Analysis
US startups raised about $42 billion in Series A rounds through October 2026, up roughly 60% year over year, even as the number of companies landing those rounds has barely moved, according to Crunchbase News. The gap between rising dollars and flat deal counts is the headline number this cycle: capital is concentrating in fewer, bigger checks rather than spreading to more companies.
How much Series A funding rose in 2026
Crunchbase's own tally shows Series A totals bottoming out at $23 billion in 2023 -- a five-year low -- and climbing every year since, with 2026's $42 billion running almost double that trough.
Deal counts tell a different story: roughly 1,200 US companies a year raised Series A rounds of $1 million or more in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025, and 2026 is tracking within about 100 deals of that same level. Pulse has previously covered how fintech Series A activity pulled back specifically in the third quarter even as overall venture dollars stayed resilient -- this new data suggests that resilience is concentrated at the top of the market.
“- Scale Venture Partners -- raised a $900 million Fund 8, up from its prior $600 million vehicle, giving the firm more capital to lead larger Series A and B checks.”
Why individual Series A rounds are getting bigger
About 10% of 2026 Series A rounds are now $75 million or larger, Crunchbase found, up from a $50 million threshold that defined the top decile just a year earlier -- and round sizes have climbed at every quartile, not just the top.
Siddharth Ramakrishnan, a partner at Scale Venture Partners who mainly leads Series A and B rounds, told Crunchbase the revenue bar for a Series A has moved: "Instead of waiting till the Series A, where they have $4 million in revenue and growing," some companies are landing larger checks on less-proven traction, while others face a much higher bar. He contrasted the current environment with "the old world," where "going zero to $7 million...would have been amazing numbers" -- a pace several AI-native startups are now beating.
Who is setting the pace
- Scale Venture Partners -- raised a $900 million Fund 8, up from its prior $600 million vehicle, giving the firm more capital to lead larger Series A and B checks.
- NP-Hard Ventures -- seed investor Anke Huiskes told Crunchbase that startups with a repeatable sales cycle can now collect "10 term sheets," a sign of how competitive early rounds have become even before Series A.
The counterweight
However large the headline total looks, flat deal counts mean the Series A bar has risen for everyone else: a company without a repeatable sales motion or a credible path to several million in revenue is competing for a shrinking share of investor attention, not a growing one. Ramakrishnan's own framing -- "I'm not getting any new information by the time they're at $2 million in revenue from $500,000" -- cuts both ways: it rewards companies that scale fast, and it screens out the rest earlier than in past cycles.
What to watch next
The real test is whether 2026's $42 billion pace holds once AI-native startups' current growth rates normalize; Crunchbase's data runs only through October, and a handful of outsized late-year rounds could still move the final tally meaningfully. For VCs writing seed checks now, the clearer revenue bar Ramakrishnan described is the diligence question to ask before the term sheet, not after.