Megadeals have barely trickled in the last couple of weeks and this week continues that trend.
Just three deals hit $100 million or more as investors seem to have pulled back on big rounds early in the year.
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Methodology
This board tracks announced venture funding deals of $100 million or more in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies.
Although most of the largest funding rounds of 2023, 2024 and 2025 are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as deals are added to the Crunchbase dataset.
We consider VC funding deals to be both venture capital investment in private companies as well as private equity and growth rounds into companies that have previously raised venture funding.
What is venture capital funding?
Venture capital is a type of private equity typically invested into emerging startup companies that investors believe have high growth potential and will deliver outsized returns.
In exchange for equity stakes in the companies, venture capital firms and other investors provide capital to private companies that they believe have the potential for successful exits when they eventually go public or are acquired at a premium.
A VC funding deal typically has one or two lead investors, with other investment firms participating in the round by providing smaller stakes.
Where are funding deals for the Crunchbase Megadeals Board sourced from?
Crunchbase VC funding data comes from a variety of sources, including an active community of contributors, more than 4,000 global investment firms that submit deal data to Crunchbase, startup and venture capital news sources, and an in-house data team.
If you believe a U.S.-based startup funding deal of $100 million or more is missing from this page, please contact support@crunchbase.com.
Read more about where Crunchbase sources its data.
What is a venture-funded startup?
Venture-funded startups are private companies that have received funding from venture capitalists.
These companies can range from very small, early-stage startups looking for seed-round funding, to large unicorn companies (private companies with a valuation of $1 billion-plus) that are on the verge of going public or being acquired.
Most venture-funded startups are in the technology industry, due to the sector’s potential for fast growth and outsized returns for investors. But companies in other industries such as retail and consumer goods also receive VC funding.
What are the stages of VC funding?
There are several stages of venture funding, starting with angel or pre-seed funding to the very youngest startups and ending with later-stage funding to established, pre-IPO startups.
- Angel: An angel round is typically a small round designed to get a new company off the ground. Investors in an angel round include individual angel investors, angel investor groups, friends and family.
- Pre-seed: A pre-seed round is a pre-institutional seed round that either has no institutional investors or is a very low amount, often below $1 million.
- Seed: Seed rounds are among the first rounds of funding a company will receive, generally while it is young and working to gain traction. Round sizes typically range between $1 million and $3 million, though larger seed rounds have become more common in recent years. A seed round typically comes after an angel round (if applicable) and before a company’s Series A round.
- Series A and Series B: These are funding rounds for earlier-stage companies and range on average between $5 million and $30 million.
- Series C and onward: For later-stage and more-established companies, these rounds are usually at least $20 million, but are often much larger.
Other sources of private-company funding include private equity or growth funding, debt financing and crowdfunding.
Read more about the different types of funding rounds and how they are classified in Crunchbase.
Which startups raised the biggest funding deals in 2024?
The largest venture funding deal to a U.S.-based startup in 2024 was also one of the largest startup funding deals ever. That was Databricks‘ $10 billion raise led by Thrive Capital at a $62 billion valuation.
The other largest U.S. startup funding deals of 2024 were also to AI-related companies:
OpenAI raised the second-biggest round of the year — a $6.6 billion deal at a post-money valuation of $157 billion, also led by Thrive Capital. The round made the ChatGPT creator one of the most valuable private companies in the world and also included investment from the likes of Altimeter Capital, Fidelity, Khosla Ventures, Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank and Abu Dhabi-based MGX.
xAI raised a $6 billion round in May that included investment from the likes of Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Fidelity Management & Research Co., among others. The funding valued the company at $24 billion post money. In November, the Elon Musk-founded rival to OpenAI raised another $6 billion in a funding round valuing it at $50 billion. The newer round included investment from the Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.
Autonomous vehicle company Waymo, which was spun out of Google’s labs, took in a big round from its former parent, as Alphabet invested $5.6 billion into the firm in a deal announced in October 2024. The new round valued the company at more than $45 billion and was the startup’s first raise since a $2.5 billion round in 2021.
Also in November, Amazon agreed to invest another $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, yet another ChatGPT rival with an AI assistant called Claude. The latest investment meant Amazon had invested $8 billion into Antropic, retaining its minority stake in the startup.
See our full list of the largest U.S. AI startup funding deals of 2024 here.
What were the largest non-AI venture funding deals of 2024?
Artificial intelligence dominated venture capital investment in 2024. But we’ve already run a list of the biggest rounds raised by AI-related startups, so what about some of the other industries that got big deals in 2024?
The biggest rounds raised by U.S.-based startups not necessarily focused on AI in 2024 were:
North Carolina-based Epic Games raised $1.5 billion in February 2024 through a new partnership with Disney to help give more exposure to the company’s characters and properties — including Marvel Comics characters. However, the round was a drastic drop in valuation, as it was reported Disney invested at a $22.5 billion valuation. Founded in 1991, the Fortnite creator has raised nearly $8 billion to date, according to Crunchbase data.
San Francisco-based green infrastructure investor and operator Generate Capital raised a $1.5 billion round from a variety of investors, including the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Generate invests in an array of infrastructure projects, from community solar systems to municipal wastewater treatment to electrifying fleets.
Tricentis got a $1.3 billion investment from private equity firm GTCR valuing the software testing startup at $4.5 billion. The Austin, Texas-based startup was founded in 2007 in Austria. Insight Partners took majority ownership in 2017.
Cloud security startup Wiz locked up the biggest cybersecurity round of the year as it raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation. The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Thrive Capital. Originally founded in Israel in 2020, Wiz acquired New York-based cloud detection and response startup Gem Security earlier in the year. Wiz has talked openly about hitting $1 billion in ARR as it heads to an IPO.
See our full list of the biggest 2024 funding deals to non-AI startups based in the U.S. here.
How much venture capital was invested in 2024?
Was 2021 a record year for venture capital investment?
Yes, 2021 was a record year for global VC investment. More than $681 billion was invested in startups around the world in 2021, Crunchbase data shows.
Read our 2021 global funding report for more.
Is VC funding slowing down?
Is VC funding drying up?
Venture capital has not dried up. While venture capitalists aren’t investing as much of their capital as they were during the investment boom of 2021, investors still have plenty of capital available to deploy.
With nearly $314 billion in global venture capital startup funding in 2024 — according to Crunchbase data — investors are still putting big money into the market at a rate that seems like a return to the pre-2021 boom days.
Such a pace could prove healthier and more sustainable for the market, as the market became very frothy during its height.
Read our 2024 global funding report for more.
Which venture capital firms invested in the most startup deals in 2024?
What are VCs looking for in 2025?
In 2024, VCs seemed captivated by everything AI — and there’s little reason to believe that will change.
Nearly a third of all global venture funding went to companies in AI-related fields in 2024, making artificial intelligence the leading sector for funding. Funding to AI-related companies was more than $100 billion — up more than 80% year over year from $55.6 billion in 2023 — Crunchbase data shows.
Some of the biggest rounds in AI included Databricks’ $10 billion round raised at a $62 billion valuation, marking the largest venture capital raise of 2024 and one of the largest on record, as well as OpenAI’s $6.6 billion raise at a post-money valuation of $157 billion led by Thrive Capital.
What are the leading sectors for venture funding?
In 2024, the AI craze led to some other sectors that apply the technology to become hot with investors, such as biotech and healthcare. Energy and cybersecurity startups also remained popular.
Which companies are unicorn startups as of the start of 2025?
Where can I find all of Crunchbase’s venture capital funding news?
All of our VC startup funding news and coverage of venture capital trends in 2025 can be found here. Articles about large deals and VC funding trends are also added to the current page as soon as they are published.