Venture capital is a global asset class. But North America has recently been absorbing a growing share of total investment, driven largely by the growing sums being allocated to AI startups.
How big is its lead? Using Crunchbase data, we charted funding over the past six-month periods for the world’s six populated continental regions: North America, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand.
In the first six months of this 12 months, startups in the U.S. and Canada raised $80.1 billion—greater than the remainder of the world combined. About 30% of that went to AI-focused startups, which raised just over $24 billion in the first half of this 12 monthsOverall, North American firms raised 54% of all funding.
Asia is shrinking, Europe is expanding
While North America (and especially the US, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of funding) has absorbed the majority of world enterprise capital investment, Asia’s share in this segment has declined.
Asian startups received $33.8 billion in total funding in the first half of this 12 months, down 17% from a 12 months earlier. Both early- and late-stage investments fell sharply. China, the region’s largest market, fell particularly sharply in the second quarter, posting its worst quarter for enterprise capital funding since late 2015.
In Europe, the picture looks brighter this 12 months. Startups in the region raised $28.5 billion in the first half of 2024, well above year-ago levels. In the second quarter, quarterly funding for European startups exceeded that of Asia for the first time in a decade.
As in North America, artificial intelligence was the leading industry in Europe, with large rounds of investment going to a London-based driving automation company Way and the Parisian foundation model Mistral AI.
Other regions
Africa, Latin America, and Oceania currently account for lower than 5% of world enterprise investment. Given the size of their populations—Africa alone is home to greater than 17% of the world’s population—you would possibly expect their shares to be higher.
For now, nevertheless, we see neither a collapse nor a major increase in enterprise capital investment in these regions in 2024. Perhaps, in time, investment will reach a likely greatly underserved pool of entrepreneurial talent.