Global venture funding to financial technology startups totaled $12 billion across 751 deals in 2026 as of April 6, per 附近上门 . In terms of dollars invested, that鈥檚 up 5% year over year, but that money went into almost a third fewer deals.

As has been the case in previous quarters, startup accelerator Y Combinator was the most active investor in the space in Q1 by far, participating in 27 deals involving fintech startups. However, it鈥檚 interesting to note that YC鈥檚 deal volume in Q1 marked a multiquarter low, down 38.6% from the 44 fintech deals it took part in during the first quarter of 2025.

The next most active investor in the first quarter was , with 11 investments. , and all tied for third place, with nine deals each.

YC also topped the list of the most active fintech investors in rounds of $5 million or above, participating in 14 such transactions. That鈥檚 up 16.7% from the 12 deals involving fintech startups in which it participated in the first quarter of 2025.

Lightspeed and Coinbase Ventures came in next on the list of most active investors in rounds of $5 million or more 鈥� each writing checks into nine fintech startup investments during the 2026 first quarter.

When it came to leading rounds of $5 million or more, six venture firms tied with five investments each: , , and .

Top lead investors at $100M or more

For megarounds 鈥� those deals of $100 million or more 鈥� we saw more private equity enter the mix of lead or co-lead investors. , , and topped the list, according to 附近上门 data.

The largest rounds were raised by a diverse bunch of fintech startups.

• Predictions marketplace was the fintech sector鈥檚 largest recipient of capital in the first quarter. In March, the company doubled its valuation to $22 billion in just three months with a $1 billion raise led by Coatue. The New York-based startup had just raised $1 billion in Series E funding at an $11 billion valuation in December.
• In February, , a digital savings platform, raised $385 million in a Series E funding round co-led by Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth. The New York-based startup said its new valuation was $2 billion, double it achieved when raising its $125 million Series D round in December 2023.
• In late January, insurtech announced it had closed $366 million in equity funding led by The Space Between.
• And also in January, , which is building infrastructure for payments with stablecoins, raised $250 million in a Series C funding round led by . Its post-money valuation was $1.95 billion, up 17x from last March.

Top fintech investors at seed

When it comes to investing in seed rounds, unsurprisingly, Y Combinator again topped the list 鈥� by far, with 16 fintech deals. Next up was Coinbase Ventures with six investments at the seed stage, and then , with five.

The investor base shifted when we took a look at who led or co-led post-seed rounds in the first quarter. and topped that list, with five deals each. Peak XV Partners, Lightspeed and Accel came in next with four fintech investments each at the post-seed stage.

Related 附近上门 query:

Related reading:

• Fintech Startups Globally Raise More Money In Far Fewer Deals In Q1 2026
• Y Combinator Was By Far The Most-Active Fintech Investor in 2025, Data Shows

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Global venture funding to financial technology startups totaled $12 billion across 751 deals in 2026 as of April 6, per 附近上门 . That鈥檚 a 5% increase in dollars raised compared to the $11.4 billion raised across 1,097 鈥� or 31.5% fewer 鈥斕齞eals during the same time period in 2025.

This trend signals larger deal sizes. Indeed, late-stage or growth funding in the first quarter of 2026 totaled $6.9 billion, up 8% compared to $6.4 billion raised at those stages in the 2025 first quarter.

However, sequentially, the $12 billion raised is down 33% compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, when fintech startups raised $17.8 billion globally. The $6.9 billion raised in late-stage or growth funding is also down markedly 鈥� by 43% 鈥� compared to the $12.1 billion raised by fintech startups in Q4 2025.

The trend in the first quarter also mirrors what we saw in 2025 as a whole, with global venture funding to fintech startups climbing to its highest level in several quarters, boosted by later-stage deals.

Total global funding to VC-backed financial technology startups totaled $53.8 billion in 2025, per 附近上门 . That鈥檚 an approximately 29.3% increase from 2024鈥檚 total of $41.6 billion raised.

US booms

U.S.-based startups have historically raised more fintech funding than any other country in the world, and the first quarter of 2026 was no different.

Of the $12 billion raised by startups globally, just over half 鈥� or $6.3 billion 鈥� flowed to fintech companies based in the U.S. That was an impressive 47% increase compared to the $4.3 billion raised by U.S. fintech startups in the 2025 first quarter. However, it was down 50% from the $12.6 billion that U.S. financial technology startups raised in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The United Kingdom was the second-largest recipient of venture capital, with startups in the region raising a total of $1.2 billion. India came in third, raising $900 million.

Big deals for unicorns

Several fintech startups raised nine-figure rounds in the first quarter, with some doubling their valuations since their last venture financings.

Predictions marketplace was the largest recipient of capital in the first quarter. In March, the company doubled its valuation to $22 billion in just three months with a $1 billion raise led by . The New York-based startup had just raised $1 billion in Series E funding at an $11 billion valuation in December.

In February, , a digital savings platform, raised $385 million in a Series E funding round co-led by and . The New York-based startup said its new valuation was $2 billion, double it achieved when raising its $125 million Series D round in December 2023.

And in January, , which is building infrastructure for payments with stablecoins, raised $250 million in a Series C funding round led by . Its post-money valuation was $1.95 billion, up 17x from last March.

Investors remain bullish

, partner and head of U.S. at , said his firm has been investing at a slightly slower pace so far in 2026 than in years past. But he cited it as 鈥渕ore a quirk of deal flow鈥� and where it gets conviction, rather than a decision to slow the firm鈥檚 investing pace.

鈥淚t’s certainly true that macroeconomics and geopolitics play a role,鈥� he told 附近上门 News, 鈥渂ut mostly we’re just focused on finding high-conviction companies to back.鈥�

QED is extremely bullish on the application layer for AI in fintech and stablecoin opportunities, and has backed several startups that Gerety said 鈥渉arness the power of LLMs with the security and reliability guarantees that finance needs.鈥� (, which raised a $45 million Series B in January and is building an AI assistant for financial advisers, is one of those companies.)

鈥淛ust in the last few months, agents are now actually able to be effective in many processing tasks, but the stakes in finance are too high for LLMs to conquer financial workflows alone,鈥� Gerety said. 鈥淔inance runs on trust, not probability.鈥�

Looking ahead, he said QED remains bullish on fintech overall for the year. Part of the excitement is around the fact that larger companies are 鈥渢ransforming鈥� their operations with agentic workflows, Gerety noted.

鈥淢ore and more transformation is moving from the 鈥榗o-pilot鈥� phase, and we鈥檙e moving into the ‘OpenClaw’ phase, when reasoning agents will start to actually do all the work that was too tedious and slow to be done manually,鈥� he added.

The geopolitical situation will likely hinder some companies from taking the IPO plunge, in Gerety鈥檚 view, although a few companies in QED鈥檚 portfolios are 鈥渂ubbling.鈥�

, partner at , said his firm is on track to make eight to 10 core investments in Seed or Series A companies this year 鈥� about the same number as in previous years.

鈥淲e鈥檙e investing in AI-enabled applications while maintaining patience and focus in our deployment of capital,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e look for durable, enduring businesses that we believe will withstand the current hype cycle and investment frenzy.鈥�

While TTV is investing in AI-enabled companies, Kapur said it also agrees with that 鈥渁n AI reset is coming.鈥�

鈥淢any investors have already made their money by getting in on the ground floor, and others are trying to replicate their success,鈥� he told 附近上门 News. 鈥淲e鈥檙e focused on investing in the application layer of AI, and we鈥檙e still in the early days with more widespread prosperity and a democratization of enterprise value creation yet to come.鈥�

In particular, TTV sees the biggest opportunity in early-stage AI-native companies that are solving problems in mission-critical workflows 鈥渨hile building durable moats.鈥�

鈥淭hese platforms will earn the right to be distribution endpoints for financial products 鈥� and are even more valuable in the age of AI,鈥� he said.

He believes we may see some fintech IPOs in 2026, but that they will largely depend on how the potential mega IPOs (from the likes of , and ) perform.

鈥淚f those IPOs underperform, others may opt to stay private longer,鈥� Kapur said.

Looking ahead, he predicts we鈥檒l continue to see accelerated adoption of AI in financial services, first through straightforward applications, then more operationally complex use cases.

鈥淢ore broadly, we鈥檙e watching how the foundational LLMs further move up into the application layer, which is imperative to the long-term sustainability of their business models,鈥� Kapur said. 鈥淲e think financial services and fintech are unique enough categories where de novo startups and standalone businesses will beat platforms building experimental applications.鈥�

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• Stablecoin Startup Rain Raises $250M Series C at $1.95B Valuation 鈥� Its Third Round In Less Than A Year
• Exclusive: Zocks Raises $45M Series B From Lightspeed, QED For AI Assistant To Financial Advisers

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鈥淚 recognized both the massive potential AI brought to the tax world, as well as the risks to firms and clients by making mistakes and hallucinations,鈥� he told 附近上门 News.

The accounting industry has historically been slow to adopt new technologies. As of today, the majority of small to mid-sized accounting firms 鈥� which make up 90% of the market 鈥� remain stuck in a cycle of manual data entry.

Addressing both the opportunities 鈥� and risks 鈥� that came with advances in AI, Haase started building , a tax prep automation startup, on the side in 2023. Rather than targeting the self-prep market, like does, or the mega-enterprise firms that can afford $15,000-per-return software, Juno was built for the underserved SMB accounting firm.

鈥淲e continuously 鈥榙og fed鈥� the early Juno prototypes into the firm to see what worked best, what slowed things down, and to make it the most efficient tax preparation platform as possible,鈥� Haase said.

It took about a year and a half just to build integrations. 鈥淲e had to do a bunch of hacky things to be able to work with the existing tax software,鈥� he explained, 鈥渂ecause your typical tax software is actually around 15 to 20 years old and they don鈥檛 have public APIs.鈥�

By 2024, Juno had launched a co-pilot. Then, in July 2025, it had a tax product. The startup began onboarding other tax firms, growing to nearly 500 customers over the past year. Last year, Haase sold his accounting firm to focus on growing Juno full-time.

Today, he鈥檚 announcing that San Diego-based Juno has raised $12 million in a seed funding round led by , including participation from and .

AI to help humans 鈥榖e the advisers they were trained to be鈥�

What makes Juno different from others in the market, Haase believes, is that it operates on the premise that, at least for the foreseeable future, human tax preparers should be the ones driving the tax-return preparation process.

鈥淎 business or high-net-worth tax return requires hundreds of calculations, edge cases, deductions and more,鈥� said Haase, who holds an MBA from . 鈥淎I simply can鈥檛 do that with the 100% accuracy required not to get audited or charged with tax fraud.鈥�

Describing much of the manual work that most accountants must perform to complete returns as extremely tedious, Haase acknowledges that it鈥檚 also very easy for accountants to make mistakes that could prove very costly.

鈥淚n school, if you get a 93, an A, you get all the credits,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut on a tax return, if you have a 99%, you fail, and your client could pay the price in penalties.鈥�

In a nutshell, Juno acts as the bridge between a client鈥檚 raw documents and the accountant鈥檚 filing software. It performs tasks like pulling data from IRS forms and even unstructured documents, such as business financial statements. Overall, it automates 90% of data entry across more than 90 document types while also flagging prior-year changes and inconsistencies for human validation.

The result is that a process that typically takes a human two to three hours is shrunk down to seven to 10 minutes, Haase estimates.

鈥淲e do 95% of a tax return in minutes, leaving the accountant to handle the strategic human decisions 鈥� the parts that actually save the client money,鈥� he said.

While he declined to reveal hard revenue figures, Haase said that in just eight months, Juno grew to mid-seven-figure annual recurring revenue.

The startup sells on a per-return basis, starting around $45, dropping to the low $30s for high-volume firms.

‘s recent move into consumer taxes and OpenAI’s hiring of a tax director show that the bigger players are eyeing the tax market. But Haase doesn鈥檛 feel threatened.

鈥淗igh-wealth individuals want assurance. If you鈥檙e paying $40,000 in taxes, you don’t want to 鈥榗ross your fingers with a chatbot,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou want a human to talk to, someone who understands the context of your life.鈥�

Juno isn’t trying to replace accountants, he added.

鈥淚t’s trying to rescue them from the data-entry basement so they can actually be the advisers they were trained to be,鈥� Haase said.

The startup plans to roll out business returns soon, a move that Haase expects will significantly scale its customer base.

鈥楢 huge, obvious pain point鈥�

, co-founder and managing director of Bonfire Ventures, said he was drawn to invest in Juno because he believes the company is going after 鈥渁 huge, obvious pain point in a category that hasn鈥檛 been meaningfully modernized in a long time.鈥�

鈥淭he workflow pain is real, the labor dynamics make the timing right, and Dave brought exactly the kind of founder-market fit you hope to see,鈥� Andelman told 附近上门 News via email. 鈥淗e lived this problem before he built the company. That always matters.鈥�

The investor believes that tax prep is a category where trust is crucial to product success.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e going to bring AI into that workflow, it has to be transparent, auditable, and built with a human in the loop,鈥� Andelman added. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what Juno understood early, and I think that鈥檚 a big part of why the product is resonating.鈥�

Fintech startups, particularly those that apply AI to traditionally manual or burdensome processes, have benefited from increased investment in recent quarters. Total global funding to VC-backed financial technology startups totaled $53.8 billion in 2025, per 附近上门 . That鈥檚 a more than 29% increase from 2024鈥檚 total of $41.6 billion raised.

Related 附近上门 query:

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For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 12 quarters below.

Of that total, $761 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 158% compared to the $295 million that flowed into such deals in the first quarter of 2025. It鈥檚 also up 203% compared with the $251 million in late-stage and growth rounds that were raised by LatAm startups in the 2025 fourth quarter.

Table of contents

• Mexico leads
• Fewer deals
• Some big rounds
• Investor POV
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Mexico leads

Nearly one-third of the total amount raised in the first quarter went to one startup. Mexico City-based , an online used car marketplace, secured a $300 million Series F financing led by and in February.

Notably, mostly due to that outsized round, Mexican startups outperformed their Brazilian counterparts in the first quarter, raising a total of $404 million compared to Brazil鈥檚 $240 million.

Historically, Brazil has been the powerhouse in Latin America for venture capital funding. But it鈥檚 not the first time in recent quarters that Mexico has topped Latin America鈥檚 largest country. Mexico also raised more funding in the second quarter of 2025.

Overall, the first quarter marks only the second time since Q2 2012 that Mexican startups raised more venture capital than their Brazilian counterparts in Latin America, our data indicates.

Fewer deals

Round counts and total dollars raised decreased substantially sequentially and year over year across angel, seed and early stages. Of the $1.03 billion raised by Latin America鈥檚 startups in the first quarter, less than 9% 鈥� or $92 million 鈥� was raised across the angel and seed stages.

That compares to $161 million raised across those stages in the fourth quarter of 2025, and $152 million in the same first quarter last year.

Just over 17%, or $179 million, was raised at early stages, significantly lower than the $690 million raised in the fourth quarter and $472 million in the same period last year.

We expect the Q1 deal counts to rise somewhat over time, however, as seed rounds in particular are commonly reported weeks or months after they close.

Some big rounds

While Kavak鈥檚 round was the largest financing in Latin America in the first quarter, it was not the only nine-figure raise the region saw in Q1.

Argentinian fintech raised $195 million at a $3.2 billion valuation in March in a round led by .

Other large deals that took place in Q1 include:

• Mexico City-based , a financial app built around stablecoins, raised $70 million in a round co-led by and .
• Buenos Aires-based , a payments infrastructure startup, landed a $55 million Series C financing co-led by and.

Notably, the largest rounds included participation from high-profile global funds, including Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital and Insight Partners.

Investor POV

, managing partner of New York-based , said his firm has made more than 60 investments in Latin America since 2022 鈥� steadily increasing its investment pace every year from 11 deals in the region in 2023 to 20 in 2025.

In his view, many of the global investors who began putting more funding into Latin America鈥檚 startups in recent years are still writing checks there. However, he acknowledges that some 鈥渕omentum鈥� investors have slowed down.

Still, 鈥渁lmost all of the long-term smart capital investors have remained very active,鈥� he said.

Last year was 鈥渁ll about stablecoins and fintech infrastructure鈥� for the region. We should expect more of that this year, along with increased AI use across all sectors and strong enterprise growth in Brazil, he told 附近上门 News.

Brazil continues to be Endeavor Catalyst’s top market, but it is watching startups across the region, including in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and even smaller markets such as Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.

Endeavor Catalyst has reason to be bullish on Latin America. Startups it has backed in the region are among the top performers of the firm鈥檚 portfolio. More than one-third (34%) of its 2026 Outlier class, which comprise roughly the top 10% best performers in its network, are from Latin America, according to Taylor.

, general partner at S茫o Paulo-based seed-stage firm , told 附近上门 News that his firm鈥檚 pace in Latin America has remained constant and 鈥渋ntentionally selective.鈥�

鈥淲e’ve always believed that seed in Latin America works best when you’re deeply involved with a small number of exceptional founders and not try to index the market,鈥� he noted.

But like many other investors, OneVC is also investing at an earlier stage.

鈥淥ne notable shift is that, as founding teams move faster than ever, often reaching product-market signal with leaner teams and AI-native tooling,鈥� Cartolano said, 鈥減re-seed is taking a larger share of our investments, and we expect that to continue being the case for this cycle.鈥�

Like Endeavor Catalyst, Brazil is OneVC鈥檚 primary market. It has a home court advantage, but as Cartolano notes, the country also has a lot going for it including being the largest economy in Latin America, one of the world’s most active early-adopter communities for new technology (, -native commerce, AI), and a regulatory environment 鈥� particularly in financial services 鈥� which in his view 鈥渢hat fosters innovation鈥�

As a secondary focus, interestingly, his firm is tracking an increasing number of strong Latino founders relocating to the United States to build companies.

鈥淲e like that,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey combine deep operational instincts from LatAm with access to the largest addressable market and most liquid exit environment.鈥�

He agrees with Taylor that global interest appears to be renewing in Latin America startups.

鈥淭here is no shortage of capital for the best companies in the region, regardless of the state, and we are seeing some large firms investing in LatAm for the first time or coming back after a long period,鈥� he said.

And while fintech has historically dominated when it comes to venture funding in Latin America, Cartolano said that fintech is now unsurprisingly giving way to AI-first companies that sell services, particularly to enterprises.

鈥淭he broader market is also shifting from consumer-facing models toward B2B, as enterprise companies are more incentivized than ever to adopt new technologies,鈥� he added. 鈥淥neVC is especially focused on GenAI companies that 鈥榮ell work,鈥� replacing headcount and outsourced services with AI-driven delivery at a fraction of the cost.

Related reading:

• In Q2, Mexico Surpasses Brazil In Venture Dollars For First Time In Over A Decade

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 附近上门, and is based on reported data. Data is as of March 31, 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. 附近上门 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 附近上门 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. 附近上门 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. 附近上门 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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led the financing, which included participation from , and angel investors from companies such as , , and .

Miravoice has developed an AI interviewer that it says can conduct phone surveys and voice interviews for 鈥減recision data collection鈥� without human interviewers. The surveys are long-form and quantitative, with some including more than 120 questions and lasting over 40 minutes. They span open-ended responses, numerical inputs, multiple choice questions, Likert scales and matrix questions.

鈥淚magine talking to 100,000 people and instantly capturing what they know,鈥� said CEO and co-founder . 鈥淲e make that as simple as creating a Google Form.鈥�

Voice interviews have long been the gold standard for rigorous data collection, but the costs and operational frictions of talking to people have made it more challenging, Jain contends.

鈥淗aving to hire call centers made running quantitative research surveys infeasible for most organizations,鈥� he said.

Miravoice claims its agent is designed to be simple for anyone to deploy and not require technical backgrounds to operate.

A user can build a questionnaire, spin up a phone number, and launch its trained voice agent 鈥渢o get results back in hours rather than weeks,鈥� Jain said.

Multiple languages and 鈥榤essy realities鈥�

Miravoice is hyper-focused on precision, according to Jain.

鈥淯nlike other voice agent companies, we focus on structured conversations in which most questions are known in advance,鈥� he explained. 鈥淥ur customers know what information they want to get ahead of time, which is why we focus on extracting as much information as possible from respondents while minimizing bias.鈥�

He said Miravoice鈥檚 agent will ask every question in a survey without hallucinating responses.

鈥淎nd when the messy realities of human conversations arise, like interruptions or pauses, our AI can handle them seamlessly,鈥� Jain said.

The Miravoice interviewer is also multilingual by design, a capability that Jain believes is difficult for individual call centers to match.

Using Miravoice鈥檚 agent is also cheaper than hiring and training call centers to conduct the same surveys, Jain contends. The platform can handle both outbound and inbound calls if a respondent calls back at any time of day.

Idea and business model

Miravoice was founded by Jain, and , three close friends from California who have known each other for more than a decade.

The idea for Miravoice came from firsthand experience with the pains of scaling quantitative survey research in their roles as product managers and consultants. They realized that voice agent technology would be the way these calls would be handled in the future, 鈥渋f agents were appropriately crafted for the unique needs of this market use case.鈥�

Miravoice has between 10 and 20 customers at varying stages 鈥� from paid pilot to production use cases 鈥� according to the company. Those customers include a variety of public-opinion survey organizations, market research firms, university departments and private companies across retail, entertainment and logistics.

Its revenue model is usage-based billing: Customers pay for the time its AI agents are actually on the phone with respondents.

Miravoice surpassed 100,000 calls made in 2025, per the company, and expects that number to be significantly higher this year.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 exciting about the space we鈥檙e operating in is that the scale of the number of calls our platform has to handle dwarfs most other voice agent use cases,鈥� Jain said. 鈥淥ur pilot projects alone are on the order of tens of thousands of calls: more than some voice agent companies鈥� monthly production workloads. In production, some of our customers expect to perform millions to tens of millions of calls each year, after full deployment and implementation.鈥�

Voice AI on the rise

, general partner at Unusual Ventures, said his firm was impressed by the founding team鈥檚 technical acumen and product vision.

In Albright鈥檚 view, Miravoice鈥檚 focus on precision data collection sets it apart from most other entrants in the voice agent market research space.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e correctly identified that voice AI can streamline operations and time-to-insight for large-scale quantitative research studies,鈥� he wrote via email.

Another area where Miravoice distinguishes itself is its ease of use, he said.

鈥淢any voice agent platforms are geared towards technical audiences and software developers,鈥� Albright said. 鈥淢iravoice was built from the ground up with simplicity in mind so that truly any team can use it. This is a step-function change in making AI voice agents for surveys as ubiquitous as web forms are today.鈥�

Indeed, voice AI startups have emerged as standouts in the vast AI space, attracting the attention of investors globally, according to 附近上门 data. Over the past two years, several voice AI companies have seen their valuations triple 鈥� a signal of accelerating market demand and perceived long-term worth.

One example of a voice AI company that has seen a massive valuation jump is , which allows creators, enterprises and others to use AI software to replicate voices in dozens of languages. The Brooklyn, New York-based startup went from achieving unicorn status with an $80 million Series B raise in January 2024 to being valued at about $3.3 billion one year later with a $180 million Series C co-led by and . Then, in February of this year, it raised a $500 million Series D round led by at an $11 billion valuation.

Related reading:

• Why Big Investors Are All Ears For Voice AI Startups
• ElevenLabs Latest AI Unicorn After $80M Raise

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and led the raise, which included participation from听, founder , and . Anvil had previously raised $1 million in pre-seed capital from Matter in 2025.

The San Francisco-based startup builds custom robots for businesses and describes itself as a hardware, software and manufacturing platform.

Before starting Anvil Robotics last July, , CEO, and CTO , spent six months talking to a variety of businesses. They concluded that physical AI teams in companies, big and small, were spending over six months piecing together various robot arms, cameras and open-source libraries 鈥渏ust to get a glued-together prototype.鈥�

鈥淭his isn鈥檛 a problem if you鈥檙e , or have nine-figure R&D budgets, and you custom design and build everything, including hardware and software,鈥� Xia told 附近上门 News in an interview. 鈥淏ut for many companies, even well-funded teams, standing up a robotic system with all the sensors and tools and controls you need is a huge challenge that costs you both time and money.鈥�

So the pair started Anvil to fill that gap.

鈥淲e support physical AI teams who don鈥檛 have $100 million, to make this industry much more accessible,鈥� Xia said.

Customers can go on Anvil鈥檚 site and 鈥渆ssentially build out what they want,鈥� he added, using either prebuilt kits or customization.

鈥淭hey are very much like Legos,鈥� Xia said. Anvil then ships the robots within 1 to 2 days via 2-day air freight. The company is able to do so because it has a significant presence in Taiwan, and is its own manufacturer, he said. (But more on that later.)

Its robots are about the size of a middle-school-aged child, but big enough to do basic dextrous tasks. Anvil鈥檚 robots typically cost $5,000 to $10,000, but its least expensive model is just $1,900.

鈥淚 think the pricing is going down to a point where researchers and individuals are able to afford this,鈥� Xia said. 鈥淚 think it’s going to make a really big difference with the community and we鈥檒l see a lot more activity in people building physical AI applications.鈥�

Anvil started shipping robots in September and has so far delivered over 100 of them to customers globally.

Open-platform approach

Anvil competes with the likes of and but claims that it鈥檚 different from other startups in the space in a couple of ways.

鈥淢ost are basically building toys for rich people,鈥� Xia said.

Anvil鈥檚 model stands out, he believes, because it鈥檚 an open platform, meaning that all of its robot designs are open-sourced. Most other startups, according to Xia, sell a proprietary design that gets customers 鈥渓ocked in hardware and software.鈥�

鈥淚f you work with Anvil, you鈥檙e not locked into a single vendor, plus you have large communities behind you,鈥� he said.

Also, as mentioned above, Anvil is an actual manufacturer, and it 鈥渃ontrols the whole stack.鈥�

鈥淲e don鈥檛 outsource 鈥� we do this hard part ourselves,鈥� he told 附近上门 News. 鈥淲e buy each part and operate our own factory, which our customers can leverage.鈥�

Further, Anvil customers can choose where their components come from and how many to build. Historically, if a U.S. company has wanted to deploy a robot, it鈥檚 largely been dependent on hardware built in China.

鈥淚f a business wants 10 robots made with Taiwanese or Japanese parts, we can do it,鈥� Xia said. 鈥淚 believe many companies will become more aware of supply chain risk and need this. Many robots today are made in China, and we鈥檙e not exactly on great terms [with the country].

Business growth

Anvil won鈥檛 disclose hard revenue figures, but Xia noted that it has reached seven figures and that it has over 50 customers. That revenue mostly comes from hardware today, but the company plans to release more software, data tools and services, which should diversify its revenue base.

Its customers are a varied bunch, with some 鈥渆xciting鈥� ones such as giant tech companies under NDA. Those they can talk about are a small chocolate factory based in Portland, Oregon; 鈥檚 GEAR lab, which is doing the humanoid research behind GR00T; and , which has raised more than $300 million to automate welding and industrial tasks.

So far, all of its customers have been inbound, according to Xia.

鈥淚t鈥檚 all been word-of-mouth, and a lot of it is community-driven,鈥� said Xia, who added that he previously co-founded another startup called and was formerly chief product officer at .

A 鈥榬obotics foundry鈥�

, founding partner at Matter, told 附近上门 News via email that his firm has been investing 鈥渁t the forefront鈥� of physical AI 鈥渇or some time.鈥�

鈥淚t quickly became clear that innovation on the hardware 鈥� the motors, actuators, sensors, systems, etc. 鈥� hasn’t kept pace with the rapid improvement in AI. They are still stuck in the same paradigms that powered the industrial robotics of decades past.鈥�

In his view, AI robots today are like 鈥渋ncredible brains trapped in weak, incapable bodies.鈥�

That鈥檚 where Anvil comes in. His firm incubated the startup to create a robotics foundry that could 鈥渕ove many companies forward.鈥�

鈥淏ehind great generations of products are foundational platform enablers,鈥� Huang said, 鈥渁nd we founded Anvil to be to physical AI what AWS () has been to SaaS and what TSMC () has been to chips.鈥�

The hard part of hardware is less about creating a great robot once, and more about making many great robots 鈥渙ver and over again,鈥� Huang added.

Anvil’s founders, he said, will be able to produce and iterate on hardware at 鈥渟oftware-like speeds鈥� and then deliver it at scale in production.

Added Huang: 鈥淭his is something unmatched.鈥�

Overall, robotics startup funding hit a record high last year, . Startups in the sector raised nearly $14 billion in funding in 2025, up from $8.2 billion in 2024, even topping the $13.1 billion raised in the peak venture funding year of 2021.

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That funding is increasingly concentrated in a handful of foundational giants, including , and . In 2025 and early 2026, the market saw a shift to a small number of companies capturing a disproportionate share of global capital.

The broad trend: After three years of declining or flat venture investment, global startup overall funding grew year over year in 2025, 附近上门 data shows. Notably, year-over-year funding growth concentrated in the largest rounds and in the AI sector. Roughly 50% of all global venture funding in 2025 went to companies in AI-related fields, making artificial intelligence the leading sector for funding, as it was for the past three years.

Venture funding to AI overall reached $211 billion 鈥� up 85% year over year from $114 billion in 2024 鈥� 附近上门 data shows. Funding to the AI sector in 2025 surpassed every year in the past decade, including the peak global funding year of 2021.

The numbers: As of March 31, foundational AI startups had raised $178 billion across 24 deals, compared with $88.9 billion across 66 deals in all of 2025 in a 100% increase. That鈥檚 also significantly higher 鈥� 466.9% higher to be exact 鈥� than the $31.4 billion raised across 52 deals in 2024.

By contrast, funding to foundational AI companies totaled just $23.2 billion in 2023 (a fraction of the size of OpenAI鈥檚 latest round) and a mere $1.4 billion in 2022.

Noteworthy rounds

Unsurprisingly, the two largest rounds in 2026 so far were raised by rivals OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) and Anthropic (maker of Claude).

Last month, OpenAI revealed that an additional $10 billion in funding for its record-setting $110 billion megaround announced in February, bringing the total fundraise for the San Francisco-based company to over $120 billion. On March 31, it was reported that the round actually reached $122 billion. Backers in the latest financing include , , , and .

The first tranche of that round had already marked the largest venture funding deal of 2026 so far and the largest of all time, per .

Also in February, generative AI company Anthropic announced it had raised $30 billion in a massive Series G funding round led by and , valuing it at $380 billion post-money. With that round, San Francisco-based Anthropic has now raised nearly $64 billion since its 2021 inception, per .

The year kicked off with 鈥檚 xAI, the generative AI startup known for its Grok chatbot and the parent company of (formerly Twitter), securing $20 billion in Series E funding from a long list of venture and strategic investors. Founded in 2023, xAI has raised $42.7 billion in reported debt and equity funding to date, per .

Beyond the three largest generative AI giants, a smaller cohort of foundational AI startups are also raising significant sums of money.

, a startup co-founded by computer science pioneer and former AI chief , in March raised $1.03 billion to develop 鈥渨orld models,鈥� or AI designed to learn from and interact with the physical world. The funding for Paris-based AMI represented the largest seed round ever for a European startup and one of the region鈥檚 largest fundings for an AI startup overall, per 附近上门 data. , ,, and led the funding, which reportedly values AMI at $3.5 billion.

After that, the next-largest raise so far is a $1 billion injection into , a San Francisco-based startup founded by AI pioneer that develops foundational models to generate and interact with the 3D world. Investors in that round included , , , , and .

Exits and IPOs

The foundational AI sector is too young to have seen any significant exits yet. However, OpenAI in particular has done quite a bit of acquiring.

OpenAI has already made six acquisitions in 2026, nearly as many as it made in all of 2025, according to 附近上门 . Its latest purchase took place on March 19, when it announced plans to , a creator of open-source tools for software developers. This month, it also snapped up , an open-source tool for testing AI applications.

Overall, the San Francisco-based company has acquired 17 companies in the past three years, 附近上门 data shows. Eight of those purchases were made in 2025, although it didn鈥檛 even start making acquisitions until April last year.

Meanwhile, data shows that Anthropic has been far less acquisitive. So far this year, it has made only one known purchase, buying , a 2-year-old software development startup. In 2025, Anthropic made two known acquisitions: , an LLM evaluation platform for enterprises, and , a JavaScript runtime for developing and managing web applications.

No foundational AI model company is currently public, though several are actively preparing to change that in late 2026 or sometime in 2027. The most likely candidates are the companies that have also raised the most capital: OpenAI and Anthropic.

Toronto-based , founded by ex- researchers, is also another possibility. That startup last August raised $500 million at a $6.8 billion valuation. and co-led the round, which included participation from , , , 听1 and others.

The case of xAI is an interesting one. In early 2026, the company effectively merged its interests with . As a result, the highly anticipated SpaceX IPO, expected in mid- to late-2026, will now be the primary vehicle for public investors to gain exposure to xAI鈥檚 foundational models.

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The round marks a significant step-up in valuation from the $3.6 billion that Boston-based Whoop achieved in August 2021 when it raised a $200 million Series F round. In total, it has raised over $900 million since it was founded by in 2012.

led its latest financing, which included participation from a slew of institutional investors, athletes and angels, including , , , and .

Individual investors in the round include soccer star , players and , and musician .

Whoop says it is powered by more than 24 billion hours of physiological data and purpose-built AI models to provide predictive, personalized health insights. It claims to help users understand how they slept, whether they have recovered, how hard to push or pull back, and how daily behaviors like training, nutrition and stress are impacting their performance and long-term health. It further ambitiously claims that it helps users 鈥渋dentify early warning signs, reduce risk, and take action that can prevent serious health events.鈥�

Subscription-based insights

Its model is different from that of many wearables companies. The actual wearable doesn鈥檛 cost anything, but 鈥渕embers鈥� pay a subscription to access the insights it offers. There are different tiers based on style and performance level.

Whoop has historically been more popular among athletes and die-hard workout enthusiasts, although it appears to be becoming more mainstream. The company says it now has over 2.5 million members globally, and that in 2025 bookings grew 103% year over year. It听 operated cash flow positive and ended the year at a $1.1 billion run rate.

The company is actively hiring for over 600 roles as it plans to double down on R&D and global expansion across Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

Whoop鈥檚 round is a bright spot in a sector that hit a cyclical low last year after peaking about four years ago. Just over $5 billion in global venture funding went to fitness and wellness-related startups in 2025, 附近上门 data shows.

That said, it鈥檚 not as if investors have abandoned the space, and there are clearly still companies securing big rounds.

Last year, the standout was , maker of a smart ring that collects data on dozens of personal health and wellness metrics. Last October, the 12-year-old Finnish company it had closed on more than $900 million in funding at an impressive $11 billion valuation.

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Venture firms that set up shop in the Texas capital city included , , and 1, among others. famously moved 鈥檚 headquarters to Austin in 2021, while also purchasing a house and establishing a residence there.

But as more employees returned to in-office work, Austin slowly seemed to fall out of favor with the tech community, some of whom said it had been overhyped as a startup hub.

There were reports of tech workers who had moved to the city during the pandemic and , saying they were going back to places like the Bay Area. Musk back to California in 2023.

Funding tops pandemic peak

Undeterred by the 鈥渢ourists,鈥� the startup and venture community in Austin kept plugging away. And those efforts are reflected in a surge in funding to startups headquartered there last year, with 2025 posting an all-time high for Austin venture investment, 附近上门 data shows.

Investment into Austin-based startups spiked 64.8% to $7.19 billion in 2025 as more investors poured money into companies based in the region, according to 附近上门 . That鈥檚 compared with the $4.37 billion raised by Austin-area startups in 2024 and tops even the $6.1 billion raised in 2021, at the height of the venture funding frenzy.

Notably, deal counts actually decreased from 312 in 2024 to 272 year over year, signaling an increase in later-stage deals. Indeed, the data corroborates that with $4 billion of the total raised in 2025 classified as late-stage rounds.

Last year鈥檚 totals were also more than double 鈥� 130% higher 鈥� than the $3.1 billion raised in 2023. That money was raised across 403 deals, signaling much smaller round sizes at the time and a more mature market.

A tech scene decades in the making

, managing partner of , doesn鈥檛 believe that the Austin funding performance in 2025 was anomalous.

Rather, he calls it 鈥渢he payoff from decades of compounding.鈥�

鈥淭alent density in venture categories such as software, fintech, health tech, defense and听 robotics has reached a critical mass, driven by waves of Bay Area relocations, both full HQ moves and satellite offices, that brought technical, product and operational talent into the market,鈥� Flager said.

That talent eventually left to build new companies, he said, and the cycle repeated.

鈥淥n the capital side, the stack has matured across all stages, from pre-seed through growth, with local firms that have now cycled through multiple funds and understand the market deeply,鈥� Flager said. 鈥淟ayer in a business-friendly regulatory environment, a relatively lower cost of living, as well as a lower effective tax rate, and Austin becomes an attractive place to start and scale a company.鈥�

Former Austin Mayor saw so much potential in the city鈥檚 startup scene that he began a career in venture investing after his tenure ended in early 2023. (He now works for New York-based ).

Part of the city’s success as a startup hub stems from its reputation as a haven for mavericks and risk-takers, Adler has said.

鈥淢ost cities in the world, you try something, you fail; it’s hard to have access to the capital the second time,” he told co-founder in a in 2022. “In Austin, the civic folk heroes are the people that tried something and it didn’t quite work out and they worked on it until it did.鈥�

, founder of , a solo GP venture firm based in nearby San Antonio, said that it feels like Texas and the Austin metro area specifically are becoming more attractive to manufacturing- and engineering-heavy businesses.

鈥淪ome of that may be thanks to Tesla, and some of it may simply reflect the physical advantages of the state,鈥� he told 附近上门 News. 鈥淓ither way, this [surge in financing] feels less like hype returning and more like capital concentrating around a narrower set of serious, technically differentiated companies.鈥�

Deal sizes grow

That diversity among funded startups is reflected in last year鈥檚 investment totals for Austin, which were boosted by several large, late-stage deals across a broad range of industries.

The largest was a $1 billion Series C round for energy provider in October. New York-based led that financing, which valued the 2-year-old company at $4 billion.

Looking back, February in particular was a busy month for venture funding. That month alone saw the second-, third- and fourth-largest rounds in Austin for the year. They included:

• A February Series C round in which autonomous surface vessels maker raised $600 million at a $4 billion valuation. led the round for the defense tech startup.
• Also in February, , which provides endpoint management, security and monitoring, raised $500 million in Series C extensions at a $5 billion valuation 鈥� more than doubling its value from just 12 months prior. The funding came in separate tranches led by and 鈥檚 , with participation from other investors.
• Robotics company in February raised $415 million in Series A financing led by听 and accelerator (A $520 million extension to that Series A was raised in February 2026, taking the total round to over $935 million.)

The findings correspond with Flager鈥檚 observations.

鈥淎 good chunk of the capital raised in Austin was driven by several large deals. Similar to what we saw across the U.S. in 2025, venture funding in Austin was more concentrated than it has been in the past,鈥� he told 附近上门 News. 鈥淩oughly 38% of the capital deployed went to the top five venture financings in Austin. I believe the top 10 deals nationally accounted for more than 40% of the capital raised last year. We’ll see if this trend continues into 2026 and beyond. The start of the year suggests it will.鈥�

, founding partner of , agrees, noting that from a dollars perspective, the surge in financings was driven by a handful of outsized capital-intensive deals in newer categories such as defense and deep tech.

鈥淭hese companies require a combination of technology, land for manufacturing facilities, and talent for manufacturing tasks. Austin has unique skillsets for that,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t has a density of three things: talent in deep tech with , and many others moving to Texas in light of favorable business conditions with expertise in these industries; expansive land around Central Texas that is inexpensive, especially compared to California; and lower cost manufacturing-related labor especially given the surge in manufacturing jobs such as at Tesla in recent times.鈥�

Burgeoning industries

Once upon a time, Austin was better known as home to software and CPG companies. And while those types of companies certainly still exist, a number of other industries are growing increasingly robust, as the local investors have pointed out.

As with many top tech markets, Flager said Austin has long been strong for application and infrastructure software, which is currently being challenged by AI. In his view, that talent has migrated to building 鈥渜uality鈥� vertical agentic software and AI-native businesses.

鈥淲e are seeing these companies grow quickly and build scale, while using less capital 鈥� which is exciting,鈥� he added. 鈥淭he domain experts who built and scaled application software companies here over the last two decades are spinning out to build the next generation of native AI businesses.鈥�

The market overall is also broadening in interesting ways. Defense and autonomy have emerged as breakout categories, with Austin becoming one of the stronger markets in the country for dual-use and autonomous systems companies, noted Flager.

鈥淭he combination of software and hardware skills now in Texas, along with a business-friendly regulatory environment, has allowed Austin to take a leadership position in these important and developing markets,鈥� he said. 鈥淓nergy tech is also a natural fit given Texas’ grid scale and the surging power demands of AI infrastructure.鈥�

Finally, robotics and advanced manufacturing are also gaining momentum, driven by deep engineering talent and the ability to scale manufacturing near Austin cost-effectively, allowing engineers, executives and other factory employees to coexist and collaborate in close proximity.

Srinivasan noted that his firm is seeing strong activity in vertical AI companies, or companies that serve vertical markets with AI that is tuned on specialized proprietary vertical data, often targeting the services and labor expenditures by their customers.

鈥淭hese companies deliver 鈥楽ervices as Software鈥� with close to software gross margins and pricing models that are based more on usage and outcomes as opposed to the traditional seat-based models,鈥� he said.

Srinivasan also expects the city to continue to see large funding deals in defense and deep tech, given the combination of local strengths and robust global demand for such products.

Continued momentum

Investors and companies continue to be drawn to Austin. In late December, San Francisco-based venture firm in the city. One of the firm鈥檚 founders, , also announced that he had personally moved to Austin. The firm鈥檚 other founder, , had lived and worked in the city since 2022.

In late March of this year, Musk to build two semiconductor factories totaling 100 million square feet in Austin to supply advanced chips for and Tesla. The venture, known as Terafab, aims to manufacture 1 trillion watts of computing power per year, he said. Media outlets valued the initiative at nearly

Also this week, Barcelona-based AI health tech startup announced it will open an office and hire in Austin.

CEO told 附近上门 News that with the company鈥檚 New York office already established, the next step was not just expansion, 鈥渂ut choosing the right place to build.鈥�

鈥淎nd we chose Austin for one reason above all: talent,鈥� he said. 鈥淎s an AI health tech company, our success depends on attracting exceptional people across engineering, data and life sciences. Austin has rapidly become one of the most competitive talent markets. The city is one of the fastest-growing in the United States. This brings together deep tech expertise, entrepreneurial energy and a growing concentration of healthcare innovation. Ideal for our goal of building an R&D hub. 鈥�

Coelho also points out that Biorce has witnessed a 鈥渢rend鈥� of people moving from the Bay Area to Austin, noting that 鈥渢he quality of life has gained notoriety.鈥�

鈥淏ut for us, this isn鈥檛 about following a trend,鈥� he added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about building where the best people are 鈥� and where they want to be.鈥�

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led the company鈥檚 Series A, which was raised in just three weeks and included participation from repeat backers and . The round also included an investment from new strategic backer , a real estate and technology investment firm. It brings New York-based Trayd鈥檚 total funding to $17 million.

Co-founder and CEO grew up in a New York construction family, watching her father navigate razor-thin margins and complex compliance requirements.

鈥淚 saw firsthand the operational strain that comes with juggling union rules, multistate labor laws, and endless manual back-office processes,鈥� she recalls.

The experience inspired her to team up with , the company鈥檚 CTO, who spent 10 years as 鈥檚 web platform lead, to start Trayd in 2021.

Specialty trade service

For the unacquainted, specialty trade contractors are businesses that place skilled workers on job sites to perform the actual physical building work. These contractors include concrete crews, electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, painters and fireproofing. They’re distinct from general contractors, who manage and coordinate projects overall but don’t typically perform the hands-on trade work themselves.

Trayd automates payroll, HR, compliance and labor cost tracking for such contractors. Among the benefits it touts are providing real-time visibility into the costs of labor, equipment and materials.

The startup aims to substantially cut the time specialty trade contractors spend on its weekly payroll and compliance process.

鈥淲hat used to take 14 hours of manual work can now be done in under 30 minutes,鈥� Berger told 附近上门 News.

Trayd is working to fill what it believes is a unique gap in the market. While there are significantly more specialty trade contractors than general contractors, the majority of construction technology has been built for the latter, Berger believes.

The startup鈥檚 closest competitors are legacy payroll providers like and , along with newer companies like and .

鈥淭he difference is that most of these systems weren鈥檛 built for the complexity of specialty trades,鈥� Berger explains. 鈥淭rayd was.鈥�

Streamlining payroll

In construction, compensation is uniquely complex, Berger said. A single worker might earn four different pay rates in a single day depending on the specific trade task, the project scope and the jurisdiction.

鈥淕eneric鈥� payroll platforms cannot handle this constant rate variability, contends Berger. For example, payroll admins might receive stacks of paper timesheets or phoned-in hours from various job sites. Then they have to manually key all of that field data into Excel spreadsheets and calculate the pay rates by hand, factoring in union rules, prevailing wage requirements and state-by-state taxes.

They might then have to cross-check the spreadsheet math and manually double-enter the finalized numbers into a generic payroll system, and then again into their accounting software.

Trayd, according to Berger, dramatically reduces the time to perform all those tasks by capturing the time data directly from the field and automatically calculating the correct variable pay rates, union deductions, and multistate taxes.

鈥淯nlike salaried workforces, construction workers can earn multiple different rates in a single day depending on the trade, the project, and whether the work falls under prevailing wage, state or union requirements,鈥� she said. 鈥淭rayd was designed from day one to handle that complexity.鈥�

National expansion

The product seems to be resonating in the industry. Trayd has grown revenue over 600% year over year and moves tens of millions of payroll dollars each week, according to Berger. Several hundred contractors use Trayd weekly. , and are among its customers.

The startup operates on a SaaS model, with pricing tied to the number of workers processed through payroll.

Trayd started in New York and the broader Northeast, where union density and regulatory complexity are highest. It is now expanding nationally. Presently, it has about two dozen employees.

Before Trayd, Berger co-founded , a consumer social platform that is now defunct.

She acknowledges that being female founders in a male-dominated industry has not been easy.

鈥淎s women building in construction 鈥� where we’re outnumbered 9 to 1 鈥� the default assumption is that we’re too far removed or don’t have access to truly understand the problems on the ground. In the early years especially, there’s a ‘prove it twice’ dynamic. Without the benefit of the doubt, we had to earn credibility through repetition 鈥�- every meeting, every deal, every product decision. We’ve had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously,鈥� she told 附近上门 News. 鈥淏ut that pressure becomes an advantage. You show up more prepared, you listen more closely, and you build conviction faster. Over time, that compounds into a better product and deeper, more trusted customer relationships.鈥�

, general partner听at White Star Capital, said his firm was first impressed by Trayd鈥檚 founding team, describing Berger and Kessler as 鈥渁 rare combination.鈥�

鈥淎nna鈥檚 background and family ties to the space allow her to understand the unique pain points contractors face from the inside,鈥� he wrote via email. 鈥淐ara brings the technical depth to build mission-critical systems without sacrificing product simplicity.鈥�

Beyond the caliber of the founders, White Star also believes that Trayd stands out because 鈥渋t is truly a better product for its customers.鈥�

鈥淥n a technical level, we were very impressed by how thoughtfully the product has been built,鈥� Lee added. 鈥淲e see that as a real advantage, because by structuring data cleanly at the system level, Trayd is better positioned to scale reliably and to become a strong foundation for AI in the construction industry over time.鈥�

Venture investment in property technology startups has rebounded in recent years after plunging from the pandemic peak. In 2025, startups in the sector pulled in approximately $10.5 billion in seed- through growth-stage financing globally, per 附近上门 . That鈥檚 up about 17% from $9 billion in 2024, with much of the recent investment going to startups that promise greater ROI through the use of automation or AI.

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