Global venture funding in October totaled $59 billion, a 45% jump from a year earlier, in large part due to a record-setting $15.9 billion funding round for China’s DeepSeek, according to Crunchbase News.
DeepSeek’s $15.9 billion round marked the largest-ever venture deal for a Chinese company, and it came in the same month that two other frontier labs raised blockbuster Series A rounds totaling at or close to $1 billion, according to Crunchbase News.
U.S. and China accounted for most October venture dollars
The bulk of October’s venture funding was invested in the two leading countries for startup investment, with companies based in the U.S. raising $28 billion and companies based in China raising $20.6 billion during the month.
The last time more than $20 billion was invested in China in a single month was June 2018, when Ant Group raised $14 billion in its Series C funding.
Funding concentration centered on seven billion-dollar rounds
Funding in October concentrated in seven companies that raised billion-dollar rounds, and those rounds accounted for just over 40% of October’s venture funding.
These large amounts were invested in frontier labs, manufacturing, energy, semiconductors, prediction markets and spend management software.
Private equity led much of this funding, along with a few multistage venture firms including Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Lux Capital.
DeepSeek’s $15.9 billion raise was reported at a valuation of $90 billion, marking the largest private funding by a Chinese tech company on record.
The DeepSeek deal placed the company among the Top 10 most highly funded private companies.
The deal also made DeepSeek the second most highly valued Chinese company after ByteDance, and the third most highly valued private frontier lab after U.S. companies Anthropic and OpenAI.
Other large October rounds included Re:Build, Axiom, Ramp, Tenstorrent, Kalshi and Flapping Airplanes
Massachusetts-based manufacturing startup Re:Build raised the second-largest funding deal in October with a $2.1 billion round.
Re:Build partners with industrial companies and innovators from the product design phase to large-scale production and says it has 2.4 million square feet of manufacturing capacity.
Axiom raised $2 billion for power and grid capacity build out for data centers.
Spend-management platform Ramp raised $1.85 billion and said its ARR has reached $2 billion.
Open-source semiconductor company Tenstorrent said it raised a $1.5 billion Series E funding and said it recently moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley from Canada.
Prediction market Kalshi raised a $1 billion Series E.
Frontier lab Flapping Airplanes raised a $1 billion Series A.
A further eight companies raised rounds north of $500 million in October, spanning industries including frontier labs, robotics, legal and chips, agentic AI and healthcare.
TypeSafe AI said it raised an $870 million Series A following what it described as rapid developer adoption of its decision model Jev.
A total of 66% of global funding in October went to AI-driven companies, and semiconductor companies gained market share during the month, according to Crunchbase News.
Exits and methodology notes
The U.S. IPO market was slow in anticipation of Anthropic’s November IPO.
Crunchbase News reported that Anthropic’s offering could surpass SpaceX’s record-setting June listing that raised $85.7 billion.
On the M&A front, at least nine venture-backed companies were acquired for more than $1 billion in October, including Uber’s acquisition of 19-year-old ezCater for $2.3 billion.
Crunchbase News said that with two months remaining, 2026 had already set records for acquisitions, IPOs and funding rounds across major venture markets.
Crunchbase reported that the data in its October funding report comes directly from Crunchbase, is based on reported data, and is as of Nov. 2, 2026.
Crunchbase News reported that Cohere is targeting a $5 billion funding announced in October without reporting an initial or final close, and that funding was not included in the October monthly totals.
Crunchbase News also noted that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted, and that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter or year.
