In August, global venture funding plummeted to its lowest monthly figure since 2017, totaling $17 billion. This represents a 12% decrease from the previous year and a significant 44% drop from July. The decline follows a period of intense investment activity in the first half of 2025, particularly in AI startups, which had seen a year-over-year increase of over a third.
Historically, global venture funding tends to dip below $20 billion during the summer months, particularly in July or August. This year, both late-stage and seed-stage investments saw substantial declines. Late-stage funding dropped by more than 50% from July and 20% from the previous year, while seed-stage funding nearly halved from July and decreased by a third from last year. Early-stage funding also fell month over month but showed a slight increase from the previous year, with Series B rounds remaining strong.
The largest funding rounds in August were Series B investments in deep tech and AI startups outside the Bay Area. Commonwealth Fusion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, raised $863 million, while Quantinuum in Colorado secured $593.8 million. Toronto-based Cohere and San Francisco’s Cognition each raised $500 million in Series D and Series C rounds, respectively.
U.S.-based startups received 61% of global venture investments, amounting to $10.4 billion. This increase is largely attributed to significant funding deals for American AI companies, which led global startup funding with $4.8 billion. Healthcare and biotech startups raised $4 billion, while financial services and energy sectors each attracted over $2 billion.
Despite the slowdown, the reopening of IPO markets offers a positive outlook, potentially providing liquidity to venture capital firms and stimulating future investments.
