North American Startup Funding Weakened In Q3 As Largest Deal Took Longer To Close
The past quarter was a quirky one for North America startup funding, with a slowdown in some pockets counterbalanced by continued high enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, Crunchbase data shows.
Overall, the number and size of funding rounds to North American startups slowed sequentially in the third quarter based on reported investments. However, the tallies did not include an enormous $6.6 billion financing for OpenAI that was widely reported in Q3 but only officially announced this week.
In total, investors put $40.5 billion into startups across all stages in Q3. That’s a decline of 10% from the prior quarter and an increase of 22% from year-ago levels. Late-stage dealmaking showed the largest gains, while early-stage funding posted the steepest sequential decline.
For perspective, we charted investment totals, color-coded by stage, for the past 11 quarters below.
Investments were also spread across fewer deals. Known round counts across all stages totaled around 2,065 for the quarter — down both sequentially and year over year.