July 2026 venture funding hits $65 billion as mega-round count sets record
Global startups raised $65 billion in July, while 14 billion-dollar rounds set a monthly record, Crunchbase data shows.
By Jordan Bell · Startups & Deals Reporter
· 3 min read
July 2026 venture funding reached $65 billion globally, with 14 startups raising at least $1 billion each, according to Crunchbase. For investors following the AI spending cycle and private-company pipeline, the figures show that capital remained concentrated in a relatively small group of very large deals.
Crunchbase said July funding was up 100% from a year earlier and 10% from June, making it the third-largest funding month of 2026. The 14 billion-dollar financings were the highest monthly count in its records. The record was for the number of rounds, rather than the total dollars raised in billion-dollar deals.
What drove July 2026 venture funding?
AI accounted for much of the activity. AI-focused companies received $35 billion, or about 53% of all global venture funding for the month, Crunchbase reported. Aerospace, defense and energy were also among the leading sectors.
U.S.-based companies raised $39 billion, roughly 59% of the global total, with about half of that amount going to U.S. AI-focused businesses, according to Crunchbase. Nine of the 14 billion-dollar rounds went to U.S.-headquartered companies. Germany had two, China had two and Singapore had one.
The largest reported deal was Blue Origin's $10 billion investment, which Crunchbase described as the Jeff Bezos-founded space company's first external financing. Safe Superintelligence, the AI lab founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, reportedly raised $5 billion from Nvidia.
China-based Moonshot AI raised $3.5 billion after releasing its Kimi K3 model, while Kling AI raised $2.8 billion for short-video generation, Crunchbase said. In Germany, defense-technology companies Helsing and Quantum Systems each raised billion-dollar rounds. Other U.S. companies in the group operated in energy, industrial robotics, AI training, security and semiconductors.
Exits added to the busy month
The activity was not limited to private financings. Crunchbase counted more than $9 billion in venture-backed mergers and acquisitions during July, including five exits priced above $1 billion.
Among the transactions it highlighted were Nscale's roughly $1.65 billion purchase of AI-workflow software company Anyscale and Cyera's $1 billion acquisition of Oasis Security. Crunchbase also counted 12 venture-backed companies that went public at values above $1 billion: five from China, six from the U.S. and one from Italy.
The data point to strong reported activity at the top end of the market, but do not establish that fundraising improved evenly for smaller startups. Crunchbase said reporting lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages, particularly seed funding. Its figures are based on reported transactions as of Aug. 3, 2026, and foreign-currency deals are converted into U.S. dollars using historical spot rates.
Crunchbase separately reported that startups raised $515 billion globally in the first half of 2026. July's record count extends the run of unusually large financings, with AI taking more than half of the month's reported venture dollars.
This story draws on original reporting from Crunchbase News.
