When a company delays its IPO to show investors better numbers, that’s a strategy. When the NYC pension fund publicly asks you to delay it over AI safety concerns, your chief rival’s CEO calls his own IPO “ill-advised” and postpones it until at least next year, tech stocks are sliding on open-weight model fears, and your own prospectus warns of “existential risks to humanity” from the product you’re selling, that’s not a strategy.

That’s a market sending you a message.

‘s numbers are extraordinary. Its third-quarter 2026 revenue was $16.8 billion 鈥� up 45% quarter on quarter. That means the company鈥檚 annualized revenue run rate is roughly $67 billion.

What the S-1 actually says

Here are the numbers from Anthropic’s :

• $4.6 billion: Anthropic’s full-year 2025 revenue.
• $7.33 billion: What Anthropic spent on compute and infrastructure in 2025 alone 鈥� more than its total revenue.
• $42 billion: Anthropic鈥檚 net loss in 2025. The roadshow will immediately explain that $34 billion of it was a noncash accounting charge 鈥� an adjustment to the estimated value of financing instruments that could eventually convert into shares.
• $518 billion: How much Anthropic expects to spend, at least, over the course of a decade on AI infrastructure with six partners, including , and , according to the confidential IPO prospectus by . About 80% of the total is noncancelable or payable regardless of usage.
• $2 trillion: That鈥檚 the IPO valuation Anthropic is still targeting for November, a figure representing 435x its 2025 revenue.

One more number from the S-1 that the roadshow will bury: A quarter of Anthropic’s 2025 revenue came from two unnamed customers.

Three signals the market is sending

The IPO delay is the headline. It isn’t the only signal worth reading.

Signal one: NYC Comptroller Mark Levine. Last week, the supervisor of New York City’s pension funds 鈥� which hold roughly $7 million in Anthropic exposure today, but could hold dramatically more if Anthropic enters the Russell 3000 post-IPO 鈥� sent to Anthropic CEO urging the company to pause the IPO entirely.

The risks he cited are the same ones Anthropic’s own prospectus flags: increasingly autonomous AI systems that could behave in unexpected ways, create security problems, and in the document’s own language, pose “existential risks to humanity.”

Signal two: delays 鈥檚 IPO. OpenAI has said it will not go public in 2026. CEO Altman called an IPO at this moment given AI safety concerns, and while that framing is partly strategic 鈥� positioning OpenAI as the more responsible actor 鈥� it鈥檚 also a real signal when the CEO of the second-most valuable AI company in the world looks at current conditions and decides to wait.

Signal three: The chip selloff. Last week鈥檚 was driven partly by concern over AI-buildout costs. 鈥檚 helps explain the concern: Through 2030, it sees at most $3.6 trillion in revenue attributable to AI data centers, versus $8.5 trillion needed to cover planned investment, financing costs and a 12% return.

The open-weight problem

Here is the structural argument that no amount of Q3 revenue growth resolves: Anthropic’s $2 trillion valuation requires closed-model AI to maintain a durable pricing premium over open-weight alternatives. That premium is being systematically dismantled.

Open-weight AI is challenging the economics behind closed-model valuations. Enterprise adoption rose from 23% to 67% in 2026, with companies reporting 70%鈥�90% cost savings. R1 offers frontier-level performance on most enterprise benchmarks at 7 cents per million input tokens; independent analysis puts Anthropic鈥檚 comparable input and output pricing at roughly 18x and 23x higher, respectively.

DeepSeek鈥檚 weights are free to download, allowing enterprises to self-host without a model-provider API contract or per-token billing, while the capability gap with closed models reportedly closes within six months of a frontier release.

Against that backdrop, 鈥� the research firm that called Anthropic鈥檚 proposed offering 鈥渁n unprecedented test of investor gullibility鈥� 鈥� that justifying a $2 trillion valuation would require an immediate 10% after-tax operating margin sustained for a decade, extraordinary revenue growth, and $358 billion in annual after-tax operating profit by 2035.

Why this is worse than 1999

The dot-com bubble had a genuine excuse. Nobody knew what the internet would become. The AI IPO wave of 2026 does not have that excuse.

Worldwide spending on AI is , up 47% year over year, according to Gartner. Yet a July 2025 estimated that 95% of the organizations it examined were getting no return from generative AI. Meanwhile, said in its earlier this year that just 7% of surveyed leaders say they鈥檝e established ROI from AI.

This is the context in which Anthropic is asking investors to pay 435x 2025 revenue for a company with $518 billion in locked infrastructure commitments, 25% revenue concentration in two unnamed clients, and a pricing moat that open-weight models are closing in six-month cycles.

The delay from October to November doesn’t change any of those numbers. It adds one quarter of revenue data.

What actually survives this correction

Here is what no AI IPO roadshow will say out loud: The biggest enterprise AI winners will not necessarily own the most expensive model. They will own the architecture that turns any model into governed, auditable, measurable outcomes 鈥� through proprietary enterprise data, domain-specific fine-tuning, multiagent orchestration and controls that make autonomous execution trustworthy.

That value does not depend on keeping model capabilities scarce or securing a $2 trillion valuation. It compounds in production, where customers understand that the model is not the product. The deployment is.

The dot-com crash did not happen because the internet was bad. It happened because the price was wrong. AI investors face the same distinction: Real technology does not automatically justify its valuation. A strong quarter and a one-month delay do not close that gap. November simply gives Anthropic more time to explain the math.

, the co-founder and CEO of , is an entrepreneur and product leader with more than 20 years of experience across cybersecurity and AI. He has built three generative AI companies, including one that reached unicorn status. Gurtu is known for turning advanced AI into scalable, real-world platforms, and previously contributed to successful exits, including acquisitions by , and , and a public company, . He holds a master鈥檚 degree from the and CISSP certification.

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In 2021, putting AI on a slide could get you funded. Small and mid-sized businesses were eager to be early adopters, and they bought fast. I watched companies secure customers, raise money, then struggle to keep anyone using their products. Retention fell off a cliff.

Many of those products were generic: They did what traditional software already did, with AI fairy dust sprinkled on top. Others saved a bit of time on something nobody’s job depended on. A 20% improvement on a noncritical task makes for a nice demo and a dead renewal.

There were never easy AI wins, even if there was easy money going around. The market is now correcting for that. Companies delivering meaningful value are growing faster than anything I have seen in enterprise software. For investors, the question is which of these companies can keep their customers 鈥� and whether the coming IPOs will expose the difference.

What makes an AI business defensible today

Before my co-founder and I wrote a single line of code, we interviewed more than 900 mechanical engineers, from juniors to VPs. We asked where their hours went and which of those hours they would pay to get back. Those 900 conversations shaped how I think about building an AI business.

First: the improvement has to justify the investment. Saving 10% on an occasional task will rarely change how a company operates. Reducing a business-critical process from weeks to minutes, or saving serious money, will.

Second: domain expertise. Frontier models are becoming infrastructure. Access to a good LLM is available to almost anyone with an API. The commercial opportunity lies in understanding an industry well enough to solve problems that generic tools cannot.

Third: proprietary context. In terms of engineering examples, every company that builds physical products has accumulated decades of engineering knowledge. Much of it remains buried in old drawings or locked away in the heads of experienced employees. That knowledge is absent from a foundation model’s training data. An AI product that cannot access it will struggle to become essential for the business. The advantage grows as the product becomes embedded in the customer鈥檚 workflows and replacing it becomes costly.

What this means for funding and IPOs

The upcoming AI IPOs will put these business models under much greater scrutiny. Public investors will examine net revenue retention and gross margins, assessing whether rapid growth is able to translate into a sustainable business. They will also want to know whether each deployment becomes cheaper to support as the company grows. The standards they establish will influence what private investors expect from earlier-stage AI companies.

I can already see the change in my own fundraising conversations. A few years ago, $1 million in ARR was a milestone. In the AI era, a new product can reach $1 million in ARR in about a year, and shut down a year later. Now ARR alone no longer tells investors enough.

What investors keep asking about is expansion. They want to know whether customers are increasing their spending after the initial deployment. Expansion is the closest thing we have to proof that a product has changed how an organization works: customers have experienced its value and committed more of their own budget to it.

Over the next 12 to 24 months, I expect capital to keep flowing to companies that combine deep industry expertise with significant improvements in business-critical work and access to customers’ proprietary knowledge. They may grow through hands-on deployment rather than viral self-service, but they can expand inside accounts that trust them.

Companies whose products are thin layers over someone else’s model, with impressive customer lists and retention charts nobody wants to show, will find their next funding round much harder than the last one. I would rather grow fast and steady for five years than spectacularly for five quarters.

is the founder and CEO of , the first AI for mechanical engineering 鈥� a large mechanical model for physical product design. He conducted AI and mechanical engineering research at as a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow and became the youngest Ph.D. graduate in the history of the Farid has built a community of more than 60,000 engineers and supports underserved youth through his nonprofit initiative.

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In total, investors poured $92 billion into seed- through growth-stage rounds for U.S. and Canadian startups in the third quarter, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. That鈥檚 a 35% decline from the prior quarter but up 50% from year-ago levels.

Deal volume held fairly steady, with late-stage and early-stage round counts remaining close to prior quarter levels.

Artificial intelligence remained the prevailing theme for startup investors. Per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data, roughly two-thirds of total funding this past quarter went to AI-focused companies. Of that, a big chunk went to large rounds for , and .

Overall, however, investment fell across most stages. Early-stage dealmaking posted a particularly sharp decline from a multiyear peak the prior quarter, while later-stage funding was also down.

As for exits, quarter-over-quarter IPO comps were always going to be challenging, given that Q2 featured 鈥檚 record-setting market entry. Even compared to a typical quarter, however, the IPO market was fairly sluggish in Q3, with a few biotech, energy and consumer-facing offerings, but no blockbuster tech debuts. M&A activity was more exciting, topped by 鈥檚 September acquisition of .

Below, we look over the quarterly numbers in more detail, breaking out investment by stage, charting AI funding, and analyzing exit activity.

Table of contents

• Late-stage and technology growth funding
• Early stage
• Seed
• AI
• Exits
• M&A
• IPOs
• Slower, but not a slowdown
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Late-stage and technology growth funding

We鈥檒l start with late stage, since that鈥檚 where most startup funding went.

For Q3, investors poured $66.45 billion into late- and growth-stage deals, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. That鈥檚 up about a third from year-ago levels, but down sharply from Q1 and Q2 of this year, when OpenAI and Anthropic pulled in financings of $110 billion and $65 billion, respectively.

For the just-ended quarter, the largest late-stage and growth rounds went to Databricks ($5 billion), AI infrastructure unicorn Crusoe ($3.9 billion), ($3 billion), and AI coding startup ($2 billion). Overall, more than a dozen startups attracted late-stage or growth rounds of $1 billion or more, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data.

Early stage

Early-stage investment also held up at historically high levels in Q3, albeit down from prior highs.

Overall, investors put $20.6 billion into early-stage rounds in the just-ended quarter, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. That was down sequentially from the prior quarter but still well above prior year levels.

A few exceptionally big rounds pushed up the latest quarterly tally. The largest funding recipients included open source AI company 鈥檚 $1.1 billion Series A, nuclear startup 鈥� $660 million Series B, and chip hardware and software developer 鈥檚 $500 million Series A.

Seed

Seed-stage dealmaking was also quite busy in Q3.

At least $5 billion went to seed, angel and pre-seed rounds in the just-ended quarter, per preliminary 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. That鈥檚 a bit below both the prior quarter and year-ago comps. However, we expect the Q3 tally to rise a bit over time as seed deals commonly get added to the dataset a few weeks or months after they close.

The AI space delivered some particularly large seed rounds. Of these, standouts were physical AI startups , which picked up $300 million, and . which secured $90 million.

AI

The percentage of funding going to AI-focused startups also held up at high levels in Q3, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data.

A total of $61 billion went to AI-focused rounds, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. While that鈥檚 down sharply from the prior two quarters, it鈥檚 still one of the highest tallies on record.

Exits

As for exits, Q3 featured a number of large M&A deals, particularly in the AI space. The IPO market was a bit quieter, with much of the market鈥檚 attention looking forward to enormous offerings from foundational AI pioneers in coming months.

M&A

Acquisition activity was fairly robust in Q3, boosted by a handful of large AI-related purchases. Of these, the biggest was Nvidia鈥檚 acquisition of open model development platform Hugging Face for $12.93 billion.

The next-biggest M&A deal was 鈥檚 purchase last week of , an AI model and research lab led by AI pioneer , in a stock deal valued around $8.2 billion. Not far behind, in third place, was 鈥檚 acquisition of , a startup that routes prompts through different AI models, in an August transaction reportedly valued around $7.5 billion.

In total, there were 11 North American startup acquisitions at reported prices of $1 billion or more in Q3, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. We list them below.

IPOs

Overall, it was a light quarter for IPO activity. Per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data, 17 venture-backed North American companies went public on major U.S. and Canadian exchanges in Q3, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data, collectively raising just under $4 billion.

Three biotech companies raised the largest sums in their IPOs: , focused on mRNA; , a developer of cardiovascular therapies; and , which is working on antibody therapeutics.

Other venture-backed companies that carried out good-sized debuts included , a developer of advanced nuclear fuel, and , the scooter and e-bike rental platform.

Notably, however, it was the IPOs that didn鈥檛 happen this quarter that attracted the most attention. By this, we are referring of course to Anthropic, which is reportedly eyeing a听 public list as early as November, and OpenAI, which filed confidentially for an IPO in June and is expected to make its debut in 2027.

Slower, but not a slowdown

Overall, Q3 seems to exemplify the notion that funding activity can decline from peak levels without a clear indication that the investment climate has turned bearish.

Yes, giant funding rounds contracted. However, the maturation of the two most valuable startups, OpenAI and Anthropic, into even more valuable pre-IPO companies, is the kind of thing venture investors want to see.

Moreover, big rounds are still closing at a brisk clip. The AI space is still regularly minting fresh unicorns. And acquirers are snapping up leading names at historically high valuations.

Could things go south from here? Sure. But for now, the AI-driven momentum continues.

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Related reading:

• North American Startup Funding Shattered Records In First Half Of 2026, Driven By AI

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 小蓝视频色情网页版, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 2, 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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 小蓝视频色情网页版 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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.)

Illustration:

Funding to private companies has skyrocketed this year, totaling $679 billion in venture funding globally in Q1 through Q3 2026, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. That is the highest amount in the first three quarters of any given year.

While global venture funding in Q3 was down 25% quarter over quarter from the $212 billion raised in Q2, it was up 53% year over year from the $104 billion raised in Q3 2025.

听Table of Contents

• Billion-dollar fundings
• US and sectors
• Late-stage funding
• Early-stage funding
• Seed
• Exits: IPOs and M&A
• Robust market
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Billion-dollar fundings

A notable shift in 2026 has been the number of startups that have raised billion-dollar-plus rounds. An all-time record of 27 companies raised such sizable rounds in Q3 2026, an increase from the previous record, set in Q2, of 16 companies and Q1鈥檚 total of 14 companies.

Around a third of all global venture capital raised in Q3 went to those 27 companies. In the two prior quarters, billion-dollar raises pushed total funding to well above historical norms.

No single company raised funding in the tens of billions last quarter. However, eight companies raised funding rounds of $3 billion or more, with frontier labs and data centers leading by company counts for the biggest raises. Of these eight companies, five were founded within the past four years.

The largest funding deals went to and , which each raised $5 billion. Close behind, , , , , and each raised more than $3 billion.

US and sectors

U.S.-based companies continued to raise the dominant share of venture capital with $91 billion invested in American startups, or around 57% of the global total in Q3. The San Francisco Bay Area alone accounted for 24% of global venture investment in the quarter.

AI-driven startups across the stack raised $102 billion, or 64% of global venture capital, down from the two previous quarters, but still 14 percentage points above Q3 2025 global funding.

The realm of physical AI has attracted significant capital in 2026. That continued in Q3 with the aerospace, robotics, data centers, semiconductor and energy sectors each raising $10 billion or more in the quarter.

Late-stage funding

Late-stage venture funding totaled $105 billion in Q3, down 23% from Q2 but up 73% from Q3 2025, 小蓝视频色情网页版 data shows. Funding rounds of $100 million and above accounted for close to 90% of late-stage financings.

Early-stage funding

Early-stage funding totaled $40.6 billion in Q3, up by 25% from a year earlier. The number of companies raising jumbo sized rounds at $100 million and over, represented 50% of early-stage financings.

Seed

Global seed funding totaled $13 billion in Q3, 小蓝视频色情网页版 data shows. Of that, $2.6 billion went to seed rounds of $100 million and over, around 20% of seed financings.

Exits: IPOs and M&A

Q3 was a fairly strong quarter for exits. China dominated on the IPO front for the largest exits听 with semiconductor and robotics listings surging on their first day of trading.

• China-based , developer of DRAM chips, was the largest IPO in Q3, raising听 $8.6 billion at an $85.5 billion value. Its stock surged more than 500%听 on its debut to become the most valuable listed company in the local market.
• The second-largest was Singapore-based fast fashion company listing at a $26.3 billion valuation, well below its 2022 valuation peak of $100 billion. Shein was the one exception that closed its first day around its opening price, after falling by about 10%;
• Shanghai-based AI chipmaker , a competitor to , went public in September, raising $912 million at a valuation of $25.5 billion.
• Milan-based , acquirer of and , raised $1.6 billion on its debut at a value of $18.4 billion.
• Hangzhou-based humanoid robotics company went public raising $905 million debuting at a valuation of $9 billion.

U.S.-based companies, meanwhile, dominated the largest M&A deals.

Semiconductor companies were the largest acquirers in Q3. bid to acquire New York-based open-source AI platform for $12.9 billion. Semiconductor giant announced its intent to acquire 鈥檚 , a San Francisco-based builder of models for physical intelligence, for $8.2 billion. The third-largest acquisition was payments provider 鈥檚 acquisition of New York-based AI model router for $7.5 billion.

Robust market

Over the past few quarters, larger checks across funding stages have pushed venture investment higher as young AI companies gained traction rapidly. Half of startup capital invested in Q3 went to companies founded since 2022.

Venture funding has also expanded beyond software into physical infrastructure and robotics, reindustrializing economies. And a dynamic seed funding climate for AI-native startups signals continued appetite for the next wave of companies.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 小蓝视频色情网页版, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 2, 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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 小蓝视频色情网页版 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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.)

Related reading:

• VCs Pour Billions Into Physical AI As The Next Wave Of AI Investing Takes Shape
• Jumbo-Sized Series A Rounds Are On The Rise

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Meanwhile, on Monday, details from AI giant 鈥檚 IPO prospectus, giving potential investors a peek into its financials.

Oura had planned to offer 50 million shares at $40 to $44 apiece and was expected to begin trading Wednesday. At the top of that range, the offering would have raised $2.2 billion. The company says it is delaying the deal despite strong demand and has not set a new date. CEO said Oura has 鈥渢he luxury of choosing our moment.鈥�

Anthropic is still moving toward an IPO, although its timing remains unclear. A prospectus leaked by Reuters showed that revenue climbed twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025 with an operating loss of $8.06 billion. Its staggering nearly $42 billion net loss included roughly $34 billion in accounting charges tied largely to earlier financing.

The document also outlined an eye-watering $518 billion in future cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations. Reuters has reported that a listing is likely to come after the November midterm elections.

Anthropic, the world’s most valuable venture-backed startup, has indicated it plans to beat rival to the public markets. The company could debut as soon as October and raise up to $100 billion via the offering, according to a recent in , while OpenAI, which Reuters says filed confidentially in June, is reportedly now looking toward early 2027.

(小蓝视频色情网页版鈥檚 predictive intelligence tools, meanwhile, point to a slightly longer timeline for an Anthropic IPO, saying it鈥檚 more likely to happen in six to 12 months.)

Who鈥檚 next

So far, the 2026 IPO class already has a record-setting headliner in .

There are some other candidates. -backed AI cloud provider filed publicly this month , reporting $140.6 million in first-half revenue and a $1.02 billion net loss. , a -backed specialty insurance underwriter, on Sept. 24.

Neither has announced a trading date.

Data center operator is another possible fourth-quarter entrant. Reuters that it had hired banks for an IPO that could raise as much as $10 billion, although the timing remains subject to change.

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Related reading:

• IPOs Are Holding Up In 2026, But SaaS Debuts Aren鈥檛 Happening
• The IPO Window Is Closing. Here Are 8 Startups To Watch.

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U.S. venture-backed technology听1 companies have secured nearly $90 billion in domestic public offerings this year, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. That鈥檚 already the second-highest annual tally on record, and we鈥檝e still got a few months to go.

However, virtually all the money went to two companies. alone accounted for 83% of the $90 billion raised this year, while AI infrastructure company scooped up another 6%. A potential offering from , meanwhile, could be even bigger.

The remaining field is comparatively modest. Just 21 other venture-backed technology companies went public this year in sizable or offerings 2, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. Collectively, their offerings, which include traditional IPOs and SPAC deals, pulled in less than $10 billion.

This small cohort is intriguing for what it excludes as well as what it includes. Enterprise software, long a staple industry among venture-backed IPOs, was essentially a no-show this year. Energy, defense and space tech, by contrast, were well-represented. We also saw smaller offerings from other sectors, including medical devices and consumer-facing startups.

Here are some of the key findings in more detail:

Energy powers the most IPOs: About a quarter of this year鈥檚 tech startup offerings hail from the energy sector. The largest of these was from geothermal energy provider . Several nuclear power-focused startups also made their debuts, including and , developers of small modular nuclear reactors, as well as , focused on advanced nuclear fuel.

A dash of quantum, defense, aerospace, devices and consumer: Beyond energy, quantum computing company delivered one of the year鈥檚 larger debuts, as did equipment rental platform . Defense tech and aerospace were also strong performers, with offerings from satellite intelligence provider and spacecraft developer . And on the consumer front, e-bike and scooter platform finally made its market entrance, albeit at a valuation below its one-time .

An IPO SaaS-pocalipse: But what about SaaS? Mostly MIA. The paucity of enterprise software offerings this year isn鈥檛 entirely surprising given the impact of AI on the sector. VCs are pouring capital into a newer generation of AI-first platforms in legal tech, accounting and other enterprise software sectors. Existing SaaS unicorns are also moving fast to incorporate more AI in their offerings.

One end result is there are an awful lot of SaaS unicorns and former unicorns that have concluded this year is not the time to pursue an IPO.

Winner-takes-almost-all

Another end result is that investment returns are looking more concentrated than ever.

Of course, winning big or not at all is far from a new thing in the startup world. Tech venture returns have always been propped up largely by a few enormous wins, with the remainder of portfolio companies producing either losses or smaller profitable exits. But lately, the winner-take-almost-all-the-IPO-proceeds tilt is more pronounced than ever.

The pipeline of tech companies that have filed for future IPOs doesn鈥檛 offer much consolation that this pattern will change. Giant potential market debuts from Anthropic and still dominate IPO chatter. Enterprise SaaS offerings do not.

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One of the strangest things about the current AI cycle is just how fast the math changes for the people building it. You can be a 20-something founder who feels like you are still in the warm-up phase of your career, yet on paper your equity is already life changing. Or a mid-level engineer who went from holding startup options to staring at a substantial personal balance sheet practically overnight.

The gap between life experience and the sudden reality of managing serious wealth is widening as AI-native companies reach major valuations faster and private company liquidity arrives earlier.

A of more than 3,400 founders and senior leaders across 20 countries found that AI-native startups are reaching billion-dollar valuations in about 3.5 years, roughly half the time it took before generative AI. They are doing it with about half the staff.

We have seen an even more compressed version firsthand. We recently advised founders who went from launching their company to a major liquidity event in less than a year.

When the money outpaces the mindset

For decades, tech wealth followed a more predictable script. Significant personal wealth often accumulated alongside a long career. Equity vested over years, responsibilities grew and additional grants often followed. If everything went right, an acquisition or IPO marked a visible transition into a very different financial reality.

Today, that boundary is much less clear. AI capabilities allow companies to grow at a much faster pace.

A young founder can suddenly face questions that used to come much later in life. What are their long-term personal goals? What should the new capital be used for? What does financial independence mean for someone who may still be figuring out what they want their life to look like?

These are not always questions that can be answered overnight.

Compounding this is the fact that one doesn鈥檛 have to wait for an IPO to de-risk. Tender offers and secondary transactions allow founders and employees to turn part of their equity into cash while the company remains private.

Take as an example. While still only 3 years old, the company authorized a $100 million secondary sale for staff at a $6.6 billion valuation. By February 2026, it had at an $11 billion valuation.

For someone inside a company moving at that speed, the sequence can look very different from the traditional startup script. It is a dizzying loop of grants, valuations and a sudden liquidity window. All of this can happen long before an IPO.

Flexibility is the name of the game

A sudden liquidity event can make financial independence a realistic goal. It may make buying a home possible, even while someone is still single or has no idea where they want to live long term. It may allow them to take care of parents or fund another entrepreneurial chapter.

The pace of these cycles can also be contagious. Opportunities seem to be everywhere. At the same time, a founder may still be taking substantial risks with the current venture and have very little idea what life will look like in five years.

When we advise technology executives and founders in this position, we try to leave room for several possible paths while the broader picture is still developing. Some capital may eventually support long-term family security. Some may need to remain available for opportunities or life changes that do not exist today.

A future business endeavour, a career change, a relocation to another country, or other less conventional ideas can change the picture again. Some of these moves can be made today, but others need time to develop.

A company may compress 10 years of growth into three, but people cannot compress 10 years of life into three. Ignoring that gap is where real risk can build.

Valuations and liquidity can move incredibly fast. Decisions about family wellbeing, security, career and the future still move at a human pace. Your financial architecture needs to respect the difference.

is co-CEO of , where he works with founders, senior technology executives and families on wealth strategy, liquidity events and long-term financial planning. Before moving into wealth planning, he spent many years in the technology industry and writes about the intersection of technology, equity and personal wealth.

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Startups across sales, marketing and customer management have raised $7.5 billion so far this year, according to 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. The largest rounds span everything from advertising and customer data to sales software, e-commerce and customer support 鈥� reflecting just how many companies are still trying to build a better way to market and sell.

The broad trend: Investors are making far fewer bets on sales and marketing startups than immediately before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, but they鈥檙e still writing checks into the space.

Unsurprisingly, AI-focused companies are capturing a much larger share of funding than during the prior peak, with most sales, marketing and CRM investment going to companies in 小蓝视频色情网页版 AI-related categories.

The numbers: So far in 2026, startups in sales, marketing and CRM have raised $7.5 billion globally across 830 funding rounds, 小蓝视频色情网页版 data shows. At the current pace, funding could finish near the $9.3 billion raised in both 2023 and 2024, although potentially below last year鈥檚 $11.1 billion. Deal volume, meanwhile, is on track to fall for a fourth consecutive year 鈥� pointing to a market where investors are putting more money into fewer companies.

Funding in recent years remains far below past levels. In 2022, for example, funding in the sector topped $27 billion, and in 2021, it totaled nearly $41 billion.

Notable deals

The year鈥檚 largest funding recipient so far was, which raised more than $1 billion in a June Series E from , , and . The San Francisco-based marketing measurement company, whose products now include AI agents that analyze marketing data and automate tasks, was valued at $2.7 billion.

Restaurant financing and rewards platform announced $450 million in new capital in February. The Austin-based company did not identify a lead investor or disclose a valuation.

In January, AI-native customer service company raised a $350 million Series D led by . The Berlin-based company develops AI agents that handle customer conversations by phone and other channels. The financing tripled its valuation to $3 billion.

Meanwhile, , an online marketplace for digital products, communities and courses, received a $200 million strategic investment from in February. The deal valued the New York-based company at $1.6 billion.

Another larger deal went to Dubai-based property listings platform , which announced a $170 million equity investment in January. The company uses AI in products including home valuations and tools that help real estate agents improve and prioritize listings. led the deal, with participation from another UAE sovereign wealth fund and existing investor . The company did not disclose a valuation.

On Sept. 9,听 AI-powered sales automation startup announced it had raised a $115 million Series D at a $7.1 billion valuation. This was more than double the $3.1 billion valuation it achieved when it raised a $100 million Series C in August 2025. Wellington led the latest round, with participation from , , 鈥檚 a16z Perennial wealth management arm, , and others. The company says the raise followed 4x revenue growth in 2025. It also told 小蓝视频色情网页版 News that it’s on track to hit $200 million in ARR this quarter, and $240 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Exits

The sector has produced one notable public offering, but most exits are coming through acquisitions as larger companies buy specialized sales and marketing products to add to their existing platforms, 小蓝视频色情网页版 data shows.

, a Redwood City, California-based mobile advertising and app-marketing company, began trading on the in June. It initially sold 19 million shares at $23 each, raising $437 million. The IPO valued Liftoff at $3.83 billion, based on the outstanding shares disclosed in its IPO prospectus.

There have been a number of M&A deals this year in the sector, too, though in most cases, the acquisition price was not disclosed.

The largest known deal was Dutch payments giant acquisition of , a Berlin-based loyalty and promotions platform, in July for about $880 million. Talon had previously raised over $120 million in venture funding.

Other startup M&A deals in the marketing and sales arena in 2026 include:

• In July, acquired Seattle-based sales intelligence startup to add information about prospective buyers to its sales products.
• In June, agreed to acquire , whose software helps companies identify and contact people visiting their websites.
• Sales platform acquired , which helps sales teams identify prospective customers based on product use and other signals, in March.
• acquired the Estonian startup , whose software connects sales and marketing data, in August.
• acquired India-based marketing intelligence startup in September through a team and technology deal.

Funding is down from peak years, but it鈥檚 clear investors haven鈥檛 lost interest in sales and marketing startups. However, they are putting more money into fewer of them. Companies that help businesses find customers, increase sales, or retain existing business are still landing big checks and attracting buyers. But with acquisitions far more common than IPOs, a public-market exit remains much harder to come by.

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The highest-valued new entrants were China-based humanoid robotics business , valued at more than $6.3 billion; San Jose, California-based photonics company , valued at $5.5 billion; and Palo Alto, California-based AI model platform , and San Francisco鈥檚 semiconductor manufacturing startup , both valued at $5 billion.

AI software featured prominently across model training, assistants, agentic and enterprise workflow automation, coding and voice transcription.

Semiconductors was the second-largest sector, with five new unicorns. Robotics and financial services each added three, while data centers, security and energy each added two.

The U.S. accounted for 16 of August鈥檚 new unicorns. China followed with four. South Korea, India, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Germany and Turkey each added one. Nigeria and Indonesia also each added one new unicorn 鈥� for both, their first new unicorn of the year.

Nine companies exited the Unicorn Board in August, per 小蓝视频色情网页版 data: Three that went public 鈥� the most notable being 鈥� and six via acquisition, including , and .

New unicorns in August

Here are August鈥檚 new unicorn companies:

AI and software

• , a Palo Alto, California-based platform for training, fine-tuning and deploying custom AI models based on proprietary data, announced $1.1 billion in funding led by and . The less-than-1-year-old company, founded by former co-founder , was valued.
• San Francisco-based , an AI assistant that executes personal tasks, raised a $250 million Series B led by and . The 1-year-old company was valued at $2.5 billion.
• Shanghai-based , a builder of agents for digital and physical environments, raised a $220 million seed round led by and . The less-than-1-year-old company was valued at $2 billion. Its founder, , a researcher, left earlier this year.
• San Francisco-based , which builds AI-powered voice-writing and meeting-transcription tools, raised a $280 million Series B led by , who also led its Series A in 2025. The 5-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
• San Francisco-based , which provides AI-powered code review and change-management tools, raised a $143 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation. and co-led the round. The 3-year-old company said it would commit more than $10 million to keep its tools free for open-source projects over the next year.
• San Francisco-based , which deploys AI agents across calls, email, documents and enterprise systems, raised a $150 million Series C at a $1.2 billion post-money valuation. and led the round. The company is 4 years old, started in logistics and has expanded to insurance, energy, telecommunications and airlines among others and counts 150 enterprise customers.
• Turkey-based , a developer of consumer mobile applications, raised a $50 million Series A led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1.25 billion. Its apps include AI chatbot Nova, diagnosing plants with PlantApp, and art generator DaVinci.

Semiconductors

• , a San Jose, California-based developer of photonic interconnects for AI computing infrastructure, raised a $700 million Series C at a $5.5 billion valuation. , , , and led the round. The 2-year-old company is already deployed within data centers.
• raised $400 million in funding led by hedge fund . The 1-year-old company was valued at $5 billion. The San Francisco-based company creates tooling for semiconductor manufacturing and was founded by researchers.
• South Korea-based , which develops edge AI processors for on-device inference, raised about $29 million in the first tranche of its Series D funding from existing investors. The 8-year-old company targeting robotics and electronics was valued at about $2.2 billion.
• Shanghai-based , an AI chip startup for inference, raised a Series A led by local state capital investors and . The 4-year-old company was valued at about $1.5 billion with plans to ship its product in Q4 2026.
• Santa Clara, California-based , which develops low-power silicon and software for AI data centers and physical AI, raised a $110 million Series A led by . The 4-year old company was valued at more than $1 billion.

Robotics

• China-based , which is building the general-purpose IRON humanoid robot, raised more than $900 million in its first outside financing at a post-money valuation exceeding $6.3 billion. led the round, with participation from and support from and Alibaba Group. The company, a subsidiary of public smart electric vehicle company , is 10 years old.
• Singapore-based , which develops robots to operate in real-world environments, raised about $669 million in funding. The 2-year-old company was valued at about $3.3 billion and is set to deploy robots in a Dairy Queen in Shanghai to handle the entire 55-step process of taking orders, preparing the food and handing it to a customer.
• Zurich-based , which develops autonomous technology for heavy construction machinery, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1 billion and works across multiple construction brands.

Financial services

• Bengaluru-based , a financial-services company spanning payment, lending and insurance, raised $100 million in funding led by . The 7-year-old company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• Berlin-based , a finance AI platform for European mid-sized businesses to听 manage spend, card issuing and expenses, raised a $40 million Series C led by and . The 7-year-old company was valued at around $1.15 billion. The company says it has 5,000 businesses that use the service to give finance teams control.
• Palo Alto, California-based , an AI-native enterprise resource planning platform for accounting, raised a $100 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Aerospace and defense

• Los Angeles-based , a manufacturer of autonomous military drones and counter-drone systems, raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation. and the co-led the round. The company is 3 years old. Neros has contracts with the U.S. military as well as half a dozen allied countries.
• Mountain View, California-based , which builds and operates satellite constellations for national security, civil and commercial customers, raised a $250 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Data centers

• Palo Alto, California-based , a vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform, raised a $300 million Series A led by , , and . The less-than-1-year-old company was valued at $2.4 billion. Alongside the equity, Volta secured $5 billion in debt to fund data center buildouts.
• , a full-stack AI infrastructure and neocloud platform, received led by Doha-based broadband provider , which holds a 49% stake. Jakarta-based Zankore is less than 1-year-old and is valued at $1.6 billion. The platform is targeting 1 gigawatt of AI computing capacity.

Security

• San Francisco-based , an AI-native security company that provides autonomous penetration testing, raised a $250 million Series E led by and . The 7-year-old company was valued at $2 billion and is used by 7,000 organizations including defense, Fortune 10, banks and healthcare companies among others.
• Palo Alto, California-based , which provides security for AI agents and third-party applications, raised an $85 million Series D led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Energy

• China-based , a nuclear fusion company developing small modular reactors, raised about $179 million in seed funding. The 1-year-old company was valued at about $1.5 billion.
• Washington, D.C.-based , which develops software that adjusts AI data-center workloads based on power-grid demands, raised a $150 million Series A at a $1 billion valuation. and co-led the round. The 2-year-old company says the round brings total funding to more than $220 million.

Transportation

• Nigeria-based , a vehicle financing and autonomous fleet management infrastructure, raised a $250 million Series C led by , and . The 7-year-old company was valued at $2.1 billion. It operates a fleet of 42,000 vehicles 鈥� both human-driven and autonomous 鈥� across 29 cities, with annual recurring revenue of $420 million.听

Critical minerals

• Houston-based , which builds mines and refineries using its MarianaOS software platform, raised a $310 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Web3

• Dubai-based , an AI-enabled stablecoin neobanking platform for cross-border payments and tokenized assets, raised a $68 million Series C led by Tokyo-based at a $1 billion valuation. The 7-year-old company says it processes more than $40 billion in annualized transaction volume.

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• (1,862)
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• (276)
• (195)
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• (102)
• (961)
• (547)
• (254)
• (39)
• (489)

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• Which Investors Have Backed The Most 2026 Unicorns?
• 40 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In July, The Highest Count In 4 Years

Methodology

The 小蓝视频色情网页版 Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on 小蓝视频色情网页版 data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.听

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations 鈥� such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options 鈥� as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.听

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .听

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.听

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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 小蓝视频色情网页版 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

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Seven companies raised billion-dollar fundings in August, tied with a few months for the year鈥檚 second-highest count after July, when 13 companies did the same.

The largest startup funding deal in August went to 13-year-old which raised $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation.

Other companies across a broad range of industries raised billion-dollar-plus rounds, a testament to the strength of the technology sector impacting听 a range of more traditional industries, including physical manufacturing, defense, aerospace and energy. They included defense tech startup ; , which performs custom AI fine-tuning for businesses; low-orbit satellite network ; nuclear energy company ; automated coding provider ; and home battery service .

Notable exits

On the IPO front, Hangzhou, China-based humanoid robotics company went public on Aug. 19 and soared 460% on its first day of trading on the .

The largest M&A news in August was 鈥檚 announcement that it aims to acquire open-source AI platform for $12.9 billion. Other notable acquisition news was Milan-based tech aggregator 鈥� plan to acquire 13-year-old database company for around $1.3 billion.

Big rounds are coming faster

Venture capital continues to concentrate rapidly among a small group of fast-growing companies. Two of August鈥檚 billion-dollar recipients illustrate the trend: Databricks added $56 billion to its valuation in just six months, while River AI raised both its seed and Series A rounds this year, amassing a staggering $1.1 billion in early-stage funding.

That accelerated cadence extended across August鈥檚 megadeals: Five of the seven billion-dollar funding recipients had last raised capital less than 12 months earlier, including three that closed their previous rounds earlier this year. The numbers underscore how quickly investors are doubling down on companies they believe can become the next generation of technology giants.

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Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 小蓝视频色情网页版, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Sept. 2, 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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 小蓝视频色情网页版 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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. 小蓝视频色情网页版 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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