Megadeals Account for Majority of Funding
So far this year 60% of global startup funding across stages, around $320 billion, went to rounds of $1 billion or more, according to Crunchbase News. Such rounds were instrumental in pushing global funding for the first half of the year to record levels.
The U.S. funding tallies are even more tilted to megadeals this year, with 73% of funding going to billion-dollar-plus rounds. Of the $290 billion invested in these deals, just two rounds for AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic account for more than half the total.
More Rounds Closed at Higher Frequency
U.S. startups have closed 23 known rounds of $1 billion or more so far this year, per Crunchbase data. That puts 2026 already on par with 2025, a record-setting year, and five months remain.
Not surprisingly, these megarounds are generally later-stage rounds or corporate financings. Only two of this year’s billion-dollar-plus rounds, Prometheus and World Labs, were seed or early-stage rounds, according to Crunchbase News.
First Megarounds Appear in 2014
The first American example of a billion-dollar-plus venture funding round was Uber’s $1.2 billion Series D in 2014. Over the next three years a handful of others pulled in 10-figure rounds as well, including SpaceX, Airbnb, Lyft, SoFi, Snap, Grail, WeWork, Fanatics and Argo AI.
Most of those companies went on to go public and reach valuations that well-exceeded levels set for prior megarounds. SpaceX reached a $1.6 trillion recent market cap, Uber reached $148 billion and Airbnb reached $87 billion.
Two of the megafund recipients, Argo AI and WeWork, did not fare so well, while a third, cancer diagnostics provider Grail, has been up and down. Fanatics remained private and is still thriving.
Current Cycle Moves Into Uncharted Territory
In the current funding cycle the question now applies to rounds in the tens of billions or even over $100 billion for Anthropic and OpenAI. As both have already filed confidentially to go public, it may not take long to find out, according to Crunchbase News.
