Startup Funding Announcements Slowed Dramatically Following Ukraine Attack

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global venture funding announcements and disclosures have slowed dramatically.

Since last Thursday, when the attack commenced, just 154 companies across the globe have revealed a seed, early- or late-stage venture investment of disclosed size, per Crunchbase data 1. Altogether, those rounds totaled $3.65 billion. 

That works out to an average of $912 million invested across 39 rounds per weekday. (We’re not including weekends in the averages because the overwhelming majority of funding announcements and disclosures come on weekdays.)

Those aren’t tiny numbers, but they are rather diminutive in comparison to what we’ve seen previously. For the first 23 days of February, for instance, companies announced $30.68 billion in seed through late-stage funding globally. That works out to over $1.9 billion per weekday—more than double what we saw post-attack. 

Round counts have also fallen precipitously. Prior to the attack, there were 1,284 disclosed rounds. That’s an average of 80 per weekday, more than double the average for the past four weekdays.

Of course, the slowdown in funding announcements in recent days doesn’t necessarily mean startups aren’t raising capital. It could just mean that they’ve decided now isn’t the best time to announce new rounds. I can’t say I disagree with that logic.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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