Global venture funding totaled $29.7 billion in July 2025, flat year over year and down month over month from the $43 billion invested in June, Crunchbase data shows.
Despite a month-over-month dip in venture dollars, July offered hopeful signs for startup investors: AI remains a funding juggernaut, and Figma’s stellar IPO performance could be the catalyst needed to unlock the public markets for dozens of high-growth, revenue-generating tech unicorns that have been waiting in the wings.
By stage, 10% of venture funding last month was invested in seed-stage companies, around 30% in early-stage deals, and 60% in late-stage rounds. Funding also continued to concentrate in larger rounds, with corporate and private equity leading the majority of deals at $200 million and over.
Overall, for the first seven months of the year, global venture funding has increased by 23%, driven by large billion-dollar-plus funding rounds to the AI sector, Crunchbase data shows.
The biggest news last month for the venture world was the blockbuster Figma IPO, which priced at $33 and climbed to more than 3x its IPO price by the end of the first day of trading, making the San Francisco-based design collaboration startup arguably the biggest tech brand to debut since 2022. As a 13-year-old company, established in an earlier technology wave, Figma was able to grow revenue alongside the shift to AI.
The successful debut could spur more tech IPOs, especially for companies which have been waiting on the sidelines and are still growing, have significant revenue and are profitable or close to profitable.
AI took the biggest rounds
The largest startup funding round in July went to xAI — a $5 billion investment led by another Elon Musk company, SpaceX.
That deal was also the third-largest funding this year, behind only OpenAI’s $40 billion SoftBank-led round announced in March, and Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI in June.
Large rounds of $200 million or more totaled $11.4 billion in July, or around 38% of private financing to venture-backed companies. These larger rounds were led predominantly by corporate entities, private equity and alternative investors. OpenEvidence and Lovable were the only two rounds above $200 million led solely by venture capital firms.
U.S. and AI led
The U.S. continued to dominate startup funding in July, raising $17 billion — or 58% of global venture investment, Crunchbase data shows.
AI accounted for 37% of funding in July, totaling $11 billion and remaining the leading industry for funding, followed by healthcare and biotech at $5.7 billion. Funding to financial services was $4.6 billion last month, doubling from a year earlier.
Unicorns waiting to exit
The Figma IPO represented a big win for its startup investors, which included, respectively, seed through Series C lead investors Index Ventures, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital — each of which earned billions in exit value, enough to return multiple funds.
However, with $1 trillion of capital invested in more than 1,600 unicorn-valued companies, a lot of value remains locked up in private companies that still need an exit path.
Methodology
The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of Aug. 4, 2025.
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
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. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.
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.)
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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