Investors put $92 billion into North American startups in the third quarter, down 35% from the second quarter but up 50% from a year earlier, Crunchbase News reported. The total spanned seed through growth-stage rounds, according to the report.
AI startups took in $61 billion of that total, about two-thirds of all funding, Crunchbase reported. Late-stage funding totaled $66.45 billion of the quarter's total, while early-stage rounds added $20.6 billion, according to the data.
The decline traces mainly to the absence of mega-rounds on the scale OpenAI and Anthropic have raised in prior quarters, not a broader pullback, Crunchbase reported. Seventeen venture-backed companies completed IPOs in the quarter, raising just under $4 billion combined, according to the report.
The quarter's largest individual rounds went to Databricks, which raised $5 billion, and Crusoe, which raised $3.9 billion, Crunchbase reported.
A drop driven by fewer giant AI rounds, not investors pulling back generally, is a different story than a funding freeze. Founders raising smaller or mid-size rounds right now are competing in a market still up 50% from a year ago.