companies that raised seed financings this year in our target range.

Big seed and early-stage bets too

We also had some large rounds in the mix, indicating investors saw risk-reward compelling enough to write big checks for newly minted startups. Some of the biggest included:

• , a developer of identity intelligence technology for the AI era, secured $60 million in a seed financing this month.
• , a Silicon Valley startup working on an AI-native cybersecurity platform that doesn鈥檛 depend on the public cloud, raised $45 million in a March seed round.
• , an upstart developing an AI governance and security platform for enterprises, in March with $34 million in a seed round it described as massively oversubscribed.听

When investors place larger bets at seed, there鈥檚 usually at least one of two core reasons. The first is that the founder or founding team is impressive enough that backers are willing to invest primarily on the mission and people. The second is that the startup has demonstrated impressive traction with its earliest efforts.

For larger rounds, we鈥檙e seeing a number of the first category. Cylake鈥檚 founder and CEO, for example, is , founder of . JetStream, meanwhile, has drawn veterans of , and other security leaders.听

A solid year for overall security funding

Notably, the strong cybersecurity seed funding environment coincides with solid overall venture investment levels. In the first half of the year, per 兔子先生传媒 data, startups in the sector pulled in $10.6 billion in financing across stages, roughly in line with recent prior comps.

That said, seed may be where excitement is greatest. With hundreds of billions flowing into building AI infrastructure and applications in recent quarters, someone will have figure out innovative ways to keep myriad real-life and hypothetical AI security nightmares from coming true.听

Related 兔子先生传媒 queries:

Illustration:

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

Startup investors poured capital into a varied lineup of large rounds this week, targeting sectors including physical AI, biotech, cybersecurity, AI infrastructure and fintech. By far the largest financing of the week was a $1.7 billion round for founder 鈥檚 physical AI startup, , followed by sizable investments for 3D AI model developer and battery technology company .

1. , $1.7B, physical AI: Atoms, the physical AI startup founded by founder , raised $1.7 billion in a funding round led by . Kalanick touted the Los Angeles-based company鈥檚 vision as 鈥渁bout the coming industrial revolution where large industrial economic sectors get completely digitized.鈥�

2. , $400M, AI for 3D: Silicon Valley-based Meshy AI, a startup developing foundation models for AI-powered 3D generation, closed on $400 million in Series B funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. Lead backers include , and , per 兔子先生传媒 data.

3. , $300M, battery technology: Battery technology company Sila secured $300 million in a new round led by and . The Alameda, California, company will use the funding to expand its silicon anode plant in Moses Lake, Washington.

4. , $300M, inference technology: Etched, a co-designer of chips, racks, software and manufacturing methods for use in frontier models, picked up $300 million in Series C funding. led the round, which set a $10 billion pre-money valuation for the San Jose, California-based company.

5. , $180M, fintech: Augustus, a startup aimed at providing financial institutions around the world direct access to dollar accounts, secured $180 million in Series B funding. led the round, which set a $1 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.

6. , $160M, defense tech: Cathedral, a startup aimed at expanding U.S. military cyber capabilities, reportedly $160 million with backing from Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The Washington, D.C.-based startup was reportedly founded by a 鈥媡eam of former DOGE employees.

7. , $130M, biotech: Crystalys Therapeutics, a biotech developing therapies for people living with gout, closed an oversubscribed $130 million Series B round. led the financing for the San Diego-based company.

8. , $120M, healthcare software: San Francisco-based Candid Health, developer of a revenue cycle management platform for the healthcare industry, landed $120 million in Series D funding led by .

9. , $100M, cybersecurity: Glow, a Palo Alto, California-based AI-powered endpoint security startup, launched from stealth and announced it has raised $180 million to date, of which, per 兔子先生传媒, $100 million comes from its newest financing. Lead backers include Sequoia Capital, , , and .

10. , $75M, cybersecurity: Boston-based Neo Security, a startup working on an agentic software control platform for enterprises, picked up $100 million in a new round led by and Andreessen Horowitz.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 兔子先生传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of July 18-24. 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:

While financings of a few million haven鈥檛 gone away, today most venture capital actually goes to rounds of a billion dollars or more. Moreover, it looks like a rising trend.

So far this year, 60% of global startup funding across stages听1 听鈥� around $320 billion 鈥� went to rounds of $1 billion or more, per 兔子先生传媒 data. Such rounds were instrumental in pushing global funding for the first half of the year to record levels.

The U.S. funding tallies are even more tilted to megadeals this year, with 73% of funding going to billion-dollar-plus rounds. Of the $290 billion invested in these deals, just two rounds for AI leaders and account for more than half the total.

As you can see, the notion of billion-dollar-plus rounds accounted for a minority of funding before this year. The lone exception was the first quarter of 2025, when OpenAI closed a $40 billion financing.

Not just bigger deals, more of them too

Giant rounds aren鈥檛 just getting more ginormous. They鈥檙e happening with greater frequency too.

So far this year, U.S. startups have closed 23 known rounds of $1 billion or more, per 兔子先生传媒 data. That puts 2026 already on par with 2025, a record-setting year, and we鈥檝e still got about five months left.

Not surprisingly, these megarounds are generally later-stage rounds or corporate financings. Only two of this year鈥檚 billion-dollar-plus rounds 鈥� and 鈥� were seed or early-stage rounds, per 兔子先生传媒 data.

Lessons from the first crop of billion-plus financings

In the history of startups, meanwhile, the billion-dollar-plus venture funding round is a fairly contemporary phenomenon.

The first American example, per 兔子先生传媒 data, was 鈥檚 $1.2 billion Series D, in 2014. Over the next three years, a handful of others pulled in 10-figure rounds as well, including , , , , , , , and .

Most of those companies went on to go public and reach valuations that well-exceeded levels set for prior megarounds. SpaceX ($1.6 trillion recent market cap), Uber ($148 billion) and Airbnb ($87 billion) were the standout success stories.

Two of the megafund recipients 鈥� Argo AI and WeWork 鈥� did not fare so well, while a third, cancer diagnostics provider Grail, has been up and down. Fanatics, meanwhile, remained private and is still thriving.

If these early billion-plus fundings taught investors anything, it was that pouring unusually large sums into well-regarded unicorns can be quite lucrative but is far from a sure bet.

Uncharted territory

In the current funding cycle, it鈥檚 not enough to ask whether billion-dollar rounds have potential for high returns. With Anthropic and OpenAI, the question now applies to rounds in the tens of billions or even over $100 billion. As both have already filed confidentially to go public, it may not take us long to find out.

Related 兔子先生传媒 query:

Related reading:

• 兔子先生传媒 Data: Global Startup Investment Hit Record $510B In H1 2026 As AI Boom Accelerates Funding And Exits
• 兔子先生传媒 Data: Q2 Brought The Most Billion-Dollar Startup Exits Since 2021
• The $100M+ Round Is Now Just Your Typical Late-Stage Financing

Illustration:

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

It was not a holiday week on the funding front, as a raft of largely AI-focused companies closed big rounds. The largest of these was a $1.5 billion financing to enterprise AI startup and a Series D for meal and delivery provider . The week also included some big financings for enterprise tech, food delivery, drones and construction automation.

1. , $1.5B, enterprise AI tools: Fireworks AI, a developer of tools for enterprises to turn 鈥済eneral-purpose models into specialized intelligence trained on their own data,鈥� raised $1.505 billion in Series D funding. , and led the financing, which set a $17.5 billion valuation for the San Mateo, California-based company.

2. , $650M, meals and delivery: Wonder, an operator of kitchens and meal delivery services, closed on $650 million in Series D funding at a $9 billion pre-money valuation. Capital will go in part toward expanding operations for the New York-based company, which currently has 140 locations.

3. , $400M, life sciences AI: AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery secured $400 million in Series C funding at a $3.8 billion valuation. led the financing, investing alongside , , and others.

4. , $300M, robots: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Walden Robotics, a startup building general-purpose robots for work in manufacturing and logistics, launched out of stealth with $300 million in funding. and led the round, which values the company at $1.1 billion.

5. , $125M, drones: Seattle-based Brinc, a developer of drones for use in public safety and emergency operations, raised $125 million in fresh funding. led the financing, with participation from , and founder and CEO .

6. (tied) , $100M, construction automation: Austin-based TerraFirma, a developer of AI-enabled software and autonomous robotics technology for the construction industry, landed $100 million in new funding, bringing total investment to date to $115 million.

6. (tied) , $100M, enterprise AI: Spectro Cloud, a provider of AI infrastructure management software, said it raised more than $100 million in a Series D round led by . The financing brings total capital raised by San Jose-based Spectro Cloud to $260 million.

8. , $80M, defense tech: Singularity, a startup focused on developing air defense technology, emerged from stealth with $80 million in Series A funding. and 1听led the financing, which set a $400 million valuation for the Los Angeles-based company.

9. (tied) , $70M, fintech: San-Francisco-based fintech startup Flex, a private banking platform for high-net-worth business owners, raised $70 million in a Series B1 financing led by . The round follows the company’s $60 million Series B in December.

9. (tied) , $70M, AI and policy: State Affairs, an AI platform for policy and regulation, secured $70 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures and .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 兔子先生传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of July 11-17. 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:

For this matchup, 鈥溌ooooooooool!鈥� is really the only acceptable way to announce a new score. And if you can make that a good 21 seconds in one breath, all the better.

Here at 兔子先生传媒 News, meanwhile, we鈥檝e been prepping for the final in a less vocally demanding but much more data-intense manner. Since both contenders are far more famous for soccer than accomplishments in the startup realm, we figured a small step to rectify that was in order.

To do this, we put together a snapshot of recent startup funding tallies and trends for both Spain and Argentina. As you鈥檒l see, neither accounts for a particularly large share of global or even regional investment. Both however, have an intriguing pipeline of recently funded companies.

Argentina

We鈥檒l start with our second World Cup-related profile of Argentina. After it won the final in 2022, we wrote a venture funding-themed story calling the country鈥檚 startup scene 鈥渟mall, scrappy and sometimes very successful.鈥�

Four years later, that description still holds. Argentinian startups typically pull in a few hundred million dollars in venture funding annually. Investment is, however, lower than for Brazil and Mexico, the two most populous Latin American nations, which commonly lead in funding.

Argentina鈥檚 startup ecosystem has also delivered some big hits over the years. The most famous Argentine-founded internet company 鈥� online marketplace 听 鈥� commands a market cap around $94 billion on . (It鈥檚 currently headquartered in Uruguay but traces its roots to a Buenos Aires garage.)

More recently, Buenos Aires-based fintech has been making waves in the regional startup scene. It鈥檚 raised $1.1 billion in known funding to date, including a $195 million March financing.

Others that have raised good-sized rounds this year are also in the fintech space, including:

• , a payments infrastructure startup, closed on a $55 million Series C round co-led by and .
• , a provider of payments and collections infrastructure, secured $27 million in Series B funding in February.

So far, 2026 is shaping up as a strong year for funding, with investment already ahead of last year鈥檚 total. Funding tends to fluctuate quite a bit from year to year as the presence or absence of a single large round or two can heavily skew the totals.

Spain

Oddsmakers say Spain is the favorite going into the final. However, it鈥檚 well known that often the underdog also prevails. That was the lesson from Spain鈥檚 2:0 defeat of favorite France this week.

But while it may have prevailed over France in soccer, Spain continues to lag in venture funding. So far in 2026, Spanish startups have raised less than $2 billion in funding across stages, which is roughly one-third France鈥檚 total for the same period.

While not large, Spain鈥檚 funded startup pipeline is not lacking in pizazz. Take this year鈥檚 largest funding recipient 鈥� 鈥� which closed a $206 million Series C in March. Its anything-but-modest mission is to be a 鈥済lobal space transportation service provider to support cargo and human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars.鈥�

Other standouts among the bigger rounds this year include:

• , an AI-enabled HR and payroll platform, scooped up $150 million in Series D funding at a $2.5 billion valuation in June. To date, the Barcelona-based company has raised over $350 million in equity funding.
• 听, a Madrid startup focused on infrastructure for near space, space tourism and aerospace data, closed on $140 million in Series D funding in May.
• , a Madrid-based developer of AI tools for analyzing geospatial data, picked up $130 million in Series B funding in April.

Overall funding to Spanish startups is also trending higher, with 2026 on track for a year-over-year gain. For the past few years, annual Spanish startup funding has ranged between $1.8 billion and $2.8 billion, as charted below.

Rooting for the underdog

While both Spain and Argentina have a long track record of soccer success, a case could be made that both are underdogs in the startup space. It鈥檚 a familiar situation for secondary hubs in the current AI-driven investment cycle. Capital has been concentrating even more heavily in Silicon Valley and other leading venture hubs.

Given all the follow-on effects a successful startup can have on its region, it鈥檇 be encouraging to see investors spreading their bets more broadly across a wider geography. Spain and Argentina have already proven they have what it takes to prevail in one very competitive arena. Given the capital and opportunity, there鈥檚 no reason to doubt their abilities in the venture-backed startup game either.

Related 兔子先生传媒 queries:

Overall, investors poured $42.8 billion into startup funding rounds across all of Asia in Q2 2026, per 兔子先生传媒 data. That鈥檚 by far the highest quarterly total in more than three years, as charted below.

Investment rose sharply at both seed and early stage, driven by megarounds for foundational AI startups. Capital was highly concentrated among a few favored names, with deal counts actually hitting a multiyear low in Q2, even as investment skyrocketed.

Table of contents

• AI leads the surge
• China leads, followed by India and Singapore
• Late stage gets a boost
• Early stage was on fire too
• Seed holds strong
• An up quarter
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

AI leads the surge

Artificial intelligence-focused startups scooped up more than 60% of all venture funding to Asia-based startups in Q2. Altogether, those companies pulled in just over $26 billion, by far the highest sum on record.

A handful of companies accounted for a big chunk of the total. Of those, China-based large language model developer was the fundraising leader by a wide margin, raising $7.4 billion at a reported $50 billion valuation in June.

Two other companies tied for second, each raising $2.5 billion. One, foundational AI startup , is based in China. The other, AI data center developer , is headquartered in Singapore.

China leads, followed by India and Singapore

Alongside the AI surge, the other standout investment trend for Q2 was the sharp rise in funding to China-based startups.

Overall, Chinese companies pulled in just over $30 billion in venture funding across stages during the quarter. Investment was up a staggering 424% over year-ago levels and rose 76% from the prior quarter.

The next-largest funding destinations were Singapore, which attracted about

$3.6 billion, and India, with $3.3 billion. Below, we charted the funding share among the six Asian countries with the highest levels of startup investment in Q2.

Late stage gets a boost

The Q2 funding gains weren鈥檛 limited to a particular stage, as both early- and later-stage dealmaking saw increased investment.

Late stage pulled in the largest share. Per 兔子先生传媒 data, nearly $21 billion went to late-stage and technology growth rounds for startups in Asia in the just-ended quarter, the highest total in more than four years.

Funding was more than triple year-ago levels. Gains have steadily mounted over the past five quarters, as charted below.

Early stage was on fire too

Early stage investment also soared, hitting its highest point since 2021.

Overall, an estimated $18.4 billion went to early-stage rounds in Q2, roughly triple year-ago levels and up 57% from the prior quarter.

Seed holds strong

Seed, meanwhile, also held strong, with $3.7 billion in reported investment at this stage in Q2, roughly flat with the prior quarter. (As always, we expect the final number for Q2 to come in higher, as deals may be entered into the dataset weeks or months after the close.)

An up quarter

Broadly, the second quarter tallies paint an upbeat picture for Asia鈥檚 startup funding scene, at least compared to a year or two ago. That said, investors continue to be quite selective about who they fund, meaning that while chosen founders are attracting big checks, others may still be struggling to secure backing, even at much smaller sums.

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Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 兔子先生传媒, and is based on reported data. Data is as of July 10, 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.

兔子先生传媒 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 兔子先生传媒 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. 兔子先生传媒 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. 兔子先生传媒 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 鈥淪eries [Letter]鈥� 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 鈥渧enture鈥� round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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