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.

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• 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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And as was the case in the Q4 as well, Q1 was well above the prior five quarters by funding amounts, signaling that European venture funding may be gaining momentum.

Table of contents

• AI above 50%
• UK and France grew YoY
• Europe by stage
• In summary
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Still, Europe saw more capital going into fewer companies in Q1, with deal volume plummeting 40% year over year. Much of the decline was at seed stage (down 44%) and early stage (down 30%), while late-stage deal volume was in-line with the previous four quarters.

AI above 50%

Funding to Europe-based AI startups increased significantly last quarter, reaching $9.2 billion, or more than half of total venture funding to the region. That marks the sector鈥檚 highest proportion in a quarter on record.

The largest four rounds to startups based in Europe in Q1 were for AI-related companies. Data center builder , autonomous driving developer , and frontier lab for physical AI raised more than a billion each, and AI legaltech 鈥檚 funding totaled more than $500 million.

UK and France grew YoY

Startups from the U.K. and France raised more funding in Q1, totaling $7.4 billion and聽 $2.9 billion, respectively. Germany-based startups raised $1.9 billion, flat year over year.

France has emerged as the European leader for AI frontier labs. Last quarter, it saw Paris-based , founded by former AI chief , raise $1 billion in the continent鈥檚 largest seed funding round on record. The deal also marked only the second billion-dollar-plus funding deal for a European frontier lab, following s $2 billion round last year.

Europe by stage

In Q1, late-stage funding to Europe-based startups nearly doubled from a year ago. The largest rounds were across a variety of sectors, including AI hardware, fintech, agentic AI, productivity software, sensors, defense, e-commerce and energy.

A total of $9.2 billion was invested at late-stage across 83 deals, up 91% by amounts year over year.

Early-stage funding to the region鈥檚 startups fell from a year earlier 鈥� by around 20% 鈥� 附近上门 data shows. Early-stage investment totaled $5.3 billion in Q1 across more than 240 funding rounds. Within early-stage funding, larger Series A rounds predominated in semiconductors, energy and healthcare.

Seed funding reached $3.1 billion in Q1 across more than 790 deals. The funding total was up 50% year over year, but largely due to the $1 billion round for Advanced Machine Intelligence.

In summary

Larger rounds into critical sectors in AI drove European startup funding up in Q1. A mix of Europe- and U.S.-based investors led the largest fundings last quarter into AI infrastructure, frontier labs, autonomous systems and applications.

Overall, Europe is in-line with global trends as capital concentrates into the largest deals in sectors that are surging due to AI.

Related 附近上门 query:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 附近上门, and is based on reported data. Data is as of April 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. 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.)

Illustration:

Overall, investors put $27.4 billion to work across seed- through growth-stage financings for Asian companies in Q1, per 附近上门 data. That鈥檚 up about 20% from the prior quarter and nearly double year-ago levels.

Total funding also hit its highest level in more than three years, as charted below.

Funding went to bigger rounds, not more of them. Per 附近上门 data, deal counts were flat with the prior quarter and up incrementally from prior year levels. In general, deal counts haven鈥檛 fluctuated widely from quarter to quarter over the past few years, as seen in the chart below.

Table of contents

• Most gains go to China
• Funding rose across stages, with most going to later stage
• Early stage was strong too
• Seed also showed an upswing
• A record quarter for AI
• Looking up
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Most gains go to China

An estimated $16.5 billion 鈥� or 60% of all Asian startup funding 鈥� went to China-based startups in Q1. It was also the third consecutive quarter for increased Chinese venture funding, which hit a multiyear low in the first half of 2025.

AI funding drove the gains in China. The quarter鈥檚 largest rounds all went to AI-focused companies, including foundational model startup , agentic AI company , and AI-enabled robot developer .

After China, the next-largest venture funding recipient in Asia was India, with $3.8 billion in reported Q1 investment, the highest number in the past four quarters. A big chunk of the funding went to the quarter鈥檚 largest equity round, a $600 million financing for AI systems developer .

Below, we chart out venture funding by country to seven leading investment hubs in Asia, showing how regional funding has trended since 2023.

Funding rose across stages, with most going to later stage

Later-stage, early-stage and seed funding all rose sequentially in the first quarter.

Of these, later-stage and technology-growth deals captured the highest share of funding, estimated at $11.7 billion in Q1. The quarter鈥檚 largest late-stage round by a long shot was a $2 billion Series C for Singapore-based data center company .

Overall, it was the largest later-stage tally in five quarters, as charted below.

Early stage was strong too

Early-stage investment also rose in Q1, hitting its highest point in two years.

Per 附近上门 data, an estimated $11.2 billion went to Asian companies around Series A and Series B stages. That鈥檚 nearly double year-ago levels and up about 17% from the prior quarter, as charted below.

Seed also showed an upswing

Investors also poured more money into seed-stage companies, with AI as a core driver.

Around $3.6 billion went to reported seed and angel rounds in Q1, up 85% year over year and 45% quarter over quarter. Reported deal counts dipped a bit, indicating concentration of capital among a smaller subset of hot startups. However, we expect this number to rise over time, as seed deals are often added to the dataset weeks after they close.

A record quarter for AI

It would be remiss to close out a quarterly report these days without some mention of how much investment went to artificial intelligence.

For Q1, Asian startups in AI-related categories pulled in about $11.2 billion, per 附近上门 data, the highest sum we鈥檝e tracked to date.

Looking up

Overall, the quarterly numbers show increasing momentum in China鈥檚 startup ecosystem, fueling much of the rising funding totals in Asia. Investment to startups in India, Singapore and South Korea also rose sequentially in Q1, while funding to Israel declined some.

In sum, it was a solid quarter, peppered with signs of optimism about the regional startup pipeline going forward.

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.)

Illustration:

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 鈥斅燿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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• Fintech Funding Jumped 27% In 2025 With Fewer Deals But Bigger Checks
• Kalshi Secures $1B To Expand Predictions Market Platform
• Digital Savings Startup Vestwell Lands $385M, Doubles Valuation
• 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

Illustration:

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:

Illustration:

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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That, in broad strokes, was the state of startup funding in Q1 of this year, a period characterized by record-setting rounds and investment tallies. The most famous names in AI captured a lion鈥檚 share of funding, drawing in some deep-pocketed backers who are traditionally less active in venture.

This includes the quarter鈥檚 two lead investors in the priciest rounds 鈥� 聽 and . The two co-led mega-financings for both and collectively valued at over $150 billion.

By deal count, meanwhile, the most active post-seed investor was familiar front-runner , while the busiest lead investor was .

To see who else ranked high for deal counts and totals, below we charted out active investors across multiple metrics, including venture, seed and lead investment.

Most active and highest-spending lead investors

We鈥檒l start with lead investors, as these are typically the ones putting the most capital to work.

For Q1, the most active lead investors in post-seed rounds were Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, and . Overall, 19 investors led six or more rounds this past quarter, as charted below.

Of course, the most active lead investors aren鈥檛 always the ones writing the biggest checks. We don鈥檛 have an exact measure for the latter, but we can get a sense by looking at lead investors in rounds with the highest aggregate value.

By this metric, lead investors in the quarter鈥檚 two biggest rounds 鈥� OpenAI鈥檚 record-setting $122 billion financing and Anthropic鈥檚 enormous $30 billion Series G 鈥� rank highest on our list. This includes tech giants and , which took part as strategic investors in the OpenAI round.

Below, we rank the top 26 by total value of Q1 lead investments.

Busiest post-seed investors

As for sheer deal count at post-seed, familiar names once again topped the list. This included investors participating in rounds as both lead- and nonlead backers.

For this category, participated in the highest number of rounds 鈥� 47 in total for Q1. While the storied accelerator is best known as a seed backer, it also racks up deal count at later stages by partaking in follow-on rounds for startups it helped incubate.

The next-busiest post-seed investors for the quarter were Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and . For a bigger-picture view, below we rank the 18 most active by this metric.

Prolific seed dealmakers

At seed, Y Combinator once again captured the top slot for most active. Next on the list were the regularly featured , and .

Below, we ranked the top 21 busiest seed investors.

Familiar names, unfamiliar sums

Overall, the standout takeaway from the Q1 most active investor rankings isn鈥檛 the names on the list. Most are familiar players in the space, balanced out by a few more sporadic investors lured by the promise of AI.

No, what stands out for Q1 is the size of the deals getting done and the overwhelming concentration of capital around AI. We鈥檒l stay tuned to see if either of these trends lets up or further intensifies in coming months.

Related reading:

• Q1 2026 Shatters Venture Funding Records As AI Boom Pushes Startup Investment To $300B聽

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A total of 47 seed- and early-stage companies joined the unicorn ranks in the first quarter of this year, per 附近上门 data. Barring a major slowdown, that puts 2026 on track to deliver the聽 largest cohort of young unicorns to date.

This year鈥檚 newcomers follow a good-sized 2025 cohort of early-stage companies that secured valuations of $1 billion or more as well. Per 附近上门 data, 59 hit this valuation milestone last year, up about 50% from 2024.

Over the past 10-plus years, meanwhile, the number of new early-stage unicorns has fluctuated widely, from a couple dozen to more than 100, as charted below.

Recent early unicorns are all about AI

Virtually all of the early-stage unicorns minted in the past couple quarters are AI-focused.

This includes several of the most heavily funded newcomers. Examples include , the physical AI startup launched by , , the foundational AI company co-founded by former CTO , and , a London-based AI infrastructure unicorn that has raised over $5 billion.

All this represents the opposite of a surprising development, given that 80% of global venture funding this past quarter went to AI. Additionally, later-stage AI companies are famously securing unheard-of private market valuations, with and recently valued at $852 billion and $380 billion, respectively.

While we鈥檙e not seeing those kinds of numbers for more recently minted early-stage unicorns, several are hitting post-money valuations previously unheard of for such young companies. Thinking Machines Lab, valued at $12 billion for its first funding, is reportedly looking to secure a $50 billion valuation for its next round. And 2-year-old , which secured an $8 billion valuation late last year, is reportedly fresh funding at a $25 billion value.

Fastest climbers

In addition to their high valuations, many newcomers to the early-stage unicorn club are also noteworthy for the speed of their ascents.

Quite a few unicorns minted in the last 15 months were founded in 2025. And one 鈥� 鈥� was apparently founded just this year. For a broader view, we used 附近上门 data to aggregate some prominent examples of recently founded early-stage unicorns.

By now, some of our early-stage unicorns have also already moved on to later stage. Nscale, for instance, closed a Series C this month. And residential backup power provider closed on $1 billion in Series C funding in October, just eight months after its Series B. Others are already close to securing new funding at Series C and beyond.

Was this the peak?

Given the new funding records set last quarter, and the blistering pace of early-stage unicorn creation, it鈥檚 worth considering whether this could be the peak for the ultra-high AI newcomer funding rounds and valuations. After all, public markets haven鈥檛 done well in recent weeks, and private markets have a history of following suit.

For those of us who鈥檝e followed startup funding ebbs and peaks for some time, it鈥檚 clear the current environment shares characteristics of a market top. By the same token, top performing tech startups have long demonstrated that doubters are often wrong.

Related reading:

• Investors Are Once Again Rapidly Minting Early-Stage Startups As Unicorns
• More Early-Stage Startups Are Getting Minted As Unicorns
• The 附近上门 附近上门

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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聽, 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.

Related 附近上门 queries:

Related reading:

• 5 Startup Sectors Seeing Big Funding Growth
• The Year Of Humanoid Robots
• June Hits 3-Year High In Unicorn Births Across AI, Robotics And More
• Amid Record Robotics Funding, Apptronik Raises $520M Series A Extension To Boost Production Of Humanoid Robot Apollo
• Robotics Startup Skild AI Lands $1.4B, Tripling Valuation To $14B In Just 7 Months

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