AI, Data Center And Energy Startups Get Large Capital Infusion In October

Global venture capital funding in October reached $32 billion, marking the highest month for startup investment so far in 2024.

The surge was driven by large funds leading supergiant rounds in capital-intensive businesses in areas such as artificial intelligence, data centers and energy.

OpenAI raised the largest round last month, a $6.6 billion deal led by Thrive Capital that alone represented around 20% of the month’s total venture investment. (OpenAI’s $157 billion valuation bumps it up to be the second-most valuable company on the unicorn board after ByteDance, the owner of TikTok.)

OpenAI’s deal was not the only billion-dollar funding. Datacenter provider GDS International, the holding company for GDSH’s assets outside of China, raised $1 billion led by Coatue. And not far off from a billion, Pacific Fusion, a nuclear fusion technology company, raised more than $900 million in a round led by General Catalyst.

In the past few years during the downturn, supergiant rounds have fluctuated between 28% on the lower end of funding and 61% on the upper end. (They dominated funding in 2021.) This is the third month this year showing more than half of funding in rounds at $100 million or more, compared with four months in 2023.

Those 50 companies that raised large rounds in October ranged across many sectors, including AI, data centers, nuclear energy, biotech, semiconductors, fintech, space and robotics.

Still, AI led

But AI was still by far the leading sector, with $12.2 billion in funding — or 38% of total monthly funding.

The second-largest sector, healthcare and biotech, raised around $5.6 billion. And companies in financial services, hardware and energy each raised funding at or above $4 billion.

Seed, early held up

Meanwhile, seed and early-stage funding held up.

Early-stage funding totaled $10.9 billion across more than 500 rounds, up a bit month over month and year over year.

Seed funding was flat in October and reached $2.8 billion invested across more than 1,000 companies.

Month to month we find global funding see-sawing based on these outsized rounds.

While late-stage funding was up by more than 100% month over month with $18 billion invested, across 180 or so companies, year over year it was flat.

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Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of Nov. 6, 2024.

Note 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/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

As of January 2023, we have made a change to how we include corporate funding rounds in our reporting. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)