Global venture funding in October reached $59 billion, a 45% increase from the same period last year, according to Crunchbase data. The surge was largely driven by a record setting $15.9 billion funding round for China’s DeepSeek, the largest ever deal for a Chinese startup.

The majority of October’s venture funding was concentrated in the U.S. and China, with startups in those countries raising $28 billion and $20.6 billion, respectively. The last time China saw over $20 billion in venture funding in a single month was June 2018, when Ant Group raised $14 billion.

Seven companies raised billion dollar rounds, accounting for over 40% of October’s funding. These deals were primarily in frontier labs, manufacturing, energy, semiconductors, prediction markets, and spend management software. Private equity firms, including Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Lux Capital, led much of this funding.

DeepSeek’s $15.9 billion funding round at a $90 billion valuation marked the largest private funding by a Chinese tech company on record. The deal placed DeepSeek among the Top 10 most highly funded private companies, making it the second most valuable Chinese company after ByteDance and the third most valuable private frontier lab after Anthropic and OpenAI.

Moonshot AI, a rival open source lab, reportedly reached a $50 billion valuation in October, making it the 11th most valuable private company on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board. The startup has also reportedly filed confidentially to go public on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Other notable large funding rounds in October included:

– Massachusetts based Re:Build, which raised $2.1 billion for its manufacturing capabilities.

– Axiom, which raised $2 billion for power and grid capacity build out for data centers.

– Spend management platform Ramp, which raised $1.85 billion and reported an ARR of $2 billion.

– Open source semiconductor company Tenstorrent, which raised a $1.5 billion Series E funding and moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley from Canada.

– Prediction market Kalshi, which raised a $1 billion Series E.

– Frontier lab Flapping Airplanes, which raised a $1 billion Series A.

A further eight companies raised rounds north of $500 million, covering industries from frontier labs, robotics, legal and chips, to agentic AI and healthcare. Notable among these was TypeSafe AI, which raised an $870 million Series A funding on the heels of rapid developer adoption of its decision model Jev.

AI-driven companies accounted for 66% of global funding in October, with semiconductor companies gaining market share this past month. The U.S. IPO market was slow, with anticipation of Anthropic’s November IPO, which could surpass SpaceX’s record setting June listing that raised $85.7 billion.

On the M&A front, at least nine venture backed companies were acquired for more than $1 billion last month, including Uber’s acquisition of 19 year old ezCater for $2.3 billion.

With two months remaining, 2026 has already set records for acquisitions, IPOs, and funding rounds across major venture markets. October extended that momentum but also highlighted how concentrated this cycle has become: Seven companies accounted for more than 40% of global funding, while AI driven businesses captured two thirds.

As Anthropic prepares to list in what could be the largest IPO of all time, the question remains: How widely will this momentum spread?

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/october-2026-global-startup-funding-strong-china-deepseek/