Global venture capital

Funding into Startups worldwide has grown nearly tenfold over the past five years, reaching $444.5B in 2025. With $505.3B raised in the first 6 months of 2026, the full year is on track to land at $1.0T, a +127% change versus 2025. The chart below shows annual funding totals; the latest year is annualised from observed-to-date data and represents the renderer's projection, not a closed quarter.

Yearly totals mask the quarter-by-quarter rhythm. The chart below shows Startups worldwide funding raised in each of the last 21 complete quarters through Q2 2026. All bars are actual closed-quarter sums, no projections, no in-progress quarters.

How capital deployed into Startups worldwide is split across round sizes. In the trailing four quarters, 77% of capital landed in scaleup ($100M+) rounds, 17% in breakout ($15–100M), and 6% across startups (under $15M). Each panel below stacks the canonical sub-bands across Q2 2022 → Q2 2026.

The most active investors in Startups worldwide ranked by the number of disclosed rounds they've participated in. Y Combinator leads with 9,954 rounds, followed by Sequoia at 3,294. The table shows the top ten with their firm type, in-scope round count, total portfolio size, and headquarters.

Two views of leadership in Startups worldwide: the most-funded companies all-time on the left, and the hottest companies right now by Dealroom Signal on the right. Total-funding figures include all capital sources tracked by Dealroom (VC plus grants, project finance, and other instruments). Signal is Dealroom's live growth ranking, these are the firms with the strongest recent momentum across team, timing, growth, and completeness.

United States leads global Startups worldwide funding at $545.0B, followed by China ($64.8B). The chart ranks the top countries; alongside it, the leading Bay Area metro region leads the city ranking with $390.3B. Use the metric pills, and the dropdown, to switch view. The VC dropdown also covers the fastest-growing hubs (Singapore up +156%) and where Startups worldwide venture capital and unicorns concentrate against the rest of the world.

Where Startups worldwide unicorns are based. Each marker is sized by the number of unicorns HQ'd in that metro. Bay Area leads at 827, followed by New York City at 316. Scroll or drag to explore, pinch with two fingers on mobile.

Over the last 12 months (through Jul 2026), the largest VC rounds in Startups worldwide reveal where capital is consolidating. The table below lists the 15 biggest disclosed rounds by amount, with date, company, round type, and lead investors. Funding events without a public amount are excluded; acquisitions sit in the Unicorns & Exits section.

Which industries pull in the most venture capital across Startups worldwide, and where does the Global punch above its weight versus the rest of the world? Use the toggle to switch between absolute VC funding and each industry's over/under-index, and to change the time window. Over the last 12 months (to end of Q2 2026), AI leads at $517.5B, and the Global over-indexes in Fashion, Health, Semiconductors, and under-indexes most in Energy, Fintech, Gaming relative to the rest of the world. Industries are tracked through Dealroom's industry tags, which overlap, a company spanning, say, AI and fintech is counted in both, so these show where capital concentrates, not a mutually exclusive split of the total.

Startups worldwide have minted 3,942 unicorns to date. Dealroom defines a unicorn as a company that has reached a $1B+ valuation or exit (verified and manually reviewed; other lists use different criteria, this is ours). Of those, 385 are decacorns, companies at a $10B+ valuation. The ecosystem also counts 3,196 thoroughbreds: companies generating $100M+ in revenue (a separate lens from unicorns, with some overlap). The chart below shows the cumulative count climbing each year, with the line tracking new unicorns minted in that year, peaking at 876 in 2021. On exits, the sector has produced 26,441 tracked acquisitions since 2010 representing $4.2T in disclosed value. Notable acquisitions in the data include SpaceX | xAI ($85.7B, 2026), followed by Celgene ($74.0B, 2019), VMware ($61.0B, 2022).

Entrepreneurship is a power law. Of every Global startup founded, only a fraction attract venture capital, and far fewer climb each successive funding level. This funnel traces VC-backed Global startups from first cheque through to the rarest valuation outcomes. Mouth figures are annual means (2010–2024); pool stages count VC-backed companies founded since 1990 by total funding.

In-depth Dealroom research relevant to this guide.