Global enterprise capital financing reached $32 billion in October, the highest month yet for startup investment in 2024.
The explosive growth was fueled by large funds leading giant rounds in capital-intensive firms in areas akin to artificial intelligence, data centers and energy.
OpenAI last month it raised its largest round, a $6.6 billion deal led Develop capital this alone represented about 20% of the total enterprise investment amount for the month. (OpenAI’s $157 billion valuation makes it the second most respected company on the unicorn’s board after ByteDanceowner TikTok.)
The OpenAI deal wasn’t the only billion-dollar financing. Data center provider International GDSholding company for GDSH assets outside China, raised $1 billion led by Coat. And not far from a billion, Pacific Fusionfusion technology company, raised greater than $900 million in a round led by Generic catalytic converter.
Over the past few years, during downturns, supergiant round sizes have ranged from 28% at the low end of the funding range to 61% at the high end. (Dominated funding in 2021.) This is the third month this 12 months with greater than half of funding in rounds of $100 million or more in comparison with 4 months in 2023.
The 50 firms that raised large rounds in October represented a big selection of sectors, including artificial intelligence, data centers, nuclear energy, biotechnology, semiconductors, fintech, space and robotics.
Still, AI led the way
However, AI was still by far the leading sector, with $12.2 billion in funding, representing 38% of total monthly funding.
The second-largest sector, health care and biotechnology, raised about $5.6 billion. And firms in financial services, equipment and energy have raised at least $4 billion in funding.
Seeds, stopped early
Meanwhile, seed and early-stage funding has been suspended.
Total early-stage funding totaled $10.9 billion across greater than 500 rounds, up barely month-over-month and year-over-year.
Seed funding in October was unchanged at $2.8 billion invested in greater than 1,000 firms.
We see month-to-month fluctuations in global funding based on these oversized rounds.
While late-stage funding grew greater than 100% month-over-month with $18 billion invested in roughly 180 firms, it remained flat year-over-year.
Methodology
The data in this report comes directly from Crunchbase and is based on reported data. The data provided is as of November 6, 2024.
Please note that data transfer delays are most noticeable in the earliest stages of a enterprise, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after quarter/12 months end.
Please note that every one financing amounts are in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign exchange to U.S. dollars at the spot rate in effect on the date financing rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if these events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, currency transactions are converted at the historical spot price.
Glossary of financing terms
As of January 2023, we have modified the way we include corporate financing rounds in our reports. Corporate rounds are only included when a company has raised seed financing as a part of a series enterprise financing round.
Seeds and Angels consist of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also covers enterprise rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding, and convertible notes valued at $3 million (USD or converted USD equivalent) or less.
The early stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, in addition to other forms of rounds. Crunchbase includes enterprise rounds of unknown series, corporate ventures and other rounds above $3 million and those valued lower than or equal to $15 million.
The Late Stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E, and later lettered expedition rounds following the “Series [Letter]“Naming convention. Also included are enterprise rounds of unknown series, corporate ventures and other rounds valued at greater than $15 million.
A technology development is a private equity round led by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (Basically any round from the pre-defined stages.)