Startup investment globally reached $297 billion in Q1 2026, a record high as per new Crunchbase data, marking a 2.5x increase from the $118 billion of the previous quarter. This single-quarter figure exceeds all annual VC activities before 2019.
The surge was driven by four major deals, each breaking previous records. OpenAI announced a valuation of $862 billion after raising $122 billion, surpassing its own earlier record of a $40 billion funding round a year prior. Rival Anthropic secured $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation, marking the third-largest VC round recorded. The other two large deals included xAI’s $20 billion and Waymo’s $16 billion rounds.
Collectively, these four rounds raised $188 billion, over 63% of the quarter’s total. Despite appearances, seed-stage AI startups are reportedly drawing larger investments and valuations earlier than before.
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