The State of Startup Funding: Q2 2026, A Complete Analysis

1,516 companies raised $150 billion in the second quarter of 2026, and for the first time in this cycle, most of that money was not venture capital. Debt carried 63.9 percent of all disclosed dollars, June posted the biggest funding month of the year, and AI crossed the halfway mark at both pre seed and Series A.

Published July 2026 · Based on verified funding records tracked April 1 - June 30, 2026 · Fundraise Insider Research Desk

This report analyzes every funding event captured in the Fundraise Insider database for the second quarter of 2026. It covers round sizes, stage dynamics, the debt wave that defined the quarter, sector flows, geography, investor activity, and the profile of the companies that got funded.

Fundraise Insider tracks newly funded companies every week and pairs each one with verified C suite contacts, including direct emails and LinkedIn profiles. The thesis behind the product runs through every page of this report: a company that closed funding days ago has fresh budget and open decisions, which makes timing the most valuable variable in B2B outreach. The database currently holds more than 47,000 verified contacts across 138 industries, with roughly 250 new leads added each week.

Table of Contents

Key Findings

• 1,516 companies raised funding in Q2 2026, with $150 billion in disclosed capital across the 1,296 companies that reported a round amount.
• Debt financing carried the quarter: 199 deals deployed $95.9 billion, or 63.9 percent of all disclosed capital, at a $100 million median.
• Anthropic anchored the debt wave with a $35 billion financing package closed in June, after raising a $65 billion Series H in April.
• Funding accelerated every month: 403 companies in April, 503 in May, and 610 in June, which posted $83.1 billion, the largest single month of 2026 so far.
• AI companies made up 35.8 percent of funded companies and 49.2 percent of disclosed capital, and now account for 52.3 percent of pre seed deals and 59.2 percent of Series A deals.
• The barbell widened: pre seed through Series A produced 46.4 percent of named stage deals but just 5.1 percent of capital, down from 7.5 percent in Q1.
• Round size medians held or rose: seed $4 million, Series A $20 million, Series B $56 million, Series C $80 million, Series D $155 million.
• California kept 29.5 percent of deals but its capital share fell from 63.7 percent to 44.1 percent as debt flowed to energy and data center projects in Texas, Kansas, Nevada, and Idaho.
• Y Combinator appeared in 129 funded companies, up 65 percent from Q1, the most active quarter for any single investor this year.

The Headline Numbers

The quarter delivered 1,516 funded companies, with $150 billion in disclosed capital across the 1,296 that reported an amount. The median disclosed round was $10.2 million, essentially unchanged from $10.7 million in Q1.

16 companies closed financings of $1 billion or more, 54 crossed $500 million, and 227 crossed $100 million. Concentration eased slightly from the first quarter: the top 10 transactions took 44.2 percent of disclosed capital, down from 51.1 percent.

The Quarter Accelerated Every Month

April was the quietest funding month of 2026 at 403 companies and $27.8 billion. From there the market built steadily: 503 companies and $39.1 billion in May, then 610 companies and $83.1 billion in June.

June was the largest month of the year on both deal count and capital, and full weeks in the back half of the quarter ran between 110 and 165 newly funded companies. Whatever hesitation shaped April had fully cleared by quarter end.

The Credit Quarter: Debt Carried the Market

In Q1, we called debt the quiet story of the market after lenders deployed $35 billion. In Q2 it stopped being quiet.

199 companies raised debt in the quarter, deploying a combined $95.9 billion. That is 63.9 percent of all disclosed capital, meaning credit, not venture equity, was the dominant funding instrument of Q2 2026.

Anthropic anchored the wave with a $35 billion debt package finalized in June to fund AI chips and infrastructure, arranged by Apollo and Blackstone. The same company had closed a $65 billion Series H in April, making it the central capital event of the quarter on both sides of the balance sheet.

Below Anthropic sits a deep bench of billion dollar credit. Caturus closed $9.75 billion in project financing for its Commonwealth LNG export facility, QTS Realty Trust raised $4.6 billion, and data center operators Rowan Digital Infrastructure and Switch added $3 billion and $2.6 billion.

Company	Instrument	Amount	Sector	HQ
Anthropic	Debt	$35B	AI research	San Francisco, CA
Caturus	Project debt	$9.75B	Natural gas and LNG	Houston, TX
QTS Realty Trust	Debt	$4.6B	Data centers	Overland Park, KS
Cypress Creek Renewables	Debt	$3.5B	Solar	Santa Monica, CA
Rowan Digital Infrastructure	Debt	$3B	Data centers	Houston, TX
Clenera	Debt	$2.6B	Solar	Boise, ID
Switch	Debt	$2.6B	Data centers	Las Vegas, NV
Nscale	Venture round	$2B	AI infrastructure	London, UK
Starwood Real Estate Income Trust	Debt	$1.72B	Real estate	Miami Beach, FL
Baseten	Series F	$1.5B	AI inference	San Francisco, CA

Table 1. The 10 largest verified financings of Q2 2026. Eight of the ten are debt.

The equity standout among the giants was Baseten, whose $1.5 billion Series F for AI inference infrastructure was the largest pure venture round of the quarter. It was the company's fourth raise in 18 months, a pace that mirrors the inference market it serves.

AI Crossed the Halfway Mark at Pre Seed and Series A

542 of the quarter's funded companies, or 35.8 percent, build AI, machine learning, or generative technology into the core of their product. Those companies captured 49.2 percent of disclosed capital.

The stage level picture moved in a notable way. AI companies now account for 52.3 percent of pre seed deals, up from 44.3 percent in Q1, and 59.2 percent of Series A deals, up from 53.5 percent.

For the first time in this dataset, a majority of both pre seed and Series A rounds went to AI companies. Series B moved the other way, easing from 59.2 percent to 52.6 percent, which likely reflects the smaller Q2 Series B sample of 78 deals rather than a change in investor appetite.

The practical read is unchanged from last quarter, only stronger. A founder without an AI story now competes for a minority of early stage checks, and capital efficiency has become the non AI pitch by necessity.

Stage Dynamics and Round Size Benchmarks

Among the 1,236 deals carrying a named stage, seed led again at 280 deals. Debt financing was second at 199, ahead of Series A at 179, grants at 167, private equity at 114, and pre seed at 111.

The Barbell Got Wider

Pre seed, seed, and Series A together produced 46.4 percent of named stage deals and captured just 5.1 percent of disclosed capital. In Q1 the same group held 7.5 percent of the money.

Early stage founders are still getting funded at scale, with 573 pre seed through Series A rounds in the quarter. Their slice of the capital pie simply keeps shrinking as debt and late stage AI absorb the dollars above them.

Round Size Benchmarks

The pricing ladder held firm at the early stages and moved up in the middle. Seed stayed at a $4 million median and Series A at $20 million, while Series B rose from $50 million to $56 million, Series C from $75 million to $80 million, and Series D from $146.5 million to $155 million.

A rising middle with a flat entry point is a repricing pattern, not an expansion pattern. Investors are paying more for companies that have proven something and exactly the same for companies that have not.

Geography

California produced 448 funded companies, or 29.5 percent of all deals, essentially matching its Q1 share. New York followed with 223, and Massachusetts edged past Texas for third place, 87 companies to 85.

The capital map moved much more than the deal map. California's share of disclosed dollars fell from 63.7 percent to 44.1 percent, because the quarter's debt wave flowed to physical projects far from the coasts: LNG in Texas, data centers in Kansas and Nevada, and solar in Idaho.

The United Kingdom had its strongest quarter of the year with 53 funded companies raising $4.6 billion, led by Nscale's $2 billion venture round. Canada contributed 36 funded companies, matching its Q1 count.

The read for sellers holds from last quarter and gains a new wrinkle. The billion dollar projects landing in Kansas, Idaho, Nevada, and Houston bring hiring, contractors, and vendor spend to markets where the competition for attention is thin.

Sector Deep Dives

Software and IT Services: Still the Volume Engine

Information technology and services produced 518 funded companies and $38.6 billion, with a $10.9 million median round. 65.3 percent of these companies build on AI, up from 61.4 percent in Q1, so the AI wave keeps deepening inside the software mainstream.

The stage mix stayed early: 133 seed rounds, 91 Series A rounds, and 64 pre seed rounds. This one category alone delivered roughly 40 newly funded software buyers per week.

Frontier AI and Research Labs

The research category produced 100 funded organizations and $39.9 billion, and for the second straight quarter Anthropic dominated the total. Beyond the giant, the category raised $4.9 billion, led by Neuralink at $600 million and biotech NewLimit's $435 million Series C.

Energy and LNG: The New Megadeal Category

Oil and energy jumped to third place by capital at $10.4 billion across only 14 companies, almost entirely on the back of Caturus's $9.75 billion Commonwealth LNG project financing. Nuclear startup Valar Atomics added a $340 million Series B.

Renewables added $8.3 billion across 25 companies, with Cypress Creek and Clenera both closing multibillion dollar solar debt facilities. Between gas, solar, and the data centers they power, energy adjacent debt was the defining trade of the quarter.

Fintech: The Debt First Pattern Deepens

Financial services produced 108 funded companies and $10.3 billion. Debt was again the most common instrument at 34 deals, ahead of seed at 15 and Series A at 11.

Ramp's $750 million Series F was the standout equity round, matched in size by Sammons Financial Group's debt raise. The barbell inside fintech, big credit at the top and seed checks at the bottom with little in between, is now 2 quarters old and holding.

Defense and Space: More Deals, Steadier Checks

Defense and aerospace produced 49 funded companies, up from 41 in Q1, raising $4.3 billion. True Anomaly's $600 million Series D and Impulse Space's $500 million Series D led the category, with Mach Industries and Amca each adding $300 million.

The category's profile shifted from a few giant checks toward a broader mid nine figure pattern. That is what a maturing sector looks like: more companies reaching growth stage at once rather than one outlier absorbing the capital.

Healthcare: Volume Without Dollars, Again

The healthcare cluster produced 157 funded companies but only $2.5 billion in disclosed capital. Hospital and health care alone contributed 59 funded organizations, many grant backed.

Two straight quarters of the same shape make it a structural read. Healthcare is where deal volume lives and where megadeals do not, which favors vendors who can serve many smaller budgets over those hunting one large one.

Cybersecurity: The Quarter's Quiet Casualty

Computer and network security fell to 17 funded companies and $770 million, less than half its Q1 deal count of 38. One soft quarter is not a trend, but security founders raising in Q3 should expect a thinner comparable set than they had in the spring.

Semiconductors: Debt Reaches the Chip Layer

Semiconductors produced 17 funded companies and $3 billion, and even here credit led: Sunraycer's $901 million and Cerebras Systems' $850 million were both debt financings, with SiFive's $400 million Series G the top equity round. The instrument shift that started with data centers has reached the silicon itself.

Who Wrote the Checks

Y Combinator appeared as an investor in 129 funded companies, by far the most active quarter for any single firm this year and a 65 percent jump from its Q1 count of 78. The spring batch cycle plus follow on activity made YC's footprint larger than the next two most active investors combined.

Grants accounted for 167 deals and $2.8 billion, with the median award rising to $1.2 million from roughly $700,000 in Q1. Nonprofits, research organizations, hospitals, and universities remained the core grant recipients, with the National Science Foundation appearing 24 times.

Who Got Funded: Age and Headcount

The funded company profile got slightly younger and slightly leaner. The median seed funded company was founded in 2024, a year younger than in Q1, and 213 funded companies were founded in 2024 or later.

Headcount tells the same story. 328 funded companies employed 10 or fewer people and 561 employed between 11 and 50, meaning 83 percent of the quarter's funded companies have 200 or fewer employees.

The median Series A company employed 26 people, down from 30 in Q1, with Series B at 62 and Series C at 110. Leaner teams reaching the same milestones is exactly what you would expect as AI tooling compresses early headcount needs, and this dataset is now showing it.

Q1 vs Q2: What Changed

Metric	Q1 2026	Q2 2026	Change
Companies funded	1,729	1,516	Down 12%
Disclosed capital	$174.5B	$150.0B	Down 14%
Median disclosed round	$10.7M	$10.2M	Roughly flat
Debt capital	$35.1B	$95.9B	Up 173%
Debt share of capital	20%	63.9%	Tripled
AI share of capital	57%	49.2%	Down 8 points
AI share of Series A deals	53.5%	59.2%	Up 6 points
Early stage share of capital	7.5%	5.1%	Barbell widened
California share of capital	63.7%	44.1%	Down 20 points
Top 10 deals share of capital	51.1%	44.2%	Less concentrated

Table 2. Quarter over quarter comparison, Q1 vs Q2 2026.

Read together, the 2 quarters describe one market in transition. Deal volume cooled modestly, equity concentration eased, and the growth engine of the cycle, AI infrastructure, moved its financing from venture rounds to the credit markets.

Outlook for Q3 2026

Three things are worth watching from here. First, whether the credit share holds: 63.9 percent of capital arriving as debt is either the new normal for an infrastructure heavy cycle or a peak set by a handful of giant facilities, and Q3 will tell us which.

Second, the AI majority at the early stage. With AI now taking 52 percent of pre seed and 59 percent of Series A deals, the question for Q3 is whether seed follows past the halfway mark, which would make AI the default early stage category rather than the leading one.

Third, June's momentum. The year's biggest funding month closed the quarter, weekly cohorts ran as high as 165 newly funded companies, and every one of those companies is spending against a fresh budget right now.

That last point is the entire reason this dataset exists. A funded company contacted in week 1 is evaluating; the same company contacted in month 6 already signed with someone else.

Methodology

This report covers 1,516 companies with a last funding date between April 1 and June 30, 2026, drawn from the Fundraise Insider verified contact database. Capital totals reflect the 1,296 companies that disclosed a round amount; the remainder count toward deal volume only.

Capital totals count each company's most recent funding event once. Anthropic closed both a $65 billion Series H in April and a $35 billion debt package in June; consistent with the one event per company method, totals include the June debt financing, and the Series H is noted as context.