Crunchbase data shows enterprise funding in North America surged in the final quarter of 2024, capping off a yr of gains for startup investment driven by continued growth in interest in artificial intelligence.
In total, investors invested $61.9 billion in U.S. and Canadian seed and growth-stage startups in the fourth quarter. This was the highest quarterly result in almost two years, with the biggest increase seen late in the yr.
Meanwhile, total investment for all of 2024 was just over $184 billion, up 21% from the previous yr.
For perspective, below is the total investment amount, color-coded by stage, for the last 12 quarters.
Funding gains were driven by larger average deal sizes moderately than an increase in the total variety of rounds.
Mega rounds for hot AI firms in particular have boosted performance. Meanwhile, the variety of reported sources of financing for startups 1 in Q4 it actually dropped to its lowest level in years, as shown below.
North American funding data reflects what we saw in our global report: Without a doubt, 2024 was a breakout yr for investing in AI firms. This was very true in the fourth quarter, when an estimated 62% of all startup funding in North America went to AI firms, based on Crunchbase.
Below, to offer you an idea of the scale of the AI investment boom in the fourth quarter, we have outlined investments in this space over the last three years.
As AI unicorns mature, we also see more funds being allocated to later-stage transactions. While the variety of late-stage and growth-stage deals increased significantly in Q4, the variety of early-stage and seed-stage deals declined.
Looking at exits, one other extremely essential measure of startup investment success, the picture is also ambiguous. While the last quarter wasn’t phenomenal in this regard, we did see some large acquisitions and successful IPOs involving venture-backed firms. Given the huge variety of current and former unicorns, there is hope that 2025 will see a greater increase in output activity.
Below, we take a closer look at the investment stages and noteworthy exits in the fourth quarter.
Contents
Late stage of technology development
We’ll start with the late-stage technology because that is where most of the money goes.
This was especially the case in the fourth quarter, when $45.9 billion was allocated for investments at that stage, representing almost three-quarters of all startup financing. While the variety of deals remained fairly regular, total investment value reached by far the highest point of the yr, as shown in the chart below.
For the full yr, just over $107 billion was committed to late-stage and growth-stage deals. This represents an increase of over 25% from the 2023 total of $85 billion.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, roughly half of the funding at this stage went to simply three firms: cloud data platform Data cubes and generative AI startups OpenAI AND xAI. Databricks earned $10 billion, while OpenAI and xAI earned $6.6 billion and $6 billion, respectively.
Left behind Anthropicknown for its AI chatbot Claude, which raised $4 billion in funding in November, backed by Amazon.
Early stage
Early-stage dealmaking was more subdued in the fourth quarter, with total investments reaching $13 billion, based on Crunchbase data. This was the lowest quarterly results of the yr in each investment and transaction volume, as shown below.
However, whilst the total value of investments declined, some gigantic deals still took place. In Series A, the largest round of the quarter was a fusion energy startup in Silicon Valley Pacific Fusionwhich provided $900 million in financing in October.
Next, artificial intelligence firms dominated among the largest recipients of financing. That included By the poolan AI code writing platform that raised a $500 million Series B, and Physical intelligencedeveloper of basic models with robotics applications that won a $400 million Series A award.
Seed stage
Reported seed-stage investments declined in the fourth quarter, with total funding estimated at $3.1 billion. This represents a slight decline from the previous quarter and the lowest total seed funding amount in years.
Deal volume this quarter also fell to its lowest level in years, while average round size increased barely. To provide you with a broader picture, we have provided round and initial investment totals for the last five quarters below.
Overall, what we’re seeing at the seed stage is a bearish contrast to overall stage startup investment, which looks quite solid. There appears to be a recent trend among startup supporters to cluster in firms with established dynamics, with a greater risk aversion towards brand latest startups.
That said, we have seen some exceptionally large seed rounds, many of them centered around – you guessed it – artificial intelligence. For example, based in Toronto Moon Valleya startup founded in 2023 and focusing on cinematic applications of AI earned $70 million in November. AND /dev/agentsA San Francisco startup developing an operating system for AI agents earned $56 million.
Exits
On the exit side, while it wasn’t the most turbulent quarter, we did see some large IPOs and acquisitions.
IPO
The IPO arena saw no major revival in year-end IPOs. However, we did see one long-awaited unicorn debut ServiceTitanplatform for home service providers, has began operations Nasdaq in December and was most recently valued at around $9 billion.
Creator of autonomous driving technology Pony.ai had the second-largest IPO of the quarter, reaching a market capitalization of roughly $5.5 billion.
Several firms from the biotechnology and health industries also debuted, including: Upstream Biographyasthma drug developer, Ceribellfocusing on EEG technology, and CAMP4 Therapeuticscreator of medicine that restore gene expression.
Acquisitions
We also saw several large acquisitions in Q4, particularly in the healthcare space.
In the largest merger and acquisition transaction for startups this quarter, Carebridgethe Nashville, Tenn.-based home health care company was acquired for $2.7 billion by Facade Health. The pharmaceutical giant took second place AbbViepurchase of the company for USD 1.4 billion Therapeutic Alliancecreator of therapy for diseases of the central nervous system.
Another pharma deal that might ultimately result in a big payout is Merckacquisition of a company dealing with the treatment of brain cancer Modify your biography for $30 million upfront and as much as $1.3 billion in milestone-based payments.
When it involves technology, there have been two standout offerings ADPacquisition of a personnel management software provider WorkForce Software for $1.2 billion and Stripepurchasing a stablecoin startup Bridge for $1.1 billion.
Below we present eight significant transactions of this quarter.
Goodbye, 2024
As we say goodbye to 2024, those of us who do this for a living and spot trends among mountains of knowledge can feel grateful that this yr has been quite easy. The most significant, overarching investment trend in startups this yr was, in fact, artificial intelligence. This is where the lion’s share of the funds went, and in the last quarter of the yr, investor enthusiasm for the space intensified.
Will 2025 bring us more of the same? In some respects, probably yes.
For example, there is no indication yet that startup investors intend to withdraw from artificial intelligence. Given the high costs of building and scaling transformation firms in space, we’ll likely proceed to see a continued appetite for massively sized missiles.
However, in other areas of startup investments, the wind of change could possibly be seen in the latest yr. A renewed expansion of the well-received IPO business will surely be a welcome development. It would even be nice to see a rebound in some of the less AI-adjacent startup sectors where investment stays well, well below peak levels.
Methodology
This report covers financing for startups based in the US and Canada. Mexico is included in our Latin America enterprise financing reports.
The data in this report comes directly from Crunchbase and is based on reported data. The data provided is from January 3, 2025.
Please note that data transfer delays are most noticeable in the earliest stages of a enterprise, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after quarter/yr end.
Please note that each 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, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historical spot price.
Glossary of financing terms
Seeds and Angels consist of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes enterprise rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding, and convertible notes with a size of $3 million (in U.S. dollars or a U.S. dollar equivalent) or less.
The early stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, in addition to other kinds of rounds. Crunchbase includes enterprise rounds of unknown series, corporate ventures and other rounds above $3 million and those valued at 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. Corporate rounds are only included when a company has raised seed financing as a part of a series enterprise financing round.
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.)