A Record 14 Billion-Dollar Rounds In July Pushed Venture's Historic Run Higher

Global venture funding reached $65 billion in July, a 100% increase year over year, and included a record 14 billion-dollar rounds, according to Crunchbase data published Monday. The month ranked as the third-largest for funding in 2026, up 10% from June, following a first half in which startups raised $515 billion globally. The largest deal was a $10 billion investment in Blue Origin, the first external financing for the Jeff Bezos-founded space exploration company. Safe Superintelligence, founded by former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, reportedly raised $5 billion from Nvidia. Other major rounds included $3.5 billion for Beijing-based Moonshot AI and $2.8 billion for Kling AI. Nine U.S.-based companies raised billion-dollar rounds, alongside two each from Germany and China and one from Singapore. AI-focused companies attracted $35 billion, or 53% of global venture funding. U.S. companies captured $39 billion, roughly 59% of the global total. Exit activity was also strong. Venture-backed M&A totaled more than $9 billion with five deals exceeding $1 billion. Twelve venture-backed companies went public at valuations above $1 billion, led by Chinese chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies at roughly $85 billion.