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The State Of Startups In 7 Charts: These Sectors And Stages Are Down As AI Megarounds Dominate In 2025
Venture funding has most definitely rebounded since the 2022 correction, but there’s a sharp divide between who’s getting funding and who’s not.
That was the overarching theme from our third-quarter market reports, which showed that global startup funding in Q3 totaled $97 billion, marking only the fourth quarter above $90 billion since Q3 2022.
Still, there are stark differences between the 2021 market peak and now, as contributing reporter Joanna Glasner noted in a couple of recent columns, here and here. Just as we saw four years ago, funding is frothy and often seems to be driven by investor FOMO. Some companies are even raising follow-on rounds at head-spinning speeds.
But the funding surge this time is also much, much more concentrated — namely in outsized rounds for AI companies.
With that, let’s take a look at the charts that illustrate the major private-market and startup funding themes as we head into the final quarter of 2025.
AI funding continues to drive venture growth
Nearly half — 46% — of startup funding globally in Q3 went to AI companies, Crunchbase data shows. Almost a third went to a single company: Anthropic, which raised $13 billion last quarter.
Even with an astonishing $45 billion going to artificial intelligence startups in Q3, it was only the third-highest quarter on record for AI funding, with Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 each clocking in higher.
Megarounds gobble up lion’s share
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that AI has also skewed investment heavily toward megarounds, which we define as funding deals of $100 million or more.
The percentage of overall funding going into such deals hit a record high this year, with an astonishing 60% of global and 70% of U.S. venture capital going to $100 million-plus rounds, per Crunchbase data.
Even with several months left in the year, it also seems plausible that the total dollars going into such deals will match or top what we saw in 2021, which marked a peak for startup funding not scaled before or since.
The difference? Back then, startup dollars were widely distributed, going to a whole host of sectors — from food tech to health tech to robotics — and to early-stage, late-stage and in-between companies alike.
Contrast that with recent quarters, when the LLM giants and other large, established, AI-centric companies are getting the largest slice of venture dollars.
Seed deals slide further
As megarounds have increased, seed deals have declined.
The number of seed deals has shown a steady downward trend in recent quarters, Crunchbase data shows, even as total dollars invested at the stage has stayed relatively steady. That indicates that while seed deals are growing larger, they’re also harder to come by.
Early-stage funding has essentially flatlined, despite larger rounds to companies working on robotics, biotech, AI and other technologies.
The AI haves and have-nots
AI has enthralled investors for the past three years.
What are they less interested in? Old standbys like cybersecurity and biotech. Biotech investment as a share of overall funding recently hit a 20-year low. Crunchbase data shows that cybersecurity investment, while still relatively steady, also retreated somewhat in Q3 2025. That’s notable given that many cybersecurity companies are integrating AI into their offerings.
Still, other sectors that benefit heavily from AI-driven automation are seeing a surge in investment. Perhaps most notable is legal tech, which hit an all-time high last month on the back of large rounds for companies promising to automate much of the drudgery of the profession.
Among the other sectors buoyed by AI is human resources software (including AI-powered recruitment and hiring offerings).
Other data points of note
Other interesting points that emerged from our Q3 reports and recent coverage include:
- Unicorn creation in the third quarter swelled as 26 new billion-dollar startups trotted onto our Unicorn Board in September alone.
- Q3’s most-active investors were the serial backers in those AI megarounds. They included well-known names such as Insight Partners, General Catalyst, Accel, Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Capital.
- Funding for Asia-based startups rose sequentially in the third quarter, boosted by a handful of hardtech-focused megarounds.
- European startups raised $13.1 billion across more than 1,000 deals in Q3, flat quarter over quarter but up 22% year over year. Early-stage investment was particularly strong, and the region benefited from the excitement around Klarna’s long-awaited IPO.
- In Latin America, Brazil pushed Mexico out of the top spot to retake its crown as the region’s largest funding recipient.
Looking ahead
The increasing concentration of capital into a small cadre of large AI companies — not to mention the interconnectedness of those deals — begs some obvious questions. Are we in a bubble? And given that nearly half of venture capital in recent years has been tied up in AI, what happens to the startup ecosystem if or when it pops?
Related reading:
- Q3 Venture Funding Jumps 38% As More Massive Rounds Go To AI Giants And Exits Gain Steam
- North American Startup Funding Held High In Q3
- Europe’s Venture Scene Held Steady In Q3, Buoyed By Early-Stage Funding And Klarna IPO
- Asia Startup Investment Up In Q3
- Active Investors Kept Busy In An AI-Centric Quarter
- Brazil Back On Top In Q3 When It Comes To Venture Funding In Latin America
Illustration: Dom Guzman
