Executive Summary

September brought capital back. Startups raised $53.1B across 1,012 rounds with a disclosed size, up 31.1% from August’s $40.5B. Deal count rose 31.9% from 767 rounds. That puts September second only to June ($61.1B) in the past six months.

Ten rounds of $1B or more accounted for $20.9B, or 39.4% of the month’s capital. Take them out and the market still raised $32.2B, up 29.7% on August’s $24.8B. A handful of giant cheques did not carry this recovery on their own; the rest of the market grew almost as fast.

Not everything moved up. The median disclosed round fell to $5.55M from $6.5M in August, so the typical deal got smaller even as the total grew. AI companies took 52.8% of all capital. North America took 63.4%. Europe had its strongest month in this window, helped by Mistral AI’s $3.49B Series D. Asian capital roughly halved.

Headline capital, round counts, geography and sector views cover only rounds with a disclosed size. The stage view below also counts rounds that did not disclose a size.

Q3 2026 in Review

The third quarter deployed $145.6B across 2,756 disclosed-size rounds, up 1.3% on Q2’s $143.8B while the round count fell 10.1% from 3,067. The market raised slightly more money in fewer deals: the average disclosed round was $52.8M.

Thirty-three rounds of $1B or more took $62.8B, or 43.2% of the quarter’s capital, up from 41.3% in Q2. Strip them out and the rest of the market raised $82.8B across 2,723 rounds, down 2.0% from Q2’s $84.5B on the same basis. The quarter’s growth came entirely from the top of the market.

July raised $52.1B across 977 rounds, with 13 mega-rounds taking just over half the month’s capital (50.5%). August was the quarter’s trough at $40.5B across 767 rounds, 10 mega-rounds for 38.7% of capital. September bounced back to $53.1B across 1,012 rounds, the quarter’s strongest month on both measures, with 10 mega-rounds taking 39.4%.

Series B rounds raised $14.6B across 229 disclosed-size rounds in Q3, 10.1% of the quarter’s capital. July raised $4.45B (75 rounds), August $5.33B (71) and September $4.86B (83), and the median held around $30M all quarter.

The quarter’s largest round was Safe Superintelligence’s $5.0B corporate round in July, followed by the $4.69B Advanced Vision Semiconductor joint venture in Japan in August, Crusoe’s $3.9B Series F in September, Moonshot AI’s $3.5B Series F in July and Mistral AI’s $3.49B Series D in September.

Quarterly figures use the current data snapshot. A $10B Blue Origin round dated July 8 is not in the current data, so it is excluded from the July and Q3 totals. July and August monthly figures have been revised since their original reports as late-arriving rounds filled in.

Market Pulse

Capital deployed: $53.1B across 1,012 disclosed-size rounds at 1,010 companies, backed by 3,066 distinct investors. The average disclosed round was $52.4M; the median was $5.55M. A few very large rounds pull the average far above the typical deal.

Concentration remains extreme. All ten of the month’s largest rounds were $1B or more, and the top 50 rounds (4.9% of deals) took 65.9% of capital. The remaining 962 rounds shared $18.1B.

The $1B-plus list covers more than AI labs. Crusoe ($3.9B Series F) and Mistral AI ($3.49B Series D) led, followed by The Boring Company ($3.0B), Sandals Resorts ($3.0B corporate round), Cognition ($2.0B), SB Energy ($1.5B), and four rounds of exactly $1B each for Stoke Space, Helix Digital Infrastructure, Anderon and Instinct. Eight of the ten were U.S.-headquartered. Four were corporate rounds, mostly for energy, infrastructure and real assets rather than software.

Compared with a year ago, capital is up 6.4% on September 2025’s $49.9B, and up 23.8% excluding $1B-plus rounds. The round count is down 30.7% from 1,460. Treat that count comparison with care. Records for September 2025 have had a year to fill in, and smaller rounds are often logged late, so September 2026’s count will probably rise.

For context on the run of mega-rounds, Crunchbase News reported that July set a record for billion-dollar rounds. September shows that pattern continuing.

Stage-by-Stage View

The stage table separates every eligible round from rounds with a disclosed size. In September, 1,417 rounds met the venture definition, and 1,012 of them disclosed a size. Capital, averages and medians use disclosed amounts only.

Pre-Seed and Seed

Pre-seed had 233 rounds, 200 of them with a disclosed size, totalling $331M at a $0.5M median. Seed had 430 rounds, of which 301 disclosed a size, raising $2.54B at a $3.54M median, up from $3.11M in August. Early-stage activity is broad but the cheques are small: seed and pre-seed together accounted for 663 eligible rounds and under 6% of disclosed capital.

Series A

There were 191 Series A rounds, 158 of them with disclosed sizes, raising $5.43B. The median disclosed Series A was $16.0M, up from $15.0M. The median is steady but the top end keeps stretching. Crunchbase News counts at least 114 Series A rounds of $100M or more globally so far in 2026, most of them for AI companies.

Series B

There were 95 Series B rounds, 83 with disclosed sizes, raising $4.86B, down from $5.33B in August. The median held at $30.0M.

Series C and Later

Series C raised $7.06B across 41 disclosed-size rounds (51 in total), with the median jumping to $110M from $75M. Series D ($8.39B), Series E ($5.47B) and Series F ($5.16B, five rounds including Crusoe) carried most of the growth-stage capital. Corporate rounds raised $8.96B, but only 42 of 113 disclosed a size, and four $1B-plus rounds made up most of that total.

Series Unknown

There were 187 rounds labelled Series Unknown, 117 with disclosed sizes, raising $3.14B.

Geography View

North America took $33.6B (63.4%), up 71.1% on August. The U.S. alone raised $30.2B across 379 rounds. San Francisco led with 105 rounds and $6.2B, and New York followed with 38 rounds and $2.16B. Several single mega-rounds put unusual cities near the top of the table: Denver (Crusoe), Bastrop, Texas (The Boring Company), and Montego Bay, Jamaica (Sandals Resorts).

Europe raised $10.2B (19.1%), almost four times August’s $2.57B. Mistral AI’s round accounts for about a third of that, and Paris raised $3.8B across 21 rounds. Activity was broad as well: Germany (36 rounds), Italy (22) and France (35) all logged meaningful deal counts, and the U.K. had 75 rounds totalling $1.04B.

Asia moved the other way. It raised $8.0B (15.1%), down 48.6% from August’s $15.6B. China raised $4.38B across 69 rounds, led by Shanghai ($1.1B across 13 rounds) and Shenzhen. India logged 81 rounds but only $0.86B, so it remains a market of many small deals.

Who Is Winning

Sector Breakdown

AI-tagged companies raised $28.0B across 432 rounds, or 52.8% of all capital. Excluding $1B-plus rounds, AI’s share rises to 54.7%, so AI’s dominance does not depend on the mega-rounds. Science and Engineering ($38.0B), Software ($30.2B) and Data and Analytics ($28.4B) overlap heavily with AI because companies carry several sector tags. Hardware ($17.2B) and Energy ($7.8B) stand out this month, helped by Crusoe, The Boring Company and SB Energy. Health Care raised $7.4B across 185 rounds without a single $1B-plus deal.

Lead Investors

Of the 1,012 disclosed-size rounds, 873 named a lead investor, and 813 distinct firms led at least one round. Y Combinator led 69 rounds, far ahead of anyone else, followed by BioInnovation Institute Venture Lab (18) and Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures (16). Among the large-cheque leads, Valor Equity Partners led seven rounds totalling $5.2B, Atreides Management seven totalling $5.17B, and Andreessen Horowitz nine totalling $3.31B. Insight Partners led 11 rounds.

Repeat Investors

Of 3,066 active investors, 537 took part in two or more rounds. Y Combinator appeared in 92. Andreessen Horowitz joined 18 rounds whose combined size was $11.35B. Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, Khosla Ventures and Alumni Ventures each joined 15. NVIDIA joined only nine rounds, but their combined size was $11.5B, the highest of any investor on the list.

Smart Money Flow

SignalRank scores investors on their track record. Scores are sparse, and the median score is zero at every stage, so the useful signal is how often scored investors show up, and how strong they are when they do. Scored investors made up 47.7% of pre-seed participations, 29.6% at Series A and 20.8% at Series B. Average scores peaked at Series B, then Series C and Series D. The strongest investors cluster between Series A and Series D.

SignalRank Qualifiers Snapshot

Five Series B companies met the SignalRank qualification standard in September, down from eight in August. Together they raised $495M in their Series B rounds, at a $40M median. Gimlet Labs’ $300M round was the largest. All five are U.S.-based.

What This Means For

VCs. Capital excluding $1B-plus rounds grew almost as fast as the total, so the mega-rounds did not account for the whole rebound. Still, the falling median round and the 65.9% share captured by the top 50 deals show that pricing power sits with a small set of companies. Cheques got bigger at the growth stages; the Series C median rose to $110M.

Founders. Seed and Series A medians edged up, and Series B held steady at $30M. The market is open, but the step from A to B is not getting easier: Series B capital fell even as total capital grew. Being an AI company helps, since AI took more than half of capital even without the largest rounds.

LPs. Exposure to this market increasingly means exposure to a few very large financings. Four of September’s ten $1B-plus rounds were corporate rounds in energy, infrastructure and real assets. Europe’s jump and Asia’s drop show how quickly geographic mix can swing on a few large deals.

Methodology and Data Notes

• Source: the SignalRank AI Corp’s data layer, with one row per funding round. Round sizes are counted once per round, never once per investor.

• Venture scope: pre-seed, seed, SAFE, Series A through I, Series Unknown, corporate and undisclosed rounds. Some rounds carry a label describing what came before them (for example, “after debt financing”). These are included only when the company’s current stage is an unknown venture stage, and they are shown under that stage. In September this added 122 rounds and $3.17B, shown under Series Unknown (117) and Undisclosed (5).

• Excluded transaction types include post-IPO financings (181 rounds, $100.4B), debt (240 rounds, $59.3B), private equity (45 rounds, $9.7B), numbered follow-on stage labels (216 rounds, $5.75B) and grants (356 rounds, $4.25B).

• Headline, geography, sector and concentration views use rounds with a disclosed size. The stage table also reports all eligible rounds; capital, averages and medians use disclosed amounts only.

• Sector totals overlap because companies carry multiple sector tags.

• The six-month trend reflects current data. A $10B Blue Origin round dated July 8 is not in the current data, so the July figure does not include it.

• Quarterly figures combine the current monthly data for July, August and September. Monthly figures for July and August have been revised since their original reports as late-arriving rounds filled in.

• SignalRank qualifiers are Series B companies that met the SignalRank qualification standard in the month.

• Public research is cited as context only and is not combined with SignalRank totals.

Exposure to Anthropic and/or OpenAI is increasingly important for multi-stage managers to demonstrate market positioning.

Some AI products have addressable markets that support $1tn+ outcomes. Building these businesses requires enormous amounts of capital. This creates a dynamic where capital is concentrated in a handful of companies from a handful of VCs.

This concentration of capital in established VCs is accelerating the transformation of VC from a cottage industry into an institutional asset class. a16z’s Jen Kha argues for this to run faster still, with a greater allocation of capital from institutional investors into a smaller number of VCs.

The team at Euclid VC point out here that a consequence of VC becoming an asset management business is that “scale is the product and discovery is a legacy feature. Call it the Blackstonification of venture.” Euclid, as an emerging manager, is seeking to reject this development but does not deny it is happening.

In other words, it is quaint to argue about consensus vs non-consensus investing.

This is not to assert that these asset managers do not make non-consensus bets. They continue to invest in uncommercialized categories (such as Coatue investing in Commonwealth Fusion), unloved companies (such as Benchmark investing in Manus despite regulatory concerns) and under appreciated founders (such as a16z investing in Adam Neumann’s Flow).

It is just that access to the consensus companies is now more important than timing. Marc Andreessen’s golden VC rule holds that the error of omission is worse than the error of commission.

Just invest in great companies. a16z’s Martin Casado makes it sound so simple when it comes to delivering VC returns: “The productive view is that good companies have good founders in big markets and smart investors realize that. And the gains are primarily driven by the underlying business. The speculative view is that gains are a function of beating “the market”. I tend to take a productive view. But I understand the speculative view.”

Ensuring access to the best companies becomes even more important as capital is concentrated in outsized winners. The weight of more capital in larger outcomes will matter more to returns for large managers than superior timing in a non-consensus bet.

Considering OpenAI and Anthropic

OpenAI and Anthropic were themselves once considered non-consensus (or “pre-consensus” as a consensus is itself time bound). AMP’s Anjney Midha has been on a recent tirade about how Anthropic’s seed round was passed on by 21 Sand Hill Road firms.

Notable pre-consensus bets were made by Khosla into OpenAI and by Spark/Menlo into Anthropic.

But the larger point is that 17 of the top 20 investors on SignalRank’s model have public positions in either Anthropic and/or OpenAI (see Figure 1).

These are top Series B investors per our model. But most of their access to these two companies comes from later stage initial investments.

If returns are concentrated in a small number of power law companies, then access to those companies (even at a later stage) becomes a prerequisite for capturing the power law.

It is perhaps more notable that of our top 20 Series B investors only Benchmark, Lux & Valor do NOT have public positions in either of these companies and still rank highly. Consensus exposure is common among leading investors but not a prerequisite for ranking highly as a Series B investor on our model.

Figure 1. First publicly identifiable investments into Anthropic / OpenAI by top 20 Series B investors

Source: Public filings; SignalRank

What does this mean for seed managers?

The implications of consensus VC dynamics are different for seed managers, especially as multi-stage funds are now increasingly investing at seed too. What to do?

Three seed managers have made variants of the same argument publicly (Angular’s Gil Dibner here, Chemistry’s Ethan Kurzweil here and 1984’s Ramy Adeeb here). They are arguing there are two divergent paths:

1. Go earlier still to inception stage and seek to find pre-consensus companies. This can make the portfolio construction math still work for a seed manager (with higher ownership and lower valuations, albeit with ever lower graduation rates). Dibner: “The key here is to distinguish between pure gold and fool's gold.”

2. Work on non-consensus (truly non-consensus, not pre-consensus) companies where the probability of follow-on funding from consensus VCs is low. As Dibner states, “non-consensus venture is more valuable than ever but we’re all gonna chew glass.” Or in Adeeb’s words: “The infrastructure bet requires you to be right about who wins. The application bet requires you to be right that AI works. Those are very different bets.”

The stark choice is perhaps best summed up by Kurzweil in his title: “Go Big or Go Broke - The Middle Ground is Gone.” Pick a path.

What does this mean for SignalRank?

VC is moving towards becoming an institutional asset class. Like the multi-stage funds, we believe it is possible to deliver consistent VC returns at scale. We just pursue a different strategy.

By the Series B, a company has usually become more legible to institutional capital (and is approaching consensus by Series C).

A qualifying Series B on our model is by definition backed by multiple top ranked VCs. We use that institutional validation to identify companies that are sufficiently legible to underwrite, but still early enough to offer differentiated exposure.

Our objective is to build exposure to a higher percentage of companies that go on to generate 5x+ returns from Series B, across a diversified portfolio and multiple vintages. This is a different approach to multi-stage funds that concentrate capital behind their highest conviction opportunities.

We are not trying to predict the next consensus company. We are trying to systematically own more of the companies that become consensus.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

The key to being on an upward swing is, unsurprisingly, making great investments.
A power law company doesn’t just generate returns. It can change the probability of making the next great investment too.

In SignalRank’s data, we can now visibly see the impact of how even a single investment can transform a franchise.

Spark Capital & Menlo Ventures both participated in the Series C for Anthropic in May 2023 at a ~$5bn post-money valuation.

Figure 1 shows how the ranking of each firm at Series C in our model has been transformed since 2023. We see how each firm held relatively stable rankings (before the madness of the ZIRP era), and then sustained excellence since 2023.

Spark is currently ranked #4 at Series C, while Menlo Ventures is ranked #19 at Series C.

Figure 1. Series C ranking on SignalRank model, 2016-26

Source: SignalRank

SignalRank’s model gives funds credit for three years for any investment (and then disregards investments from 3+ years ago). The performance of a Series C investment into Anthropic boosted their rankings.

We are now 3+ years from this investment, so the Anthropic round no longer contributes to their score and yet they both continue to perform well. They aren’t highly ranked merely because of Anthropic anymore.

Notable Series C investments in the last three years include:

• Spark Capital: Baseten, Granola, Mercury, Neros, Chainguard and Base Power

• Menlo Ventures: Modal Labs, Suno, Chai Discovery, Peregrine, and Lovable

The important point is not that every one of these companies will become a power law outcome. It is that both firms have continued to identify and win access to a high quality cohort after the original Anthropic investment rolled off the model.

Investing in a power law company appears to have at least three major benefits which become self-reinforcing:

1. Higher quality subsequent dealflow: a fund can source & win more potential power law companies because their brand is benefiting from the halo effect of investing in a prior winner.

2. Demonstrate tangible value add: subsequent portfolio companies may also benefit from access to the firm’s network, expertise and relationships, including relationships created through its position in Anthropic.

3. Fundraising: the fundraising effect is potentially the most tangible. Menlo announced $3bn of new capital in June 2026, its largest raise in 50 years. The Information reported in March that Spark Capital was raising approximately $3bn, around 50% more than its 2024 vintage. These raises give both firms substantially more capital (and the ability to continue to attract high caliber investment talent) with which to compound their investment firms.

A true power law investment can become a franchise flywheel. We are now starting to see this clearly within the SignalRank data.

Executive Summary

August 2026 produced $38.84B of venture funding across 648 disclosed-size rounds. Capital is down 48.1% from July’s $74.84B and up 122.1% against August 2025’s $17.48B. The disclosed-size round count fell 26.6% from July and 34.4% from a year ago. So $17.48B in August 2025 had more rounds than $34.84B last month. Concentration is a real thing.

Almost all of the month-over-month move sits in the largest rounds. Nine rounds of at least $1B took $14.18B, or 36.5% of August capital. Excluding them, the market deployed $24.66B across 639 rounds, against $24.92B across 871 rounds in July on the same basis. That is a 1.0% difference. July’s headline was carried by a $28.33B corporate round for Paltac in Japan; August has no equivalent.

Underneath the top of the market, pricing barely moved. Median Series A was $15.00M against $14.77M in July, median Series B $30.00M against $29.52M, median Series C $82.50M against $82.30M and median Series D $66.00M against $65.00M. Four consecutive stage medians landing within a couple of percent of the prior month is unusual. The drop in the headline figure is a mega-round effect, not a market-wide repricing.

The geographic mix changed more than the price did. Asia took 38.2% of August capital, its highest share in the six-month window, on the back of a $4.69B semiconductor joint venture in Japan and a $1.22B automotive round in China. North America fell to 46.6%. Europe took 6.4%, its lowest share in the window.

Market Pulse

Headline figures for August 2026

• Capital deployed: $38.84B, down 48.1% from July

• Disclosed-size rounds: 648, down 26.6% from July

• Companies funded: 647

• Named investors participating: 2,267

• Median round: $9.22M, up from $8.00M in July

• Average round: $59.94M, down from $84.75M in July

The six-month series is dominated by whichever very large rounds happen to land inside a given month. Reading the same six months with rounds of $1B or more removed gives a much steadier picture:

• March 2026: $30.38B

• April 2026: $23.56B

• May 2026: $22.77B

• June 2026: $37.41B

• July 2026: $24.92B

• August 2026: $24.66B

On that basis August is the fourth month out of six to land between $22B and $25B. June is the outlier in the series, not August. Round counts have fallen more consistently than capital: 1,297 in March against 648 in August, though the most recent months are still accruing.

The ten largest rounds took 38.6% of August capital and the largest 100 took 83.7%, leaving 548 rounds to split the remaining 16.4%. Average round size falls from $59.94M to $38.60M once the nine billion-dollar rounds are excluded, and to $37.41M once the ten largest are excluded.

The largest round of the month was a $4.69B corporate round for Advanced Vision Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp JV in Koshi, Japan, roughly two and a half times the next largest. Tomago Aluminium Company raised $1.76B in Australia, Hadrian $1.37B in Torrance and Shenzhou Automotive Technology $1.22B in Wuhan. Of the nine rounds at or above $1B, four went to U.S. companies, two to China, and one each to Japan, Australia and Singapore. Five of the nine were corporate rounds or SAFEs rather than lettered venture rounds, which is why the stage table shows so much capital sitting outside the Series A to D ladder.

Crunchbase News covered the same month from its own dataset in Gené Teare’s Global Venture Funding Jumps 122% In August As Streak Of Billion-Dollar Deals Continues, published September 3, 2026, and covered July’s billion-dollar-round activity in A Record 13 Billion-Dollar Rounds In July Pushed Venture’s Historic Run Higher, published August 4, 2026. Both are worth reading alongside this report for the exit and valuation detail it does not cover.

Stage-by-Stage View

August had 1,022 eligible venture rounds in total, 648 of which disclosed a size. The table above shows both counts by stage. Capital, average and median columns use disclosed amounts only, so the disclosed count is the right denominator for any cheque-size reading and the total count is the right one for activity.

Corporate rounds were the largest single category at $9.40B, from only 31 disclosed-size rounds out of 98 total. That is the Japanese semiconductor joint venture, Shenzhou Automotive and Poolside. Series B followed at $5.30B across 69 disclosed-size rounds out of 84, and Series C at $5.25B across 38 out of 44. Series D recorded $4.39B across 21 disclosed-size rounds out of 24, and Series A $3.97B across 111 out of 155.

SAFEs recorded $3.74B from 25 disclosed-size rounds out of 51, which is again the top of the market rather than the early stage: Tomago Aluminium and Dymon Asia Capital both used that structure for rounds of $1B or more. Median disclosed SAFE size was $11.37M against $5.00M in July, a shift that comes from a handful of large instruments rather than from any change in ordinary seed practice.

‘Series Unknown’ is a classification we use when the actual round stage is not disclosed. It recorded $2.29B across 71 disclosed-size rounds out of 139. Series G recorded $1.30B from two rounds, and Series E $578M from four disclosed-size rounds out of five.

The early stage supplied volume rather than dollars. Seed and pre-seed together produced 411 eligible rounds, of which 272 disclosed a size. Those 272 rounds are 42.0% of the disclosed-size population but $1.87B, or 4.8% of capital. Median disclosed seed was $3.50M and median disclosed pre-seed $1.00M.

Median disclosed round sizes against July:

• Series A: $15.00M, up from $14.77M; 155 total rounds with 111 disclosed, against 206 total with 170 disclosed

• Series B: $30.00M, up from $29.52M; 84 total with 69 disclosed, against 98 total with 75 disclosed

• Series C: $82.50M, up from $82.30M; 44 total with 38 disclosed, against 37 total with 30 disclosed

• Series D: $66.00M, up from $65.00M; 24 total with 21 disclosed, against 21 total with all 21 disclosed

• Seed: $3.50M, against $3.51M; 308 total with 195 disclosed, against 407 total with 290 disclosed

Series C is the only stage where the number of rounds rose against July. Everywhere else fewer companies raised at almost exactly the same prices.

Geography View

North America took 46.6% of August capital at $18.09B across 250 rounds, down 26.0% from July. Asia took 38.2% at $14.84B across 232 rounds, down 62.3% from a July figure that included the $28.33B Paltac round. Europe took 6.4% at $2.48B across 109 rounds, down 67.5% and its weakest share in the six-month window. Oceania took 4.8% at $1.87B, almost all of it the single Tomago Aluminium round.

Removing rounds of $1B or more changes the ranking materially. On that basis North America deployed $13.62B across 246 rounds and Asia $6.90B across 228 rounds, so Asia’s headline share is largely two very large transactions rather than broad-based strength. Europe is unchanged at $2.48B because it had no round of $1B or more in August at all.

U.S. companies raised $17.48B across 237 rounds, 46.3% of global capital. California took 67.0% of the U.S. total at $11.71B across 114 rounds. Texas is second at $1.93B across 15 rounds, helped by Base Power’s $1B round in Austin, then Massachusetts at $1.33B across 20 rounds, New York at $920.44M across 29 and Illinois at $378.00M across 3.

Texas ranking second on U.S. capital and Austin ranking fifth among U.S. cities on 11 rounds fits what Carta reports at the earliest stage. In its State of Pre-Seed: Q2 2026, published August 13, 2026, Carta places Texas second behind California on U.S. pre-seed cash and Austin third among metros, using its own US customer data and counting convertible instruments rather than priced rounds. Two different datasets on two different definitions are pointing at the same geographic shift.

Koshi, Japan leads every city in the world on capital from a single round. San Francisco led on volume with 51 rounds worth $3.38B, more than four times the round count of any other city on the capital leaderboard. Torrance recorded $2.17B from two rounds, Palo Alto $1.95B from eight and Austin $1.39B from 11. Outside the U.S., Singapore posted $1.75B across eight rounds, Shanghai $1.15B across nine and Mumbai $883.40M across ten. India produced 77 rounds, the third-highest count of any country, at $1.73B, or an average near $22M.

Who Is Winning

Sectors

Companies carry multiple sector tags, so these buckets overlap and do not sum to the market total. Science and Engineering led at $22.33B across 284 rounds, followed by Manufacturing at $14.92B across 89, Software at $13.94B across 273 and Hardware at $12.85B across 102.

Artificial Intelligence took $11.64B across 189 rounds, 30.0% of capital and 29.2% of disclosed-size rounds. That is a lower capital share than the AI-tagged share of recent months, and it is the direct consequence of August’s largest rounds going to semiconductor manufacturing, aluminium smelting, automotive and grid storage rather than to model and application companies.

Manufacturing and Hardware sitting second and fourth is the month’s most interesting sector result. Both are usually mid-table on capital. Between them they carry the Japanese semiconductor joint venture, Shenzhou Automotive, Hadrian and Yuanxin Satellite. Transportation at $6.28B across 60 rounds and Energy at $4.02B across 50 tell the same story from a different angle: physical infrastructure absorbed a large share of the very biggest cheques this month.

Health Care recorded $2.61B across 88 rounds and Biotechnology $2.07B across 48, both steady on volume at average round sizes near $30M and $43M.

Lead investors

547 of 648 rounds, or 84.4%, had a named lead. Those leads were spread across 610 distinct firms, 540 of which led exactly one round. Only 70 firms led two or more.

YZi Labs led seven rounds, more than any other firm, for $2.45M of total round value. General Catalyst led six rounds worth $1.27B, Sequoia Capital five worth $360.10M, and Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and S3 Ventures four each. The dollar figures behind these counts vary by three orders of magnitude: JP Morgan Chase and Valor Equity Partners each led two rounds worth $2.37B, more capital than any firm on the leaderboard, while S3 Ventures’ four rounds carried $63.05M.

Counting rounds led and counting dollars led produce almost entirely different rankings. Neither is wrong; they measure different businesses.

Repeat investors

326 investors participated in two or more rounds during the month, out of 2,262 distinct names, so about 14% of participating investors were repeat buyers.

Y Combinator appeared in 22 rounds, Andreessen Horowitz in 13 and General Catalyst in 12. Antler and Alumni Ventures appeared in nine each, Sequoia Capital in eight, and Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, RA Capital Management and YZi Labs in seven each. Total round value behind those counts diverges sharply: Y Combinator’s 22 rounds carried $2.12B of round value against Andreessen Horowitz’s $5.43B from 13.

Where the experienced money went

SignalRank’s ‘Investor scores’ in this dataset are a relative ranking using a percentile, and most investor rows carry no score at all. The useful measure is therefore how often a highly ranked investor appears in a round. Taking the 100 highest-scoring investors in the data, their presence rises steadily with stage:

• Pre-seed: 3.9% of rounds

• Seed: 14.4% of rounds

• Series A: 23.4% of rounds

• Series B: 34.8% of rounds

• Series D: 38.1% of rounds

• Series C: 39.5% of rounds

Roughly two Series C rounds in five included a top-100 investor in August, against one pre-seed round in twenty-five. Corporate rounds and SAFEs show almost no top-100 participation, which reflects who is behind them. Emerging managers still play a huge role ar Pre-Seed and Seed and in SAFE investments.

SignalRank Qualifiers Snapshot

Seven companies met the SignalRank qualification standard on a Series B raised in August, up from three in July. Together they raised $865M, with a median round of $45M, across three countries.

Higgsfield raised $400M in San Francisco at the 94.7th percentile of the scored Series B cohort and Instinct raised $250M in San Francisco at the 91.1st. Heaviside Industries raised $60M in Los Angeles at the 95.0th, Yuno $45M in Bogotá at the 96.9th and Blacksmith $45M in San Francisco at the 83.1st. Multiplier raised $35M in Singapore at the 98.7th, the highest percentile of the group, and Ambrook $30M in New York at the 91.8th.

Seven qualifiers sits against 84 Series B rounds overall, 69 of which disclosed a size. The qualification standard is deliberately narrow. Four of the seven are U.S. companies and three are not, which is a wider geographic spread than the cohort usually shows.

What This Means For

VCs

The market you compete in depends on the cheque you write. If you write $1B cheques, August was a step down from July and the deals moved toward hard assets: semiconductors, smelting, automotive, grid storage. If you write $10M to $50M cheques, almost nothing changed. Median Series A, B, C and D all landed within a couple of percent of July.

That combination has a practical implication. When headline capital moves by half and stage medians do not move at all, the headline is not telling you anything about your own pricing environment. Track the ex-mega series and the stage medians instead.

Lead activity remains dispersed. 610 firms led at least one round and only 70 led more than one. No small group is setting terms across this market.

Founders

Fewer companies raised in August than in July, but the ones that did raised at the same prices. Median round size rose from $8.00M to $9.22M while the disclosed-size round count fell 26.6%. Comparables from July still hold at Series A through D.

Series C is the one stage where round counts rose against July, from 37 total to 44. If you are approaching a growth round, that is the part of the ladder with the most active demand right now.

If you are outside the U.S., volume is still there. India ran 77 rounds, the third-highest count of any country, and Shanghai, Singapore and Mumbai all appear on the global city capital leaderboard. Average round sizes in those markets are well below U.S. levels, so volume and cheque size remain separate questions.

If you are raising pre-seed on a convertible instrument, Carta’s State of Pre-Seed: Q2 2026 is the better reference than this report. It covers SAFEs and notes before a first priced round, which sit outside the priced-round population measured here.

LPs

The 36.5% of August capital that went into nine rounds is not accessible to most funds, and it is what drives the headline. When you read that venture funding is up 122% year over year, the relevant follow-up is what the market looked like without the largest rounds. On that basis monthly capital has sat between $22.77B and $37.41B since March, with four of six months between $22B and $25B.

Concentration is worth tracking as an exposure measure rather than a momentum signal. 83.7% of August capital went to 100 rounds. A vintage built in a month like this one will look very different depending on whether a manager was in that top tier or among the 548 rounds that split the remaining 16.4%.

One caution on the year-over-year figure. August 2025 was measured on a fully accrued population and August 2026 was measured five days after month end. The +122% comparison is real in direction, but the August 2026 side of it will grow.

Methodology and Data Notes

Round, investor, geography and sector data come from SignalRank’s funding round dataset. Headline, capital, geography and sector views require a disclosed amount, so their round counts describe disclosed-size rounds. The stage table separately shows total eligible rounds and disclosed-size rounds; its capital, average and median columns use disclosed amounts only. SignalRank qualifier data comes from SignalRank’s company history dataset, using the V4 qualification algorithms with a Series B date inside the month. Score at B in the qualifier table is the company’s percentile within the scored Series B cohort.

Capital totals deduplicate to one row per funding round before aggregation. The underlying table holds one row per investor per round, so summing without deduplication would overcount substantially. Round counts, company counts and investor counts all use distinct identifiers.

The report covers equity venture round types: SAFE, pre-seed, seed, Series A through Series I, series unknown, corporate rounds and undisclosed rounds.

Some venture investors love binary arguments because binary arguments disguise judgment.

Concentrated funds say (dismissively) that diversification is an index fund for people without conviction. Diversified funds (also dismissively) say concentration is ego dressed as strategy.

Both are right about the bad version of the other. Both are conveniently quiet about their own failure mode.

There is good diversification and bad diversification. There is good concentration and bad concentration.

The number of companies in a portfolio tells you almost nothing on its own.

The real question is what the investor knows when the decision is made, and how right are they.

At seed, uncertainty is irreducible. The product may not work. The market may not exist. The founder may be brilliant, impossible, or both. The company may become something entirely different from the pitch. A small number of outcomes will produce most of the returns, and those winners are unusually difficult to identify before the evidence arrives.

That is where diversification can be excellent strategy. Done well, it expresses conviction about the shape of the market. A skilled seed investor can define a domain, develop a distinctive source of deal flow, make many small investments, and let reality reveal which companies deserve more time and capital. The portfolio is an instrument for discovery.

I have included a few articles below published this week

BoxGroup is a useful example. Gené Teare’s analysis of the 2026 unicorn class found that BoxGroup was the only seed specialist among the 10 investors that had backed the most new unicorns. It ranked third among seed investors despite deploying far less capital than the multistage giants around it. That is good diversification: many informed shots, a repeatable selection edge, and enough exposure to capture outliers.

Africa currently shows the cost of losing that layer. Grégoire de Padirac reports that AI has made prototypes cheaper and brought more founders to the starting line, while the $100,000 to $500,000 first cheque has been shrinking for three years. Capital is concentrating in established managers and later rounds just as experimentation becomes less expensive. That is backwards. The earliest stage is where a market most needs investors willing to finance discovery across many uncertain attempts.

Diversification becomes bad when it stops being a discovery and selection system and becomes access insurance.

Large multistage firms increasingly write seed cheques into dozens or hundreds of companies because they want the right to compete for later rounds. The small cheque buys a logo, information, and a place near the table.

The fund may call this diversification, but the economic purpose is often optionality for a much larger pool of capital. If the firm has no special edge at seed, gives little useful attention, and expects later investors or market momentum to identify the winners, the portfolio is broad without being thoughtful. Later it concentrates with far larger checks into a smaller number of outliers.

Not to single them out because there is much to like, but SOSV is the clearest recognizable example in the current SignalRank data. In the rolling three-year seed cohort ending June 30, 2026, it backed 147 companies, produced no unicorns (so far), recorded an average marked MOIC of 2.40x, and ranked 432nd.

By comparison, among the 15 seed investors with at least 100 companies, median marked MOIC was 3.51x. SOSV was second-lowest. This was not a single snapshot: its rolling cohorts in 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 each contained between 147 and 204 companies and produced no unicorns. The marked MOIC ranged from 2.13x to 2.83x. These MOICs are estimates based on subsequent valuations so will certainly not be accurate, but will be directionally correct.

Those figures do not establish the net return of every SOSV legal fund. Its sector and geographic mix may mature differently, and private marks are not distributions. They do show a broad portfolio repeatedly failing to produce the outliers or appreciation visible in stronger diversified seed strategies within three years of the seed round. On the evidence available, that is bad diversification: breadth without a demonstrated selection edge.

It is tempting (emotionally) to put Sequoia in that category. The data says not to.

I queried SignalRank’s rolling three-year investor data through June 30, 2026. At seed, Sequoia backed 77 companies, of which 14 had become unicorns. Its 18.2 percent unicorn efficiency ranked first, and its average marked MOIC was 9.81x. Among investors with at least 20 seed companies, the median unicorn efficiency was zero. Whatever one thinks of a large multistage firm operating at seed, Sequoia’s observed seed results are not evidence of bad diversification.

They do reveal something more interesting. Sequoia’s portfolio narrows as information improves.

At Series A, it backed 80 companies and 22 became unicorns, a 27.5 percent hit rate. At Series B, the portfolio fell to 53 companies, with 27 unicorns and a 50.9 percent hit rate. At Series C, it was 40 companies and 29 unicorns, or 72.5 percent. At Series D, it was 27 companies and 22 unicorns, or 81.5 percent. Sequoia ranked first at seed, Series B, Series C, and Series D, and second at Series A.

That is the shape of a sensible multistage strategy. Explore broadly when uncertainty is high. Concentrate as evidence accumulates. Seed creates the field of view. Series B and later turn information into larger conviction.

This does not prove that every Sequoia fund, partner, or individual decision was well constructed. SignalRank’s data is at the investor level, not the individual fund level or the partner level.

Unicorn status and private marks are not cash distributions. Recent cohorts have not fully matured. But the stage progression is too clear to describe Sequoia’s seed activity as bad diversification. A fairer conclusion is that Sequoia-like firms risk bad diversification when seed becomes merely an access strategy. Sequoia itself appears, on current evidence, to have an edge that makes the broad seed portfolio productive.

Series B is where concentration can become good because the decision is no longer being made in the dark. There is a product, a team, customer behavior, a price, a growth rate, and evidence about whether the market is pulling. The investor can compare a company with its cohort rather than with a story. Concentration at that point can reflect selection rather than faith.

This is also the logic behind SignalRank. We only score a company for an investment at Series B.

Beyond that the score relies on all of the investors in the round. We do not argue that one brand is always right. We track the whole Series B market and select from across it. No single top-tier investor is enough to make a company investible.

The ‘company score’ we rely on has been more predictive than simply following a famous fund.

Good concentration is not loyalty to a manager. It is the willingness to put more capital behind a smaller number of companies after multiple independent signals agree.

The changing Series A market shows why timing matters. The median Series A has risen from $4.5 million a decade ago to $19.4 million today, while the number of funds large enough to lead a typical round has fallen sharply. More money is chasing a narrower definition of what qualifies. Companies with real revenue and good growth can be stranded because they are neither speculative enough to sell a category dream nor dominant enough to look inevitable.

That is bad concentration at the market level. Capital clusters around the same signals, the same narratives, and the same companies. Price rises. Selection becomes consensus.

Anthropic is the extreme version. Erin Griffith’s account of the investors positioned to profit from its IPO shows a small group of venture firms, strategic investors, employees, and private pools capturing much of the appreciation before the public gets access. The company may justify the enthusiasm. The portfolio problem exists anyway. If many supposedly different funds own the same late-stage winner at similar prices, an LP has manager diversification and company concentration.

Eric Fitzgerald makes that point directly. An LP can own 15 venture funds and still be making the same bet repeatedly. Mega-rounds captured 81 percent of global venture funding in the second quarter of 2026. Anthropic alone took close to one-third. Counting fund names conceals the overlap underneath.

This is bad diversification. It multiplies fees without necessarily multiplying sources of return.

Bad concentration is the mirror image. It puts too much capital behind too little evidence, or pays so much for apparent certainty that even being right produces a mediocre return. A concentrated seed fund can mistake intimacy with a founder for knowledge about a market. A concentrated growth fund can mistake a prestigious syndicate for a margin of safety. Conviction is not a substitute for due diligence.

Good diversification is broad where the unknowns are genuinely hard to reduce. Good concentration follows information and preserves enough ownership for success to matter. Bad diversification accumulates logos, managers, or tiny positions without a distinct edge. Bad concentration turns fashion, access, or reputation into an oversized exposure.

Kyle Harrison’s Humility Hard Hats is ostensibly about founders receiving investor feedback, but its deeper lesson applies to investors too. Conviction should not shut off the intake valve. The best portfolio strategy combines a point of view with a mechanism for discovering that the point of view is wrong.

The portfolio is that mechanism.

At seed, it should create enough surface area for surprise. At Series B and beyond, it should express what the evidence has taught you. Across managers, it should produce genuinely different exposures rather than several routes into the same crowded cap table.

Diversification and concentration are tools. Neither is a philosophy. The skill is knowing when uncertainty deserves more experiments, when evidence deserves more capital, and when apparent conviction is merely the comfort of standing in a crowd.

Data note: SignalRank figures use rolling three-year investor-level cohorts ending June 30, 2026. “Unicorn efficiency” is the share of portfolio companies classified as unicorns in the relevant stage cohort. Average MOIC reflects marked value baswed on estimated round valuations, not realized cash returns. Results are useful for comparing observed stage patterns, but they do not establish the construction or performance of a specific legal fund.

The Missing First Cheque: Why African Pre-Seed Keeps Shrinking

Grégoire de Padirac | Africa: The Big Deal | September 3, 2026

Grégoire de Padirac identifies a striking mismatch in African venture capital. AI has made it cheaper and faster to produce a first prototype, bringing more founders to the starting line, while the $100,000-$500,000 equity cheques that turn those prototypes into companies have been shrinking for three years. Digital Africa’s AI Startup Challenge received more than 400 entries from 40 countries, but the financing layer at the entrance to the funnel is narrowing.

His hand-classification of H1 2026 deals challenges the idea that AI startups are simply absorbing all available capital. Companies using AI received about 14 percent of African startup funding, while genuinely AI-native ventures received less than 2 percent. The money was highly concentrated geographically: 86 percent of AI funding went to Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya, compared with about 58 percent of the wider market.

De Padirac argues that this is part of a global first-cheque squeeze, amplified in Africa by dependence on foreign capital and the absence of a large domestic institutional base. Rational allocators concentrate money in established managers when exits are scarce, but that logic starves the emerging and specialist funds most likely to back new founders. His answer assigns different jobs to different pools of capital: commercial LPs pursue returns, development institutions absorb early ecosystem risk, and African pension funds and insurers become the long-term domestic foundation. The broader lesson is uncomfortable: cheaper company formation does not automatically produce a broader venture market when capital is concentrating farther up the funnel.

Read more

Which Investors Will Get Rich From Anthropic’s IPO?

Erin Griffith | The New York Times | September 3, 2026

Erin Griffith uses Anthropic’s expected blockbuster IPO to show how startup investing has changed. The question is not simply whether Anthropic’s public debut will create wealth, but which investors accumulated meaningful exposure while the company was still private. The roster includes Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Iconiq, alongside strategic investors and employees.

The larger story is the layering of modern startup capital. Early venture rounds now give way to huge late-stage financings, secondary transactions, strategic corporate stakes, sovereign pools, and employee liquidity programs long before an IPO. A successful listing can make all of those holders richer, while public investors arrive after much of the private-market repricing has already occurred.

That makes Anthropic a useful companion to this week’s portfolio and market-concentration pieces. The company may become one of history’s largest public offerings, but its cap table shows that access to the defining private companies has itself become a concentrated asset. The IPO opens the door to the public market while crystallizing gains accumulated behind it.

Read more

The Series A is dead, Long live the Series A

Author: Jackie DiMonte Published: September 2, 2026

The thesis is that Series A has become a larger, less liquid, and more consensus-driven market, leaving many historically strong companies stranded between speculative ambition and overwhelming traction. DiMonte traces the shift to a reinforcing cycle: round sizes grew, funds grew to lead them, and firms too small for the new Series A moved earlier. The result is more capital chasing a narrower definition of what qualifies as fundable.

The killer detail is the scale of the reset. The median Series A rose from $4.5 million ten years ago to $19.4 million today. Under DiMonte’s assumptions about portfolio size, reserves, fees, and a lead investor funding 70 percent of a round, the number of funds large enough to lead a typical Series A fell from roughly 200 annual fund closes to 50. That shrinkage leaves companies with $3-5 million in revenue and 3-5x annual growth competing against either pre-revenue category bets or companies already growing tenfold.

DiMonte expects the gap to attract concentrated smaller funds, seed investors moving downstream, and private-equity buyers. The market’s next opportunity may sit precisely where the current consensus has stopped looking: companies with sound fundamentals that are neither dream-stage outliers nor obvious hypergrowth winners.

Read more: Source

Humility Hard Hats

Kyle Harrison | Investing 101 | August 29, 2026

Kyle Harrison writes about a recurring founder failure mode in fundraising conversations: a founder asks for feedback, then treats the answer as an attack that must be rebutted. The piece begins with a founder who defended his “say-to-do ratio” after Harrison said investors in the category would want to see a repeated pattern of promise, delivery, promise, delivery before underwriting a larger vision. Harrison says many founders enter “pitch mode,” where disagreement turns into debate instead of learning.

The essay’s main distinction is between debate and risk inventory. Harrison argues that fundraising has no judge, audience, or scoreboard; there is only one person who may or may not wire money. Startup evaluation is therefore less about proving the VC wrong and more about showing which risk dials have moved down. Big promises still matter, but they only work if the delivery foot follows. Otherwise, the founder answers skepticism about traction with an even larger vision, widening the gap between promise and proof.

The caveat is that Harrison does not argue founders should become agreeable or lose conviction. He explicitly says great exceptions exist, that many VCs are wrong, and that deviant founders often need to ignore most feedback. His narrower point is that conviction should not shut off the intake valve. The useful founder posture is “paranoid in private and confident in public”: already aware of how the company could die, calm when someone names a risk, and curious enough to compare notes when free information is offered.

Read more

Building Portfolios for Different Types of Risk

Dan Gray | The Odin Times | August 30, 2026

Dan Gray argues that venture portfolio construction should be understood as risk management rather than a simple argument between concentrated talent and diversified humility. He opens from the claim that outsized returns require uncertainty, but that maximizing risk can turn venture capital into trading or gambling. In his account, the harder skill is learning which kinds of risk a strategy is built to absorb and which kinds it is likely to mishandle.

The first half makes the case for diversification. Gray says venture outcomes are hard to predict, with many investments expected to lose money and only a tiny share returning 50x or more. He cites Harry Stebbings saying his predicted top five companies from 20VC Fund I were all wrong three years later, then connects that uncertainty to larger portfolios. Larger portfolios, in Gray’s simulation, improve the odds of good performance, while smaller portfolios retain more exposure to rare great outcomes but make those outcomes less likely.

The second half separates idiosyncratic risk from execution risk. For early-stage investing, Gray says diversified portfolios can help absorb the unpredictable path from unknown idea to outlier. For specialist or later-stage strategies, where the technical category may be better understood and active support matters more, concentration can make sense because investors have limited capacity to lead rounds, take board seats, and help companies execute. His conclusion is not that one strategy is universally right. Venture needs both diversified funds willing to underwrite uncertainty and concentrated investors willing to support execution, with a healthier market equilibrium between the two.

Read more

Which Investors Have Backed The Most 2026 Unicorns?

Gené Teare | Crunchbase News | August 19, 2026

Gené Teare examines the investors behind the 250 companies that joined the Crunchbase Unicorn Board through August 15, already exceeding the 193 minted in all of 2025. The class raised $98 billion in total, including $74 billion during 2026, with robotics, AI labs, healthcare, AI infrastructure, and AI deployment driving much of the new company creation. Fifty-six percent of the companies are based in the United States and 19 percent in China.

The leading investors are familiar: Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, Lightspeed, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, Lux, and General Catalyst. The surprise is BoxGroup, the only seed specialist in the top 10. It ranked third among seed investors despite backing far fewer companies than YC and operating with funds that are a fraction of Sequoia’s size. At Series A, a16z led the count, followed by Khosla, Spark, and Sequoia.

The data supports both sides of this week’s portfolio argument. Large multistage firms dominate because they combine early access with the capital to keep funding winners as they scale. BoxGroup shows that fund size and brand are not the same as judgment. Concentration works when an investor repeatedly selects the right companies; diversification works when it gives a skilled investor enough shots at a power-law market. Neither strategy becomes good merely by being large.

Read more

July 2026 produced $53.41B of venture funding across 818 disclosed-size rounds. Capital is down 12.0% from June’s $60.66B and up 71.3% against July 2025’s $31.19B, while the disclosed-size round count fell 26.2% from June and 31.2% from a year ago.

Concentration is the month’s defining feature. Eleven rounds of at least $1B accounted for $29.09B, or 54.5% of all capital, up from six such rounds in June. The ten largest rounds took 52.6% and the largest 100 rounds took 85.0%, leaving 718 rounds to split the remaining 15.0%. Excluding rounds of $1B or more, the market deployed $24.33B across 807 rounds, down 35.6% from June’s $37.76B on the same basis and back inside the $22.09B to $30.45B range that held from February through May.

Blue Origin’s $10B round on July 8 is more than a third of the month’s mega-round capital on its own, and it is the reason Washington state ranks second in the U.S. behind California. Median round size rose from $5.0M to $9.0M even as deal count fell by more than a quarter, which is what happens when fewer companies raise and the ones that do raise larger amounts.

Market Pulse

Headline figures for July 2026

• Capital deployed: $53.41B, down 12.0% from June

• Disclosed-size rounds: 818, down 26.2% from June

• Companies funded: 817

• Named investors participating: 2,897

• Median round: $9.0M, up from $5.0M in June

• Average round: $65.30M

The six-month series carries one distortion worth naming. February 2026 shows $197.61B because OpenAI ($122B), Anthropic ($30B) and Waymo ($16B) all closed inside the same four weeks. Every other month in the window sits between $36B and $61B.

Reading the same six months with rounds of $1B or more removed gives a steadier picture:

• February 2026: $24.64B

• March 2026: $30.45B

• April 2026: $22.55B

• May 2026: $22.09B

• June 2026: $37.76B

• July 2026: $24.33B

On that basis July is down 35.6% from June and sits near the February and April levels. June, not July, is the outlier in that series. What moves the headline from month to month is how many very large rounds happen to close, and July had eleven against June’s six.

Average round size falls from $65.30M to $30.14M once the eleven billion-dollar rounds are excluded, and to $31.34M once the ten largest rounds are excluded.

Blue Origin’s $10B was the largest round of the month by a factor of two, followed by Safe Superintelligence at $5B, Kling AI at $2.8B and Helsing at $1.8B. Six of the ten largest rounds went to U.S. companies, two to Germany, one to China and one to Singapore. Across all eleven rounds of $1B or more, the split is seven U.S., two German, one Chinese and one Singapore.

For additional perspective on July’s largest financings, see Gené Teare’s Crunchbase News analysis, Data: Billion-Dollar Rounds Set Global Funding Record In July 2026, published August 4, 2026.

Stage-by-Stage View

Series Unknown was the largest single category at $14.20B across 93 disclosed-size rounds out of 154 total, which is entirely a mega-round effect: Blue Origin’s $10B and Atoms’ $1.7B both sit there. Corporate rounds followed at $8.08B across 39 disclosed-size rounds out of 121, carried by Safe Superintelligence. SAFEs came next at $5.59B across 38 disclosed-size rounds out of 85, which is unusual for what is normally an early-stage instrument, but Kling AI’s $2.8B and Joulent’s $1.75B were both structured that way.

Among lettered venture rounds, Series A led on capital at $5.41B across 162 disclosed-size rounds out of 194 total. Series C recorded $5.18B across 28 disclosed-size rounds out of 35, Series D recorded $4.75B with all 21 rounds disclosing a size, and Series B recorded $4.33B across 72 disclosed-size rounds out of 95 total. Series E had two total and disclosed-size rounds; Series F had three total, two with disclosed sizes.

The early stage supplied volume rather than dollars. Seed and pre-seed together produced 353 disclosed-size rounds, 43.2% of the disclosed-size population, but $2.40B, or 4.5% of capital. Across all eligible records there were 480 seed and pre-seed rounds. Median disclosed pre-seed was $1.37M and median disclosed seed was $3.73M.

Median disclosed round sizes moved in different directions by stage against June:

• Series A: $14.78M, down from $18.50M; 194 total rounds with 162 disclosed, versus 241 total with 201 disclosed

• Series B: $29.52M, down from $35.00M; 95 total rounds in both months, with 72 disclosed in July versus 79 in June

• Series C: $82.30M, up from $59.70M; 35 total rounds with 28 disclosed, versus 50 total with 47 disclosed

• Series D: $65.00M, down from $148.61M; 21 total rounds, all disclosed, versus 17 total with 16 disclosed

Series C is the one stage where fewer deals came with larger cheques. Everywhere else the median compressed, which suggests the widening at the top of the market is not yet feeding through to the rounds beneath it.

Geography View

North America took 64.2% of July capital at $34.27B across 289 rounds, up 47.7% from June. Asia took 19.8% at $10.58B across 252 rounds, down 61.4% from a June figure of $27.38B that was itself inflated by large rounds. Europe took 14.1% at $7.54B across 214 rounds, down 7.4%.

Both swings are driven by a handful of rounds rather than by deal flow. Asia’s round count fell 3.8% while its capital fell 61.4%, and North America’s capital rose 47.7% even as its round count fell 41.9%.

U.S. companies raised $33.96B across 272 rounds, 63.6% of global capital. California took 45.9% of the U.S. total at $15.59B across 107 rounds. Washington state is second at $10.25B across just 9 rounds, which is Blue Origin’s Kent round and almost nothing else. Texas follows at $2.21B, then Washington D.C. at $1.36B, New York state at $1.29B and Massachusetts at $1.02B.

The state view is a rollup from company city, since the source records city and country but not state. Cities whose state cannot be resolved from the name alone are grouped separately in assets/us-state-breakdown.csv and account for $173.61M, or 0.5% of U.S. capital. The rollup reconciles exactly to the country-level U.S. total.

Kent, Washington leads every city in the world on capital with one round. Palo Alto recorded $6.39B across 9 rounds, Beijing $3.18B across 6 and Munich $2.35B across 8, each concentrated in a small number of large deals. San Francisco led on volume with 50 rounds worth $2.31B. London posted 45 rounds worth $936.46M, the second-highest round count of any city, at less than half San Francisco’s average round size. India produced 78 rounds worth $812.01M, more rounds than any country except the U.S., at an average near $10M.

Who Is Winning

Sectors

Companies carry multiple sector tags, so these buckets overlap and do not sum to the market total. Science and Engineering led at $41.91B across 368 rounds, followed by Software at $29.91B across 373 rounds, Artificial Intelligence at $28.19B across 279 rounds and Data and Analytics at $28.04B across 286 rounds. Most large AI rounds carry all four tags.

AI-tagged rounds accounted for 52.8% of July capital.

Two sectors are worth separating out. Government and Military produced only 11 rounds but $13.40B of capital, the highest average of any group, on the back of Helsing and Quantum Systems. Health Care is the mirror image: 119 rounds, the seventh-highest count of any sector, but $3.82B of capital and an average round near $32M. Health Care companies are still getting funded at a steady rate, at a fraction of AI cheque sizes.

Lead investors

689 of 818 rounds, or 84.2%, had a named lead. Those leads were spread across 772 distinct firms, 686 of which led exactly one round. Only 86 firms led two or more.

Khosla Ventures and Insight Partners each led 8 rounds. Accel led 6. Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Inflection Point Ventures each led 5. The dollar figures behind those counts diverge sharply: Index Ventures led $2.19B of capital across its 5 rounds while Inflection Point Ventures led $2.35M across its 5. Same round count, three orders of magnitude apart.

Repeat investors

409 investors participated in two or more rounds during the month, out of 2,893 distinct names, so about 14% of participating investors were repeat buyers.

Y Combinator appeared in 28 rounds, more than double the next most active. Insight Partners appeared in 12, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Accel and Alumni Ventures in 11 each. The round value behind those counts varies enormously: Y Combinator’s 28 rounds carried $687.23M of total round value, while Lightspeed’s 11 rounds carried $5.33B. A seed programme and a multi-stage fund can both rank among the month’s busiest investors and be doing entirely different things with the money.

Where the experienced money went

Investor scores in this dataset are sparse and concentrated in priced venture rounds, so the useful measure is not an average score but how often a highly ranked investor appears in a round at all. Taking the 100 highest-scoring investors active in the data, their presence rises with stage:

• Pre-seed: 1.3% of rounds

• Seed: 12.6% of rounds

• Series A: 24.1% of rounds

• Series B: 26.4% of rounds

• Series C: 32.1% of rounds

• Series D: 38.1% of rounds

Roughly one Series C round in three included a top-100 investor in July, against one pre-seed round in seventy-five. Series Unknown, SAFE, corporate and undisclosed rounds carried no scored investor participation at all, which reflects how those instruments are recorded rather than who is behind them.

SignalRank Qualifiers Snapshot

Three companies met the SignalRank qualification standard on a Series B raised in July, down from seven in June. Together they raised $260M, with a median round of $95M, across two countries. July in prior years saw similarly smaller qualifiers.

Glow raised $100M in Palo Alto at the 99.6th percentile of the scored Series B cohort and Senra Systems raised $65M in Redondo Beach at the 100th. Dwelly raised $95M in London at the 98.1st.

Three qualifiers in a month is a small number, and it sits alongside 95 Series B rounds overall, 72 of which disclosed a size. The qualification standard is deliberately narrow, and a month with fewer qualifiers than usual says more about the composition of the Series B cohort than about the size of the market.

What This Means For

VCs

The market you are competing in depends on which market you are in. If you write $1B cheques, July was the strongest month of the year so far. If you write $10M to $50M cheques, July looked like February and April, and the market on that basis has moved sideways for six months. Median Series A fell to $14.78M and median Series B fell to $29.52M while Series C medians rose, so pricing pressure is currently sitting below the growth rounds rather than in them.

Lead activity is unusually dispersed. 772 different firms led at least one round and only 86 led more than one. There is no small group setting terms across the market right now.

Founders

Fewer companies raised in July, but the ones that did raised more: median round size went from $5.0M to $9.0M while deal count fell 26.2%. That combination usually means investors are being more selective per deal rather than deploying less overall.

Stage matters for what you should expect. At Series A and B, medians came down against June, so anchoring on spring comparables is likely to be optimistic. At Series C, medians rose while the number of rounds fell by 40%, so the bar is higher and the outcome for companies that clear it is better.

If you are outside the U.S., the volume is still there. London ran 45 rounds, second only to San Francisco worldwide, and India ran 78 rounds, more than any country except the U.S. Average round sizes in both are far below U.S. levels, so volume and cheque size are separate questions.

LPs

The 54.5% of July capital that went into eleven rounds is not accessible to most funds, and it is what drives the headline growth figure. When you read that venture funding is up 71.3% year over year, the relevant follow-up is what the market looked like without the largest rounds. On that basis, monthly capital has moved between $22.09B and $37.76B since February with no trend.

Concentration is worth watching as a risk measure rather than a momentum signal. 85.0% of July capital went to 100 rounds. A vintage built during months like this one will have very different exposure depending on whether a manager was in that top tier or among the 718 rounds that split the remaining 15.0%.

Methodology and Data Notes

Round, investor, geography and sector data come from SignalRank’s funding round dataset. Headline, capital, geography and sector views require a disclosed amount, so their round counts describe disclosed-size rounds. The stage table separately shows total eligible rounds and disclosed-size rounds; its capital, average and median columns use disclosed amounts only. SignalRank qualifier data comes from SignalRank’s company history dataset, using the V4 qualification flag with a Series B date inside the month. Score at B in the qualifier table is the company’s percentile within the scored Series B cohort.

Capital totals deduplicate to one row per funding round before aggregation. The underlying table holds one row per investor per round, so summing without deduplication would overcount substantially. Round counts, company counts and investor counts all use distinct identifiers.

The report covers equity venture round types: SAFE, pre-seed, seed, Series A through Series I, series unknown, corporate rounds and undisclosed rounds.

Some rounds in the source carry a sequence label such as after_secondary_market or after_debt_financing. That prefix describes where a transaction sits in a company’s funding history, not the economic type of the transaction itself. This report admits such a round only when the company’s current equity funding type is one of the venture types listed above, and then reports it at that current stage. Blue Origin’s July 8 round is the clearest case: the source records it as after_secondary_market while Crunchbase identifies the current transaction as Venture - Series Unknown, and it is reported here as Series Unknown. Reading the suffix literally would have dropped the largest round of the month. Rounds admitted this way account for 101 rounds and $14.39B, or 26.9% of July capital, and the full breakdown of what was admitted and what was excluded is in assets/venture-scope-reconciliation.csv.

Transactions whose current type is debt financing, a grant, non-equity assistance, a secondary market sale, private equity or a post-IPO financing remain outside this population. In July those excluded categories totalled $162.21B across 1,103 transactions, led by $51.28B of post-IPO debt, $49.03B of debt financing, $16.45B of private equity and $15.95B of secondary market transactions.

Sector figures unnest a multi-value sector tag, so a company tagged as both AI and Software counts in both buckets. Sector capital cannot be summed across sectors.

U.S. state figures are derived from company city, because the source records city and country but not state. Cities whose state is ambiguous from the name alone are reported in a separate bucket worth $173.61M. The state rollup reconciles exactly to the country-level U.S. total.

Investor scores are a relative ranking, not a 0-100 percentile, and most investor rows carry no score. Stage comparisons therefore use round-level presence of top-ranked investors rather than average scores.

Long-form country names from the source are shortened for display, so United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland appears as United Kingdom. Capital and round values are unchanged.

July 2026 was queried on August 6, 2026. Funding announcements continue to be recorded for several weeks after month end, with the longest lag at the earliest stages. July figures will revise upward and should be treated as a floor. June figures have had five additional weeks of accrual, so month-over-month comparisons overstate the decline.

Open source knowledge

Open source knowledge will be increasingly valuable in the venture ecosystem.

Contrary Research, part of Contrary VC, has built perhaps the largest freely accessible library of deep dives into private technology companies, with detailed reports covering industries from AI infrastructure to cybersecurity, robotics and healthcare. Their mission is to “illuminate private markets” by making complex private companies easier to understand.

The significance of the contribution of new repositories such as Contrary Research & Not Boring is only likely to grow, building out the informational infrastructure that public markets have benefited from for decades.

The three major secondary platform acquisitions last year (Goldman Sachs buying Industry, Morgan Stanley buying EquityZen and Charles Schwab buying Forge) have already led to banks offering greater access to private companies. Clients will demand institutional quality research on the world’s fastest-growing private companies; quasi-public companies, such as Anthropic & OpenAI, have become too important to ignore. The gap between public and private market information will continue to narrow.

Public writing in VC

Long form public writing creates trust between investors and capital allocators. Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters and Howard Marks’ memos are examples.

Yet VCs were historically slow to recognize the value of storytelling in investing in general. The default mode in the industry had been to retain informational asymmetry. USV’s Fred Wilson and others changed this, making “knowledge contribution” a bigger part of the VC investing role.

Sequoia only recently shared their Apple investment memo on the 50^th anniversary of Apple (for a deal that looked “very rich” at the time). It is now more commonplace for VCs to lay out their investment thesis as part of a round announcement.

These days, are you even a VC if you don’t have a podcast?

The difference between typical “why we invested” VC content and groups like Contrary (even though they are a VC themselves) is their independence, not just shilling their latest investment. They are aiming to deliver rigorous & disinterested writeups on the most compelling private companies.

AI as the next generation analyst

There’s a decent chance the next wave of this research coverage isn’t written by a person at all. AI-native financial platforms, such as Rogo & Hebbia, are already helping analysts synthesize thousands of documents into draft memos in minutes. Crunchbase just launched their own MCP this week.

Human analysts will still add differentiated insight, interviews and judgment. And AI’s hallucinations today hurt investor trust. But, ultimately, AI could make comprehensive company research economically viable at a scale that has never before been possible.

As such, we should anticipate the growth of more equity research in startups, particularly as more VCs target retail capital. If you’re going to ask ordinary people to put capital at risk, they deserve more than a pitch deck and a press release.

What this means for SignalRank

For SignalRank ourselves, we can build up on our website a living research library of third party reports on companies in the SignalRank Index. High quality independent research helps investors better understand the businesses that ultimately enter the portfolio.

We show below an initial list of decent publicly available research on our portfolio. Feel free to ping us with additional research which we can add to a research library.

Public research on SignalRank portfolio companies

• Armada: Contrary research

• Beehiiv: Litquidity investment memo

• Chainguard: Contrary research

• Cowboy Space: Not Boring investment memo / research

• Earth AI: Not Boring investment memo / research

• Formic: Not Boring investment memo / research

• Mercor: Contrary research

• Nominal: Contrary research

• Northwood Space: a16z investment memo

• Patronus: Greenfield investment memo

• Primer: Contrary research

• Saronic: Contrary research

• Sesame: Contrary research

• Siphox: On Healthcare research

• Skild AI: Contrary research

• Squint: Westly Group investment memo

• Tabs: Primary VC investment memo

• Together AI: Contrary research

• Truffle: a16z investment memo

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

has done something useful for a market that often runs on anecdote. His new ranking of angel investors brings structure to a part of venture that is usually discussed through reputation, memory, and selective war stories.

That matters. There are still too few academics looking seriously at early-stage venture or indeed venture at all. The asset class needs more people willing to collect data, expose assumptions, and make rankings inspectable.

But a ranking is only as good as it is actionable. Can I make investment decisions based on it? That is important for an LP and a co-investor. And for founders, how good is my investor?

Strebulaev is clear about the limitation of his own leaderboard:

“The ranking uses lifetime US unicorn investments.”

and

“Every lifetime leaderboard has the same blind spot. The unicorns behind those totals were often founded a decade or more ago, those companies have since matured, and many of the angels who backed them have moved into formal funds, slowed down, or stopped angel investing entirely. A lifetime ranking rewards being early to the last cycle. It says much less about this one.”

The ranking uses lifetime U.S. unicorn investments. That makes it a historical contribution map. It tells us who appeared on the cap tables of companies that eventually became unicorns. It is useful for understanding the last cycle and historical merit, like a hall of fame. It is less useful for deciding who a founder should target now, who an LP should underwrite now, or who a platform team should prioritize now.

The Lifetime List Answers a Real Question

Strebulaev’s leaderboard membership is aligned to most observers intuition. Y Combinator leads with 113 unicorn investments, followed by Plug and Play at 52 and 500 Global at 41. Sand Hill Angels is the best-placed angel group at 31. It does not measure efficiency (how many failures it took to make a success).

The list also reveals something important beneath the institutional names. Past the top five, the ranking becomes mostly individuals. In Strebulaev’s count, 271 of the 304 investors in the Top 200 are individuals. That is 89%. In the Top 100, the individual share rises to 91%.

The angel market looks institutional at the very top because accelerators invest in hundreds or thousands of companies. But underneath that, early-stage venture still depends heavily on people writing personal checks, building reputations, and getting into rounds before firms are willing or able to move.But still, a lifetime ranking is a weak decision tool and Ilya acknowledges that.

The Blind Spot Is Time

Every lifetime leaderboard has the same bias. It rewards being early to companies that were often founded a decade or more ago. Some of those investors are still active. Some are not. Some have moved into formal funds. Some write fewer checks. Some were attached to a platform, geography, or network structure that no longer exists in the same form.

That does not make their contribution less real. It does make the ranking less actionable.

For a founder raising now, “who backed the most unicorns over a career?” is a different question from “who is currently effective at my stage?”

For an LP, “who was present in the last cycle’s eventual unicorns?” is a different question from “who is showing repeatable signal in the present market?”

For a venture firm, “who has lifetime prestige?” is a different question from “who should I build a sourcing relationship with this year?”

The current market needs a ranking system that is current and measures recency, only that can align to real-time decisions being made.

The SignalRank Cut Starts With Stage

SignalRank’s 10-year leaderboard dashboard takes a different approach. The stage specific scores on the tabs (shown as rankings over time) is not a lifetime honor roll. It is a current stage-specific leaderboard. The dashboard cut used here is the current-year stage specific ranking with a 2016-2025 scored period, and it includes companies, unicorns, efficiency, investor score, and rank. Each year measures only three years of prior investments at the stage.

That changes the answer immediately.

Y Combinator still ranks first in the SignalRank Pre-Seed cut, but the reasons are visible. In the current dashboard data, YC has 2,357 companies, 5 unicorns, 0.21% efficiency, and a Pre-Seed investor score of 32,128.66. That is a scale story. It is not the same story as “113 lifetime unicorn investments.”

Below YC, the list changes character quickly. Heroic Ventures ranks second with 5 companies, 1 unicorn, and 20.00% efficiency. Alameda Research ranks third with 8 companies, 1 unicorn, and 12.50% efficiency. Sequoia ranks fourth with 58 companies, 2 unicorns, and 3.45% efficiency.

The point is not that SignalRank has found a single perfect ordering. The point is that the ranking exposes the tradeoff. Scale, efficiency, and stage fit are all visible.

Stage Specificity Changes the Target List

A founder does not raise “venture capital” in the abstract. A founder raises a Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, or Series B round. The investor set changes at each step. So should the ranking.

In the SignalRank data, the top of Pre-Seed is not the same as the top of Seed or Series A.

At Seed, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first in the current cut, with 202 companies, 17 unicorns, and an 8.42% efficiency rate. Lightspeed ranks second. SV Angel ranks third. Lux ranks fourth. Sequoia ranks fifth.

At Series A, Andreessen Horowitz again ranks first, but the underlying profile changes: 252 companies, 37 unicorns, and 14.68% efficiency. Sequoia is second with 145 companies, 29 unicorns, and 20.00% efficiency. General Catalyst, Lightspeed, SV Angel, Thrive, Founders Fund, Redpoint, Lux, and Benchmark fill out the top ten.

Those are not small differences. They are the differences a founder, LP, or business-development team actually needs.

The current leaderboard is computed daily against three years of stage specific investments.

Recency Makes the Ranking Usable

The other upgrade is time range.

Historically elongated rankings are good at assigning credit. They are bad at measuring current opportunity.

Dan Gray made a similar point in his recent X post:

The simple explanation is that any ranking based on a cumulative score, rather than a normalised rate or efficiency metric, will reward scale over quality and favour larger firms with more activity.

As he says, if the objective of the ranking is to reflect impact or relevance that's fine, but it should not be perceived as a ranking of performance.

Venture changes too quickly for career-to-date counts to be the primary decision signal. Partners move. Funds change strategy. Platforms scale up or down. Some angels become institutional managers. Some stop writing checks. Some firms remain active but shift stage.

That is why a limited current window is more useful. It narrows the question from “who has ever been good?” to “who has been effective in the relevant recent market?”

The SignalRank dashboard does not just count outcomes. It places the investor in a stage-specific frame and shows the ingredients of the rank. At Pre-Seed and Seed, efficiency matters because the stage is noisy and sample sizes vary wildly. Later stages can lean more heavily on MOIC and realized company quality because there is more information in the round itself.

This is the practical difference:

• A lifetime ranking is a reputation archive.

• A stage-specific recent ranking is a targeting tool.

• A transparent scoring system is a way to improve both.

How to Upgrade Ilya’s Ranking

The right response is to build on Ilya’s work.

A more actionable ranking would add five layers:

1. Stage: separate Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, and later participation.

2. Time window: show lifetime, 10-year, 5-year, and post-2020 rankings separately.

3. Activity status: identify who is still writing checks, who has moved into a fund, and who appears inactive.

4. Investor type: separate individuals, angel groups, accelerators, rolling funds, micro-funds, and formal venture firms.

5. Efficiency and denominator: show not just unicorn counts, but companies backed, hit rate, and minimum sample thresholds.

Strebulaev already points toward this in his own discussion of the post-2020 list. The line between individual angel and micro-VC is blurring. Todd and Rahul’s Angel Fund appears next to Todd Goldberg and Rahul Vohra individually. Operators are pooling capital into named vehicles. The best early check often comes attached to a small group rather than one person.

That observation is important. It means the ranking system has to evolve with the market structure. SignalRank’s threshold system is one way to do so.

The Takeaway

Strebulaev’s ranking is valuable as a historical map. It shows who accumulated exposure to U.S. unicorns over time, and it gives the angel market more empirical structure than it usually gets.

But historical visibility is not the same as current usefulness.

For decisions, rankings need stage, recency, activity, investor type, and efficiency. Without those, the list rewards the last cycle. With them, it can help founders find the right investor, help LPs understand repeatable edge, and help the market distinguish reputation from current signal.

The SignalRank Index is designed to reflect top Series Bs in terms of MOIC potential. As such, understanding the Series B ecosystem is critical to our business model.

In this post, we will consider key trends in the Series B ecosystem in H1 2026.

We hope you enjoy the report.

Executive summary

• Series B resurgence: the number & size of Series Bs is almost 20% higher than in H1 2025.

• Bifurcated market: most of the 2026 Series Bs we have seen from our seed partner network are at $150-200m pre-money. A tiny subset of AI rocket ships (which are attracting all the attention) are raising at $1bn+ pre-money at Series B.

• Key sectors: AI, defense, FinTech and robotics are the sectors driving the highest quality Series Bs. The US continues to be the dominant market for Series Bs.

• Series C graduation: Series Cs are also starting to pick up, albeit still somewhat muted relative to pre-Covid period. Ditto IPOs.

• SignalRank operating at scale: SignalRank invested in 16 Series Bs (of which 11 have been announced) in H1 2026, making SignalRank one of the most active Series B investors globally. We are on track to invest in 30 Series Bs this year.

1. Aggregate Series B data

The AI boom is driving growth at Series Bs. We are seeing a rise in the monthly number of Series Bs (Figure 1), as well as in the median round size (Figure 2).

Figure 1. # of Series Bs globally per month (2012-26)

Figure 2. Median Series B round size (2012-26, $m, Crunchbase data)

As a result, the aggregate capital invested into Series B has increased (Figure 3). Even without the $12bn Series B raised by Prometheus this year, the amount raised is on course to surpass 2025 levels easily.

Figure 3. Aggregate capital raised at Series B (2012-26 YTD, Crunchbase data)

2. Bifurcated market

The aggregate data masks a highly divided market: most companies are raising Series Bs at less than $200m pre. A tiny subset of AI companies is raising at $1bn+.

Figures 4 shows the distribution of pre-money valuations for all Series Bs seen by SignalRank in 2026 (shared by 89 unique seed partners).

Figure 4. 2026 Series B distribution of pre-money valuations ($m)

3. Series B conversion: Series C market data

The Series C market is also growing again. Yet it remains subdued relative to pre-Covid levels. Only ~12% of Series Bs are raising a Series C within 24 months (compared to ~30% prior to Covid, Figure 5).

Figure 5. Series B conversion: time to raise a Series C (2016-25)

3. Most active investors

Y Combinator was the most active Series B investor in H1 2026 with 16 announced rounds, followed by Accel and Sequoia Capital.

Figure 6. Top 10 most active Series B investors in H1 2026 (announced rounds)

4. SignalRank performance

SignalRank continues to have high network centrality within the Series B ecosystem, demonstrating that our systematic approach is delivering consistent access to companies backed by high quality active investors (Figure 7).

Figure 7. All investors with 5+ 2026 Series B investments, with edges showing 2+ co-investments

Figure 8. SignalRank completed 16 investments in H1 2026

SignalRank completed 16 investments in H1 2026 (Figure 8). Of these five are ranked in the top 20 for all Series Bs this year (per our methodology, Figure 9).

Figure 9. Top 20 ranked Series Bs in H1 2026

We are accessing high quality Series Bs at scale. We are on track to make 30 qualifying investments in 2026, delivering on the promise of an index-like Series B investment product.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

June 2026 recorded $53.7B across 939 disclosed rounds. The top 10 rounds captured 48.3% of capital, led by Semiconductor Manufacturing North China Corporation at $9.6B.

Summary

June 2026 was not a simple slowdown. It was a narrower market with larger year-over-year capital, fewer disclosed rounds, and a heavy concentration of dollars in the largest financings. Capital was +36.1% versus June 2025, but round count was -17.1%.

Three facts define the month: first, the top 10 rounds absorbed 48.3% of all disclosed capital; second, Series A carried the most capital while Seed carried the most deal count.

The month was active but selective. Stage percentiles mattered more than headline dollars, quality remained concentrated in the strongest stages, and breadth was still the constraint.

What Happened in June 2026

Round count was +24.0% versus the prior-two-month average, while capital was +55.0%. The median disclosed round was $5.5M, far below the average round of $57.1M, which shows how much the largest financings pulled up the month.

What Changed From May 2026

Compared with May 2026, capital was +89.5% and round count was +30.8%. Compared with June 2025, capital was +36.1% and round count was -17.1%.

The comparison table shows the core tension: capital was higher than a year earlier even as disclosed round count fell sharply.

The Top 10 Rounds Drove the Month

The top 10 rounds represented 48.3% of disclosed capital. The outlier-adjusted view shows how much market activity remains after excluding the top 1, top 3, and top 10 rounds.

After the top 10 rounds, the month looks more concentrated than broad-based.

For Founders

For founders, stage percentiles matter more than headline capital. Seed had the most rounds, with a median round of $4.0M and a 75th percentile round of $7.8M. A credible plan for this market shows how the round clears the stage median, why the company belongs above the 75th percentile, or why a smaller round is the better strategic choice.

For Investors

For investors, concentration and quality moved together. Series A led capital with $13.4B, while Series A had the strongest average investor-quality signal. The open question is not whether dollars came back, but whether high-quality investors are widening participation across stages or staying clustered.

For LPs

For LPs and public-market readers, headline capital overstates market breadth. The month had more capital than the same month last year, but far fewer rounds, so the signal is selective financing rather than a broad reopening. Ex-top-10 capital and qualifier rate carry the cleaner signal.

Which Stages Led

Stage health shows where activity was broad and where capital was concentrated. Series A led capital, Seed led round count, and Series A led the investor-quality read. Those are different signals, so no single stage summarizes the market.

Early, Venture, and Growth

The aggregate market hides three different jobs: early-stage company formation, venture-stage breakout filtering, and growth-stage capacity. Early-stage rounds totaled 736, Venture - Series B totaled 78, and growth totaled 69. Early - Pre-Seed to Series A carried the most disclosed capital at $19.4B. Top-five share means the share of segment capital captured by its five largest rounds.

Capital and breadth moved differently enough that each segment needs its own view.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

Round Sizes by Stage

Round-size percentiles show what typical, strong, and outlier financings looked like by stage. The median is the practical founder benchmark, the 75th percentile is the strong-round benchmark, and the 90th percentile identifies rounds that can distort market perception.

How to read this table: P25 means one quarter of rounds were smaller, median means half were smaller, P75 marks the upper quartile, and P90 is the outlier boundary. Stages are ordered by median round size so a new reader can move from early-stage norms to later-stage norms.

Stage-by-Stage Pricing

The pricing question is whether a round is typical for its stage, or whether the market is being pulled upward by the top quartile. Each stage view separates the median from the 75th and 95th percentiles, showing where typical pricing ends and outlier pricing begins.

Pre-Seed Monthly Raise Percentiles

Pre-Seed narrowed sharply: 234 companies raised, with a $0.5M median and $1.0M 75th percentile. Median pricing declined -30.2% from the prior three-month average, while company count increased +24.9%. The 95th percentile was 8.0 times the median, a clear outlier gap.

Seed Monthly Raise Percentiles

Seed remained the broadest market with 280 companies, but breadth was still down -6.3% from the recent average. The median was $4.0M and the 75th percentile was $7.8M; median pricing increased +21.4%. A 7.0x 95th-to-median spread shows a large separation between typical seed rounds and the top of the market.

Series A Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series A showed stronger pricing with weaker volume. The stage had 193 companies, a $18.0M median, and a $30.0M 75th percentile. Median pricing increased +12.6% against the prior three-month average, while company count increased +10.7%. The 95th percentile was 5.6 times the median.

Series B Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series B was the clearest quality-over-volume stage. The median round reached $32.2M, the 75th percentile reached $68.1M, and only 78 companies raised. Median pricing was roughly flat -1.6% from the recent baseline, while company count declined -8.9%. The 95th percentile was 9.3 times the median.

Series C Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series C looked flat on price and weak on breadth. The stage had 47 companies, a $59.7M median, and a $105.0M 75th percentile. Median pricing was roughly flat +2.3%, but company count increased +17.5%. The 95th percentile was 6.9 times the median.

Series D Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series D weakened on price. The median fell to $147.2M across 15 companies, while the 75th percentile held at $345.8M. Median pricing increased +100.9% from the prior three-month average, and company count increased +12.5%. The 95th percentile was 3.0 times the median.

Series E Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series E was small but large-round driven: 7 companies, a $100.0M median, and a $182.2M 75th percentile. Median pricing increased +21.6%, while company count increased +10.5%. The 95th percentile was 7.6 times the median, so the stage was large but thin.

Science and Engineering Led Sector Capital

Science and Engineering was the largest disclosed sector group, with $38.7B across 489 rounds. The sector story was not only about one large financing: capital and round count both pointed to the same category.

Software, Science and Engineering, and Software Led Different Stage Bands

Software led early-stage activity with 429 rounds. Science and Engineering led Series B with 43 rounds. Software led growth with 32 rounds. May’s sector mix split early company formation from later-stage capital demand.

The stage split matters because the leading early market was not the same as the leading growth market.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

San Francisco Had the Most Visible Activity

San Francisco had 148 disclosed rounds with an average round of $33.1M. That made it the most visible geography by activity, not just by the size of a single financing.

Different Cities Led Different Stage Bands

Early was led by San Francisco, Series B by San Francisco, and growth by New York. The leaders changed by stage, so the market was not concentrated in one city across the maturity curve.

The tables keep round count visible next to dollars, which is why repeat activity matters here.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

Y Combinator, Bessemer Venture Partners, and General Catalyst Stayed Active

Y Combinator appeared in 150 early-stage rounds. Bessemer Venture Partners led Series B with 4 rounds. General Catalyst led growth with 7 rounds. Those firms stayed visible even as overall round count weakened.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

Series A Had the Strongest Investor-Quality Signal

Series A had the strongest average investor-quality signal, with 181 high-score investor appearances.

3.8% of Series B Rounds Met the Quality Bar

3 Series B companies qualified from 78 Series B rounds. This is an aggregate market-quality measure, not investment advice.

SignalRank disclosed B activity is shown separately from public investor-history appearances. By purchase date, SignalRank had 2 disclosed B investments in June 2026. The all-time portfolio count in this dataset is 61 investments. These are activity counts, not a disclosure of private pipeline or allocation decisions.

What Would Make July Better

June needs broader round count, lower top-10 concentration, and a stronger Series B qualifier rate to look healthier than May. Without those changes, May reads less like a one-month pause and more like a weaker run-rate.

• Breadth recovery: next month rounds exceed the prior-two-month baseline.

• Concentration easing: top-10 share falls below 45.0% of capital.

• Series B quality: qualifier rate rises above 15.0%.

Interpretation Guardrails

All figures are based on disclosed public funding-round records. Sector groups are non-exclusive category tags, so a company can appear in more than one sector group. Sector totals are momentum indicators, not a market-size sum.

Geography reflects company headquarters or disclosed company location, not where capital was deployed. Investor tables reflect public round participation and lead-investor flags, not private holdings, private investment activity, or recommendations.

Methodology

Figures are based on public funding-round records and are reconciled against internal analytical dashboards before publication. Tables and charts are published as interactive views. Ask follow-up questions at

https://agent.signalrank.com

.

Each fund prospectus has a standardized section on fees & expenses which allows for a read across for each fund.1

The average management fee is 2.0%, plus an additional ~1.5% of other fees, bringing the total average fee load to ~3.5%. This is higher than the standard 2/20 private VC model, although note that closed-end funds cannot have carry or incentive structures.

PVC managers have launched first generation products. It is early in this asset class. We should expect fee compression as the products mature.

Expected cumulative fees after 10 years

Each prospectus includes a table with a hypothetical example which assumes a $1,000 is invested for a 5% annual return. It is this table we have used to create Figure 1 to consider the expected cumulative fees per manager over 10 years.

Figure 1. Expected cumulative fees over 10 years from a $1,000 investment

Source: public filings based on standard hypothetical example which assumes $1,000 invested over 10 years and 5% annual return

This chart is based on the 10 year data from Figure 2, which also shows the cumulative fees per manager for 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years.

Figure 2. Cumulative fees over different time periods for $1,000 investment ($)

Source: public filings based on standard hypothetical example which assumes $1,000 invested over 10 years and 5% annual return

Fee breakdown

The annual fee tables in the prospectuses consist of management fees and other fees. Figure 3 shows the total annual fees for each manager from their prospectuses.

Figure 3. Annual fees & expenses per manager

This table is on a gross basis. Some managers are currently offering discounts (with USVC currently offering a 1.11% discount to bring the net fee down to 2.50% per year).

The table above does take into account any management fees in underlying vehicles (“Acquired Fund Fees & Expenses” in the prospectuses). USVC, for example, is an LP in emerging managers, so needs to take into account the 2% management fees for the VC funds.

However, this fee load does not take into account the multi-layer SPV carry load. Any carry is presumably netted from exit proceeds before distributed to the PVC vehicles.

Note that these US closed-end funds do not have carry structures themselves (even if carry is paid in the underlying SPVs). This is a major structural & regulatory difference compared to private VC funds with 2/20 models.

Each prospectus also splits out any sales load for raising capital for these funds. The average is ~3.5%. See Figure 4. This sales load is in addition to the ongoing fees in Figure 3.

Figure 4. Sales load per manager

Concluding thoughts

It is the first innings of PVCs. Many of these funds are still sub-scale and gathering assets at pace. DXYZ, for example, started with NAV of <$50m in 2024 and has raised ~$250m per quarter for the last two quarters.

Nevertheless, the optics of fees in the 3-4% range are not good, especially as these are essentially passive funds.

If we look at analogous asset classes, we should anticipate fees to compress with greater product development and greater competition.

The story of the public markets in the last sixty years is really the triumph of passive over active. Passive AUM is now greater than active AUM (Figure 6). This is in part due to performance and in part due to fees. According to SPIVA, 90% of active US large-cap managers underperformed the S&P 500 over the last 15 years. And passive funds outperformed with substantially lower fees (Figure 7).

Figure 6 % of long-term funds’ total net assets

Source: Investment Company Institute

Figure 7. Average expense ratios for active & index mutual funds

Source: Investment Company Institute, Lipper & Morningstar

The current PVCs do not claim to be indexes, as they tend to be more concentrated bets on a handful of late stage private companies. So the comparison with index mutual funds is perhaps somewhat unfair.

Nevertheless, the mutual fund story is illustrative of a broader trend.

In the longer term, we should anticipate that fees in private market passive vehicles to mimic public market passive vehicles. This could also have a knock-on effect of lowering active VC manager fees. Fees should compress over time.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

It is a concentrated portfolio of private companies, including SpaceX and OpenAI. The NAV as at 13 May 2026 was $604m. As at 5 June 2026, it trades at a 25% premium to NAV (compared to 69% for DXYZ and 51% for RVI). The annual management fee is 2.5%.

This post compares Powerlaw’s top 10 NAV positions to the rest of the public VC market.

Figure 1 shows Powerlaw’s top 10 positions and compares it to other public VC funds. Powerlaw’s largest positions are in SpaceX (19% of NAV), OpenAI (8%) and Kalshi (6%).

This table does not take into account structure, which can materially impact returns if a holding is held within a multi-layer SPV.

Figure 1. Top 10 portfolio positions as % of NAV for select public VC funds

Source: public filings

Powerlaw’s top ten positions are closest to DXYZ and VCX. RVI is relatively underweight AI and is more focused on consumer facing companies (such as Oura) which might appeal to the Robinhood customer base. The Private Shares Fund also appears to be underweight AI relative to peers and more exposed to older companies from prior cycles.

The most commonly shared portfolio companies across this set are SpaceX, OpenAI and Databricks, which are each in six of the PVCs (Figure 2).

Figure 2. # of PVCs holding a shared portfolio company as a top 10 position

This set of public VCs has relative high levels of portfolio concentration. The aggregate % of total NAV held within the top 10 positions is 58% on average (Figure 3).

Figure 3. % of NAV held within the top ten positions

5 of the Powerlaw top ten positions (50%) are unique to Powerlaw relative to the top ten positions in the rest of the PVC set (Deel, Kraken, Vast Data, Colossal and Tether). These five companies represent 31% of the aggregate % of NAV held by the top ten positions in Powerlaw. Robinhood Ventures and Private Shares Fund have the most unique portfolio based on weight of positions in their respective top ten holdings (Figure 4).

Figure 4. % of top 10 NAV unique to each PVC by number & weight of positions

In sum, Powerlaw is another strong entrant into the PVC group. There are now enough entities within this growing asset class to start to tease out key differentiators between the managers and their respective holdings.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

AI is the next platform shift and it is here. Private companies are already an order of magnitude larger than in prior cycles.

The vast majority of VC dollars are being deployed into AI. These dollars are increasingly concentrated in a small number of companies, backed by a small number of funds, backed by a small number of LPs.

The democratization of alternatives has the promise of broadening access to more investors, including retail. Asset managers, from BlackRock down, are building retail-focused products to solve this problem.

Public VC (“PVC”) in a closed-end fund wrapper is the right structure to enable retail investors to benefit from the AI boom.

The problem today is that public VC managers are predominantly buying late stage positions in companies where a significant proportion of value has already been captured. These products also run the perception risk of retail becoming the “bag holders” for institutional investors offloading their late stage positions.

What if there was a product that invested at Series B to enable retail investors to capture more of the upside?

Enter Public VC

Destiny (ticker: DXYZ) was the first of the current generation of public VCs, offering access to SpaceX and other companies, in a publicly traded closed-end fund wrapper. The listing was in early 2024. DXYZ has subsequently raised $500m+ in the public markets and continues to trade at a significant premium to NAV. There is clear demand from retail for high quality private assets.

Yet the longer term sustainability of trading at a premia to NAV for late stage PVCs is unclear. The SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs are upon us. Retail will soon be able to buy these names direct at par.

Destiny, and similar products such as Fundrise (ticker: VCX) & Robinhood Ventures (ticker: RVI), has only been in existence since the three marquee assets were already at mature valuations. They have bought these assets at a late stage.

Companies are staying private longer and at higher valuations. SpaceX is 20+ years old. Figure 1 is an old Pitchbook slide which shows how 100% of the first $20bn of value is now captured in private markets prior to an IPO, which is a big change from prior cycles. You could add Figma, Cerebras and others to this chart. As well as the three upcoming IPOs.

Figure 1. Proportion of first $20bn in value captured as of IPO (%, select IPOs)

In addition, the quality of the security that PVCs own in these late stage entities can be subpar. Many of the positions are in multi-layer SPVs where the underlying asset is a forward contract that the companies are disputing. See Anthropic’s latest position on SPVs.

A Series B vehicle can capture more value

SignalRank is not available to retail today. But our product offers our own investors the opportunity to buy today the power law companies of tomorrow in a diversified structure that only owns pristine direct on cap table preferred Series B stock. (Technically, we own positions through our own SPVs which are direct on cap table, structured this way to allow for the profit share to our seed partners).

What if you had invested in this fashion in the Series Bs of SpaceX / Anthropic / OpenAI? Let’s take a look at each one in turn:

• OpenAI has of course had an unusual funding history, whose rounds are not so legible. Hard to calculate with public information.

• SpaceX raised a $20m Series B at ~$160m post-money in 2005, according to Preqin. At an IPO valuation of $1.7tn, the valuation has increased over 10,000x. The actual returns will be substantially lower due to dilution (and with any liquidity in the meantime). 2005 was another time.

• Anthropic is the more relevant example if we want to understand what potential Series B returns could be for future AI power law companies. Anthropic’s Series B was in 2022, backed by FTX amongst others. According to Preqin, this was a ~$600m round at ~$3.8bn post-money. At a rumored $1tn valuation, this is a 250x increase in valuation. Again, the returns to investors will be lower due to dilution.

What if retail investors could have invested in Anthropic at the Series B? What would an investment product look like holding these types of future power law companies?

This is the exam question that SignalRank seeks to solve.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

More Capital, Fewer Rounds

May 2026 recorded $22.2B across 482 disclosed rounds. The top 10 rounds captured 54.0% of capital, led by Anduril Industries at $5.0B.

Monthly Thesis

May was not a simple slowdown. It was a narrower market with larger year-over-year capital, fewer disclosed rounds, and a heavy concentration of dollars in the largest financings. Capital was +27.4% versus May 2025, but round count was -52.1%.

Three facts define the month: first, the top 10 rounds absorbed 54.0% of all disclosed capital; second, Series B carried the most capital while Seed carried the most deal count; third, the Series B qualifier rate was 11.3%, which keeps the quality read separate from raw volume.

The month was active but selective. Stage percentiles mattered more than headline dollars, quality remained concentrated in the strongest stages, and breadth was still the constraint.

What Happened in May

Round count was -46.5% versus the prior-two-month average, while capital was -37.4%. The median disclosed round was $8.0M, far below the average round of $46.0M, which shows how much the largest financings pulled up the month.

What Changed From April

Compared with April 2026, capital was -41.9% and round count was -34.3%. Compared with May 2025, capital was +27.4% and round count was -52.1%.

The comparison table shows the core tension: capital was higher than a year earlier even as disclosed round count fell sharply.

The Top 10 Rounds Drove the Month

The top 10 rounds represented 54.0% of disclosed capital. The outlier-adjusted view shows how much market activity remains after excluding the top 1, top 3, and top 10 rounds.

After the top 10 rounds, the month looks more concentrated than broad-based.

For Founders

For founders, stage percentiles matter more than headline capital. Seed had the most rounds, with a median round of $3.5M and a 75th percentile round of $8.5M. A credible plan for this market shows how the round clears the stage median, why the company belongs above the 75th percentile, or why a smaller round is the better strategic choice.

For Investors

For investors, concentration and quality moved together. Series B led capital with $5.7B, while Series C had the strongest average investor-quality signal. The open question is not whether dollars came back, but whether high-quality investors are widening participation across stages or staying clustered.

For LPs

For LPs and public-market readers, headline capital overstates market breadth. The month had more capital than the same month last year, but far fewer rounds, so the signal is selective financing rather than a broad reopening. Ex-top-10 capital and qualifier rate carry the cleaner signal.

Which Stages Led

Stage health shows where activity was broad and where capital was concentrated. Series B led capital, Seed led round count, and Series C led the investor-quality read. Those are different signals, so no single stage summarizes the market.

Early, Venture, and Growth

The aggregate market hides three different jobs: early-stage company formation, venture-stage breakout filtering, and growth-stage capacity. Early-stage rounds totaled 371, Venture - Series B totaled 53, and growth totaled 36. Series B carried the most disclosed capital at $5.7B. Top-five share means the share of segment capital captured by its five largest rounds.

Capital and breadth moved differently enough that each segment needs its own view.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

Round Sizes by Stage

Round-size percentiles show what typical, strong, and outlier financings looked like by stage. The median is the practical founder benchmark, the 75th percentile is the strong-round benchmark, and the 90th percentile identifies rounds that can distort market perception.

How to read this table: P25 means one quarter of rounds were smaller, median means half were smaller, P75 marks the upper quartile, and P90 is the outlier boundary. Stages are ordered by median round size so a new reader can move from early-stage norms to later-stage norms.

Stage-by-Stage Pricing

The pricing question is whether a round is typical for its stage, or whether the market is being pulled upward by the top quartile. Each stage view separates the median from the 75th and 95th percentiles, showing where typical pricing ends and outlier pricing begins.

Pre-Seed Monthly Raise Percentiles

Pre-Seed narrowed sharply: 65 companies raised, with a $1.3M median and $2.1M 75th percentile. Median pricing increased +44.6% from the prior three-month average, while company count declined -64.7%. The 95th percentile was 4.3 times the median, a clear outlier gap.

Seed Monthly Raise Percentiles

Seed remained the broadest market with 180 companies, but breadth was still down -42.9% from the recent average. The median was $3.5M and the 75th percentile was $8.5M; median pricing increased +7.1%. A 4.6x 95th-to-median spread shows a large separation between typical seed rounds and the top of the market.

Series A Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series A showed stronger pricing with weaker volume. The stage had 106 companies, a $17.0M median, and a $27.5M 75th percentile. Median pricing increased +8.5% against the prior three-month average, while company count declined -43.1%. The 95th percentile was 4.4 times the median.

Series B Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series B was the clearest quality-over-volume stage. The median round reached $40.0M, the 75th percentile reached $100.0M, and only 53 companies raised. Median pricing increased +31.9% from the recent baseline, while company count declined -38.6%. The 95th percentile was 6.4 times the median.

Series C Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series C looked flat on price and weak on breadth. The stage had 22 companies, a $60.0M median, and a $100.0M 75th percentile. Median pricing was roughly flat -2.7%, but company count declined -40.0%. The 95th percentile was 4.1 times the median.

Series D Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series D weakened on price. The median fell to $41.0M across 11 companies, while the 75th percentile held at $135.0M. Median pricing declined -60.7% from the prior three-month average, and company count declined -19.5%. The 95th percentile was 5.1 times the median.

Series E Monthly Raise Percentiles

Series E was small but large-round driven: 3 companies, a $300.0M median, and a $625.0M 75th percentile. Median pricing increased +87.8%, while company count declined -55.0%. The 95th percentile was 2.9 times the median, so the stage was large but thin.

Science and Engineering Led Sector Capital

Science and Engineering was the largest disclosed sector group, with $15.6B across 186 rounds. The sector story was not only about one large financing: capital and round count both pointed to the same category.

Software, Science and Engineering, and Health Care Led Different Stage Bands

Software led early-stage activity with 160 rounds. Science and Engineering led Series B with 33 rounds. Health Care led growth with 12 rounds. May’s sector mix split early company formation from later-stage capital demand.

The stage split matters because the leading early market was not the same as the leading growth market.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

San Francisco Had the Most Visible Activity

San Francisco had 39 disclosed rounds with an average round of $72.4M. That made it the most visible geography by activity, not just by the size of a single financing.

San Francisco Led Every Stage Band

Early was led by San Francisco, Series B by San Francisco, and growth by San Francisco. San Francisco led all three, so May’s visible market was geographically concentrated across the maturity curve.

The tables keep round count visible next to dollars, which is why repeat activity matters here.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

Y Combinator, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz Stayed Active

Y Combinator appeared in 10 early-stage rounds. Founders Fund led Series B with 5 rounds. Andreessen Horowitz led growth with 5 rounds. Those firms stayed visible even as overall round count weakened.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

Series C Had the Strongest Investor-Quality Signal

Series C had the strongest average investor-quality signal, with 28 high-score investor appearances.

11.3% of Series B Rounds Met the Quality Bar

6 Series B companies qualified from 53 Series B rounds. This is an aggregate market-quality measure, not investment advice.

SignalRank disclosed B activity is shown separately from public investor-history appearances. By purchase date, SignalRank had 2 disclosed B investments in May 2026. The all-time portfolio count in this dataset is 56 investments. These are activity counts, not a disclosure of private pipeline or allocation decisions.

What Would Show Improvement by Stage

June improves if early-stage round count broadens, Series B quality rises, and growth capital becomes less concentrated. Those are separate tests because each part of the market weakened in a different way.

Early Stage - Pre-Seed to Series A

Venture - Series B

Growth - Series C to E

What Would Make June Better

June needs broader round count, lower top-10 concentration, and a stronger Series B qualifier rate to look healthier than May. Without those changes, May reads less like a one-month pause and more like a weaker run-rate.

• Breadth recovery: next month rounds exceed the prior-two-month baseline.

• Concentration easing: top-10 share falls below 45.0% of capital.

• Series B quality: qualifier rate rises above 15.0%.

Interpretation Guardrails

All figures are based on disclosed public funding-round records. Sector groups are non-exclusive category tags, so a company can appear in more than one sector group. Sector totals are momentum indicators, not a market-size sum.

Geography reflects company headquarters or disclosed company location, not where capital was deployed. Investor tables reflect public round participation and lead-investor flags, not private holdings, private investment activity, or recommendations.

Methodology

Figures are based on public funding-round records and are reconciled against internal analytical dashboards before publication. Tables and charts are published as interactive views. Ask follow-up questions at

https://agent.signalrank.com

.

AI is clearly the dominant theme. As your favorite LLM might say, “it’s not just a trend, it’s a structural shift.”

Beyond AI, the sectors of focus for the highest-ranked Series B investors in our methodology are defense, robotics, and FinTech. These four sectors account for over 85% of SignalRank’s Series B investments in 2026 (13 out of 15 investments).

Crunchbase data on Series B sectors

If we look at the Crunchbase dataset, we see this sectoral trend for all 2026 Series Bs to date.

One caveat: the Crunchbase sector designation can be somewhat vague. The “AI” category, at least with the Crunchbase definition, can be so broad as to be somewhat meaningless, from data centers and infrastructure to vertical applications and neolabs. And indeed you could argue that almost all of the other sectors are themselves leveraging AI.

“Manufacturing” and “Hardware” sectors include many defense companies and many robotics companies.

Figure 1 shows the percentage of Series B per sector for 2026 Series Bs (using the Crunchbase sector designation).

Figure 1. % of 2026 Series Bs per sector

Source: Crunchbase

SignalRank only seeks to invest in high quality Series Bs which have also raised high quality seed & Series A rounds based on their investor syndicates. We call these high quality post Series A / pre Series B companies “Candidates” for our product. This Candidate list gives a good indication of where we anticipate capital being deployed at Series B in the next 2-3 years.

Figure 2 shows the percentage of current Candidates per sector.

The themes within the “Other” section increasingly include emerging sectors such as space, nuclear, fusion, and quantum. Note how few and far between the consumer companies are.

Figure 2. % of post Series A /pre Series B candidates per sector

Source: SignalRank; Crunchbase

Where is SignalRank deploying capital?

SignalRank is in many ways a mirror on where the top ranked investors are deploying capital, given that 100% of our Series B investments are alongside the highest ranked investors in the ecosystem. As such, we are also deploying into AI, defense, robotics and FinTech.

Here is a list of announced Series B rounds in the SignalRank Index in these four sectors since we started investing in mid 2023:

1. AI

• Consensus (2026 Series B): AI search engine for scientific research

• Cowboy Space (2026): data centers in space

• Deepset (2023): semantic search for enterprises

• Earth AI (2024): AI for mineral exploration

• HappyRobot (2025): operating system for managing AI workforce

• Mercor (2025): data-labeling for foundational models

• Pika (2024): generative AI for images & video

• Sesame (2025): voice AI assistants

• Solve Intelligence (2026): generative AI for patent law

• Squint (2025): AI training for factory operators

• Together AI (2025): open-source AI infrastructure

2. Defense

• Amca (2026 Series B): designs hardware & subsystems for aircraft

• Armada (2026): data centers for the edge

• Cambium (2025): AI for biomaterial development

• Cybertoka (2023): cyber defense for governments

• Nominal (2025): testing platform for hardware engineers

• Northwood Space (2025): hardware for ground to satellite communications

• Saronic (2024): autonomous naval vessels

3. Robotics

• Hyphen (2024 Series B): automatic culinary operations

• Machina Labs (2023): robotics for sheet metal manufacturing

• Mendaera (2024): surgical robots

• Nomagic (2025): robotic solutions for order fulfillment

• Skild AI (2025): operating system for robots

4. FinTech

• Aleph (2025 Series B): FP&A AI solution

• Anrok (2024): sales tax solution

• Cents (2024): payments for laundromats

• Monarch Money (2025): personal finance app

• Navro (2025): simplifies international payments

• Nitra (2025): healthcare payments

• Simetrik (2024): no-code solution for CFOs

• Tabs (2025): AI revenue automation platform

• Wingspan (2025): freelancer payments platform

Concluding thoughts

There is an ongoing conversation within VC about the pros/cons of whether companies need to be “legible” to capital.

The YC “request for startups” list even starts this legibility topic from inception.

Yet outlier outcomes often come from seemingly weird ideas at seed & Series A (think Airbnb, and even Anthropic which was rejected by 20+ VCs initially).

However, by the time a company is at Series B, it starts to become increasingly important to be legible to capital.

In part, this is because investors have one eye on what growth stage & pre-IPO investors are looking for:

Series Bs represent the first round where growth & pre-IPO investors start to take notice. The sectors backed at Series B today will be the IPO candidates of the future.

Public VCs (“PVCs”, such as DXYZ, VCX and RVI) have all benefited from this clamor for access to the major three private AI players (SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic). A momentum trade is well underway, where each PVC could potentially be considered a proxy stock for the underlying AI companies.

Figure 1 shows the percentage of NAV for each PVC in the big three private AI companies (based on latest public filings).

Figure 1. % of NAV in top three private AI companies (per latest public filings)

The market response to this portfolio construction has been strong. Since 1 May 2026 alone (just 10 days ago), VCX (with a slim float) has risen over 150%, while DXYZ is up 88% and RVI is up 42%. The S&P (which itself is on fire) is up a measly 3%. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 Select PVC share prices vs S&P 500 from 1 May 2026 (re-based to 100)

Each PVC is trading at a significant premium to NAV as retail investors seek ownership of these companies prior to their respective rumored listings. These three PVCs are trading at an average share price to NAV multiple of 5.9x (premium to NAV of 490%).

Figure 3 Share price to NAV multiple for select PVCs since listing (as at 11 May)

What happens after the AI companies go public?

The key question is whether these premiums are sustainable once the underlying assets themselves become publicly traded. Are PVCs permanent access platforms deserving structural premia, or temporary scarcity vehicles whose premiums disappear once the underlying assets become liquid?

You could argue that each of these private AI assets are experiencing such strong revenue growth that each continues to be undervalued. Anthropic is approaching a valuation in the secondary markets of $1 trillion, based on spectacular reported revenue growth to $30bn annualized run-rate by April 2026. Revenue guidance continues to be revised upwards.

Under this framework, it may make sense for PVCs to retain positions post listing rather than immediately distributing or exiting them.

The mandates of the PVCs are primarily focused on private assets, but the CEOs of DXYZ and VCX respectively have publicly stated that they have some discretion to hold on to public assets:

Sohail Prasad (DXYZ CEO):

“Our mandate is to provide exposure to what we believe to be 100 of the top venture-backed *private* technology companies. That said, especially as we’ll own larger positions in some companies, we maintain discretion to manage this. With that in mind, as portfolio companies go public we generally hold on to their shares and systematically divest over time.”

Ben Miller (VCX CEO):

The private companies want long-term holders. Investors want us giving them exposure to private tech, which otherwise they can’t usually get access to. After ServiceTitan went public, we sold the majority of our shares.

Nevertheless, there is a strong argument that the scarcity premium currently embedded in these vehicles could compress materially once investors are able to access the underlying assets directly in public markets.

Retail investors will simply be able to buy SpaceX in the open market, so why do you need the PVC wrapper? And why pay a premium in the PVC wrapper?

The obvious counterargument is that PVCs could continue to command premiums if investors believe they will repeatedly gain access to future generations of high demand private companies prior to IPO. In that sense, the vehicles themselves become perpetual access platforms rather than simple holding companies.

Indeed, the IPOs of the three AI companies will generate significant liquidity for the PVCs who will then be looking to reinvest any undistributed cash into the next generation of power law companies.

Concluding thoughts: SPV ownership

One additional consideration is the growing use of SPV structures to gain exposure to highly competitive private deals. In many cases, PVC exposure to companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic is indirect, layered through various SPV arrangements.

This structure is increasingly attracting scrutiny, particularly as leading private companies seek tighter control over their cap tables and secondary trading activity.

Anthropic today updated their policy to address this exact point:

Any sale or transfer of Anthropic stock, or any interest in Anthropic stock, that has not been approved by our Board of Directors is void and will not be recognized on our books and records.

None of this necessarily implies wrongdoing or misrepresentation by PVCs. However, it does highlight the complexity of indirect ownership structures in late stage private markets. Investors may ultimately discover that their economic exposure differs materially from their assumptions regarding direct ownership, transferability, governance rights or liquidity.

The eventual transition of these assets into public markets will therefore be an important test, not only for the valuations of OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX themselves, but also for the durability of the premium investors are currently willing to pay for private market access (especially investments held in opaque SPV structures).

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

Executive Summary

April 2026 saw $33.7 billion deployed across 652 funding rounds involving 2,170 distinct investors. Capital concentration remained pronounced: the ten largest deals accounted for 57.2% of all capital, led by two Anthropic corporate rounds totaling $15 billion. Excluding the top ten, the remaining 642 rounds deployed $14.4 billion.

Series A rounds led priced activity with 157 deals totaling $4.3 billion, while seed rounds were the most numerous at 222 deals worth $2.5 billion. Series B activity came in at 66 rounds and $3.9 billion. The US captured 72.8% of total capital ($24.5 billion across 239 rounds), with Asia ($4.7 billion, 179 rounds) and Europe ($3.7 billion, 167 rounds) filling out the picture.

Y Combinator led deal participation with 18 rounds, while Khosla Ventures led the most rounds as lead investor with 6. Software, Science & Engineering, and AI remained the dominant sector categories by capital deployed. Five Series B companies qualified under SignalRank’s v4 model.

Market Pulse

652 rounds closed in April 2026, deploying $33.7 billion in total capital. 649 distinct companies raised, backed by 2,170 investors.

The headline number carries heavy skew: Anthropic’s two corporate rounds ($10 billion and $5 billion) together represent 44.4% of the month’s total. The top 10 deals captured 57.2% of all capital deployed — $19.3 billion across just 1.5% of all rounds.

Adjusting for that concentration, the remaining 642 rounds split $14.4 billion. Pre-seed rounds landed at a $1.4 million median, seed at $3.5 million, Series A at $14.6 million, and Series B at $36.6 million.

6-Month Capital Trend

Over the trailing six months (November 2025 through April 2026), monthly round counts ranged from 652 to 1,019. February 2026 remained the outlier at $193.7 billion (driven by exceptionally large mega-rounds). April’s $33.7 billion across 652 rounds sits in a normalized range alongside November ($25.4 billion) and December ($24.6 billion).

Round counts dropped from a March peak of 1,019 to April’s 652 — a 36% month-over-month decline. This likely reflects seasonal patterns and data lag rather than structural contraction.

Stage-by-Stage View

Pre-Seed: 99 rounds deployed $167.5 million at a median of $1.4 million. Activity remains steady at the earliest stage.

Seed: The most active stage by volume with 222 rounds and $2.5 billion in total capital. The median seed round came in at $3.5 million, with an average of $11.0 million reflecting a long tail of larger seed rounds. Ineffable Intelligence’s $1.1 billion seed round was a standout.

Series A: 157 rounds deployed $4.3 billion at a median of $14.6 million. Series A continues to be the largest priced-round category by deal count among lettered stages.

Series B: 66 rounds at $3.9 billion, with a median of $36.6 million. Valar Atomics ($340 million) led the stage.

Series C: 34 rounds deploying $3.7 billion at a $76.0 million median. Slate Auto’s $650 million round led the stage.

Series D+: 18 rounds across Series D through I, collectively deploying $2.8 billion. True Anomaly’s $600 million Series D and SiFive’s $400 million Series G anchored the late-stage activity.

Corporate/SAFE/Other: 55 rounds deployed $16.5 billion, dominated by Anthropic’s $10 billion and $5 billion corporate rounds.

Top 10 Deals

The ten largest rounds ranged from $300 million (Volant Aerotech, Series C) to $10 billion (Anthropic, corporate). Seven of the top ten were US-based. London placed two deals in the top ten: Ineffable Intelligence ($1.1 billion seed) and Recursive Superintelligence ($500 million Series A). Mexico City entered with Plata’s $405 million Series C. China’s Volant Aerotech ($300 million Series C) rounded out the list.

Geography

United States

The US accounted for 239 rounds and $24.5 billion (72.8% of global capital). San Francisco dominated with 49 rounds and $16.5 billion — heavily driven by Anthropic. New York followed with 31 rounds and $1.0 billion. Cambridge ($578 million, 10 rounds), El Segundo ($540 million, 2 rounds), and San Diego ($538 million, 6 rounds) rounded out the top five US cities.

Global

Beyond the US, Europe posted 167 rounds totaling $3.7 billion, with London ($1.8 billion, 28 rounds) driving the continent. Asia recorded 179 rounds and $4.7 billion, with Shenzhen ($581 million, 7 rounds) and Beijing ($571 million, 9 rounds) as top markets. Bangalore ($342 million, 4 rounds) represented India’s activity, while Tel Aviv ($208 million, 5 rounds) led for Israel.

Who Is Winning

Sector Breakdown

Science and Engineering led all sector categories at $26.4 billion across 273 rounds, followed by Software ($24.7 billion, 291 rounds) and Data and Analytics ($23.0 billion, 209 rounds). AI ($22.6 billion, 196 rounds) and Information Technology ($18.8 billion, 115 rounds) continued to dominate. These categories overlap significantly — many AI companies tag under multiple sector groups. Manufacturing ($4.6 billion, 84 rounds) and Health Care ($3.2 billion, 103 rounds) were the largest non-software verticals.

Lead Investor Activity

Khosla Ventures led 6 rounds in April, deploying $656 million in lead capital. Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Peak XV Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz each led 4 rounds. Lightspeed Venture Partners led 3 rounds worth $1.2 billion — the highest capital among 3-round leads, driven by large growth-stage deals.

Repeat Investors

Y Combinator appeared in 18 rounds — the most active investor in April by participation. General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures each participated in 8 rounds. First Round Capital and Bpifrance each appeared in 7 rounds, reflecting continued European public-sector VC activity from the latter. Among later-stage specialists, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Andreessen Horowitz each participated in 6 rounds.

Smart Money Flow

Investor quality varied by stage. Series B attracted the highest average investor scores, followed by Series D and Series C — consistent with experienced investors concentrating at growth stages. Pre-seed had the lowest average scores, reflecting the wider range of investors active at the earliest stages.

Among Series B rounds, 67 high-score investors (85th percentile or above) participated, out of 370 total. Series A drew 102 high-score investors from 675. Seed rounds attracted 92 high-score investors from 859, a notable volume given the stage’s breadth.

SignalRank Qualifiers Snapshot

5 Series B companies qualified in April under the SignalRank v4 model. By score at Series B, Mintlify (669,762), Avoca (586,131), and Parallel (533,429) led the cohort. By disclosed round size, Avoca ($125 million) and Parallel ($100 million) were the largest. Sona ($45 million) and Sahi ($33 million) rounded out the qualifier set.

Series B rounds did drop, but not proportionately.

From March to April:

• Total Series B rounds fell 34%: 100 -> 66

• SignalRank qualifiers fell 75%: 20 -> 5

• Qualifier rate fell from 20.0% to 7.6%

This is a function of SignalRank algorithms becoming stricter in volatile market conditions - driven by its dynamic thresholding system.

What This Means For

VCs

Capital concentration intensified further in April — 57.2% of all capital flowed to just 10 deals. For funds outside the mega-round bracket, the competitive landscape is moderate: 642 rounds split $14.4 billion. Series A pricing held with a $14.6 million median, and Series B median round sizes remained healthy at $36.6 million.

Founders

Seed-stage founders saw solid activity with 222 rounds closing in April. Pre-seed remained accessible at a $1.4 million median. The month-over-month drop in round count from March’s 1,019 to April’s 652 warrants monitoring, though it may partially reflect data reporting lag. London emerged as a strong alternative hub with 28 rounds and $1.8 billion deployed.

LPs

The trailing 6-month trend shows persistent volatility driven by mega-rounds (February’s $193.7 billion spike remains the outlier). Underlying round counts have fluctuated between 652 and 1,019. Investor quality data shows experienced investors continuing to concentrate at Series B and C — a signal that smart money sees the strongest risk-adjusted opportunity at growth stages.

Trailing trend data covers November 2025 through April 2026.

USVC is part of the wave of products seeking to democratize VC. USVC is a credible new entrant, backed by one of the strongest brands in the VC ecosystem.

But structure still matters. The illiquidity of the product differentiates USVC from other Public Venture Capital funds (PVCs) such as Destiny & Fundrise.

This post will highlight the key features of USVC, as well as some of its differentiating factors. This is most certainly not investment advice.

What is USVC

USVC is a closed-end fund focused on venture capital.

Key features:

• Structure: Closed-end interval fund (limited quarterly liquidity, up to 5%)

• Fees: 2.5% management fee, no carry

• Minimum: $500 (clearly retail targeted)

• Valuation: Marked at NAV daily (no public market premium/discount dynamics)

The NAV as at December 2025 was $8m. Within 24 hours from public launch last week, Ankur Nagpal (GP of USVC) tweeted that “thousands of people ended up subscribing for literally tens of millions of dollars.”

The portfolio today consists of seven assets (xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Vercel, Crusoe, Legora & Sierra). xAI is roughly 50% of the private asset base today. The strategy is to invest across all stages, including early stage via funds and later stage to provide liquidity to shareholders.

The initial assets make it look like USVC is creating another galactico portfolio of hero assets rather than seeking to focus on earlier stage companies with potential for NAV growth. In that sense, it is akin to DXYZ and VCX.

Three things stand out compared to other PVCs

1. AngelList is the real asset

• USVC will benefit from the brand halo effect of AngelList, and the involvement of Naval Ravikant as chairman (as well as Cyan Banister as an advisor) to accelerate distribution.

• Naval can push USVC to his 3m+ followers on X, supporting dealflow and fundraising alike.

• AngelList already has relationships with 4,500+ fund managers, including from AngelList’s fund administration business.

2. Limited liquidity

• USVC is not listed and the starting position is potential for 5% liquidity each quarter. By contrast, exchange-traded closed-end funds, such as DXYZ and VCX, allow investors daily liquidity via public markets (assuming the trading volume is there).

• The CEO of DXYZ has already tweeted the lyrics of Hotel California at USVC.

• We have previously written about why the asset-liability mismatch for these types of interval funds is problematic. Venture assets are long-duration and illiquid.

• The corollary of not listing the fund is that share price is set at NAV. This does not allow for the fund to trade at a premium to NAV when there is sufficient demand.

• Nevertheless, ARK VC, which has a similar interval fund structure, has been successful in driving NAV growth and in raising capital. In Q1 2026 alone, ARK’s AUM grew by $207m to $711m.

3. Indirect strategy

• The investment strategy lacks definition (and is potentially expensive). USVC positions itself as BOTH early and late stage, BOTH direct and indirect (via funds), and delivering BOTH brand-name exposure and future growth.

• In practice, USVC will initially invest via other traditional VC funds. The positions today are via two vehicles (Acquired Capital Fund LP and NB Ventures XAI II LP). The plan in the future is to make more direct investments.

• The indirect strategy of investing via funds will increase fee load as USVC will likely be paying management fees and carry to the underlying managers.

In short, USVC is a strong entrant into the PVC stable, offering a new product on top of the AngelList platform and network. The pull of Naval / AngelList is not to be discounted. Retail investors will surely flock to this product, in spite of questions to be answered about illiquidity and investment strategy.

We are aware of at least two other PVCs who have filed N-2s who will be launching publicly soon. It is exciting to see the emergence of this new financial product, especially as different managers are selecting different structures and strategies to achieve the same goal: providing retail capital with early access to the next power law companies.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

The current PVC products are trading well, typically above Net Asset Value. This flies in the face of received wisdom which until recently accepted that listed entities with private assets trade at discounts to NAV.

And in many ways the premia/discount to NAV debate is a red herring to the core question of whether NAV itself is growing. It is this NAV growth that is core to SignalRank’s own model (given our focus on Series Bs, not pre-IPO stocks), not the premium/discount to NAV.

Nevertheless, what are the key factors in driving share price to trade at a premium to NAV? And how do these impact the current stable of PVCs?

Factors driving share price

Public funds of private assets typically trade at a discount to NAV. The main reasons are as follows:

• Liquidity discount: investors apply a discount to a portfolio due to the fact that the underlying assets (private companies, real estate, some crypto) cannot be instantly sold. The more illiquid the assets, the greater the discount.

• Valuation skepticism: internal valuations are set by managers, leading investors to question a NAV number that hasn’t been stress-tested in an actual sale.

• Higher fees: managers of private assets typically charge higher fees (and carry) than their public market colleagues, which has a negative impact on NAV.

• Thin demand: trading volumes in these assets tend to be somewhat low, leading to greater bid/ask spreads.

And yet. The newer models of PVCs are overcoming these factors to trade at premia to NAV, not discounts. This is primarily due to:

• Brand awareness: portfolios with assets such as OpenAI & SpaceX benefit from high retail awareness of the underlying assets.

• Asset scarcity: investors pay to access quality assets which are unavailable elsewhere, such as Anthropic.

• Thin float: PVCs operating within lock-up periods have smaller floats which will artificially impact the movement of shares, given limited access to the shares.

Some secondary components also come into play such as the listing location (with US public investors valuing growth more than in Europe), market sentiment (especially the AI frenzy today), first mover advantage (as the market does not understand PVCs yet) and portfolio concentration (with some PVCs being so concentrated as to be proxies for single assets).

But it is worth noting that these premia historically tend to compress, as new supply eventually meets demands (rights issues, competing vehicles, eventual IPOs of the underlying companies that remove the exclusivity premium).

Again, NAV growth itself should be more important than premia/discounts to NAV.

Premia/discount to NAV for existing PVCs

Listed VCs are not a new phenomenon in Europe. Government / public-funded capital remains the largest source of LP capital in Europe. It has historically been challenging for non-Tier 1 European managers to raise commercial capital, forcing some to resort to the public markets as a source of capital.

These platforms have typically underperformed. This is perhaps of no surprise, given these GPs’ inability to access generational companies, combined with thin European capital markets and a conservative European public market investor base.

Covid-mania led Molten Ventures (Figure 1) and Augmentum (Figure 2), which are two listed VCs in the UK, to briefly trade above NAV. The norm today is more like a 35%+ discount to NAV.

Figure 1. Molten Ventures share price & NAV evolution since 2016

Source: Hargreaves Lansdown

Figure 2. Augmentum’s share price & NAV evolution since 2018

Source: Hargreaves Lansdown

It is not all bad news in Europe. Flat Capital, run by Klarna CEO (Sebastian Siemiatkowski), has significant positions in OpenAI as well as Klarna itself. This has led Flat Capital to trade at a premium to NAV since Q3 2024 (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Flat Capital’s share price & NAV evolution since 2022

Source: Claude

Turning to the more recent US PVCs, DXYZ has consistently traded at a premium to NAV (Figure 4) since listing in 2024.

This spiked at 20x+ at the initial listing and jumped again with Trump’s 2024 re-election (which benefited SpaceX which was 50%+ of the portfolio at the time), before stabilizing at an average of 380% premium to NAV for 2025. This subsequently reduced further as DXYZ raised almost $250m in Q4 2025, bringing the average premium to NAV for 2026 to 40%.

Figure 4. DXYZ’s share price & NAV evolution since listing

Source: Yahoo Finance

There is less history for Robinhood Ventures and Fundrise which both listed in Q1 2026.

Robinhood Ventures (RVI), underwritten by Goldman Sachs, has seen a more stable trading pattern (Figure 5). The lack of a initial pop probably speaks to a portfolio that is underweight AI, focused more on winners from the prior cycle and consumer-facing products that will appeal to their 27m account holders. The success of the Fundrise listing did drag the RVI share price above NAV, and RVI currently trades at a 7% premium to NAV.

Figure 5. Robinhood Ventures’ share price & NAV evolution since listing

Source: Yahoo Finance

By contrast, Fundrise’s share price evolution is much more in-line with DXYZ (Figure 6). The combination of a portfolio with prized assets and a very thin float has led VCX to trade wildly in initial sessions. Current share price as at 3/31/26 is above 600% premium to NAV.

Figure 6. Fundrise’s VCX share price & NAV evolution since listing

Source: Yahoo Finance

Closing thoughts

We have previously written about why fund structure matters. In the US, the closed-end fund model allows the share price to diverge from NAV (like DXYZ), while other structures, including the interval fund structure that ARK Ventures selected, are tied exactly to NAV.

This led to a public spat between DXYZ’s CEO, Sohail Prasad, and ARK’s Cathie Wood.

In the long term, this is noise. As more and more PVCs come to market offering similar products, the premia to NAV will likely compress, unless tied directly to expected NV growth.

Indeed, what will differentiate managers is those whose products can deliver consistent NAV growth and those who cannot.

The information contained in this document has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this information or opinions contained herein. Certain statements contained in this document may be statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements that are based on management’s current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. None of Signal Rank Corp or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its content or otherwise arising in connection with this document. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any shares. For further details, please refer to the Offering Documents describing Signal Rank Corp. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as tax, accounting or legal advice. Signal Rank Corp does not provide tax, accounting or legal advice. Any such statement herein was written to support the marketing or promotion of the transaction(s) or matter(s) to which the statement relates. Each taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

March 2026 saw $35.5 billion deployed across 695 funding rounds involving 2,321 distinct investors. Capital concentration remained elevated: the ten largest deals accounted for 52.1% of all capital, led by OpenAI’s $10 billion corporate follow-on. Excluding the top ten, the remaining 685 rounds deployed $17.0 billion — a more grounded view of core venture activity.

Series A rounds led by dollar volume with 158 deals totaling $5.0 billion, while seed rounds were the most numerous at 261 deals worth $2.6 billion. Series B activity held steady at 78 rounds and $4.3 billion. The US captured 72.5% of total capital ($25.7 billion across 277 rounds), with Europe ($4.2 billion, 185 rounds) and Asia ($3.3 billion, 166 rounds) filling out the picture.

On the investor side, Y Combinator led deal participation with 30 rounds, while Andreessen Horowitz led 8 rounds — the most of any investor in March. Software, Science & Engineering, and AI remained the dominant sector categories by capital deployed.

Market Pulse

695 rounds closed in March 2026, deploying $35.5 billion in total capital. 695 distinct companies raised, backed by 2,321 investors.

The headline number carries a significant skew: OpenAI’s $10 billion after-corporate round alone represents 28.2% of the month’s total. The top 10 deals captured 52.1% of all capital deployed — $18.5 billion across just 1.4% of all rounds.

Adjusting for that concentration, the median round across stages varied widely: pre-seed rounds landed at $1.0 million, seed at $4.1 million, Series A at $17.3 million, and Series B at $34.9 million.

6-Month Capital Trend

Over the trailing six months (October 2025 through March 2026), monthly round counts ranged from 695 to 1,085. January 2026 saw $51.3 billion deployed across 875 rounds, and February spiked to $180.6 billion (driven by exceptionally large mega-rounds). March’s $35.5 billion across 695 rounds represents a return to a more typical range.

Round counts have declined steadily from the October 2025 peak of 1,085 to March’s 695 — a 36% drop over six months. This likely reflects seasonal patterns combined with ongoing market selectivity.

Stage-by-Stage View

Pre-Seed: 81 rounds deployed $153.1 million at a median of $1.0 million. Activity remains robust at the earliest stage, though round sizes stay compressed.

Seed: The most active stage by volume with 261 rounds and $2.6 billion in total capital. The median seed round came in at $4.1 million, with an average of $9.9 million reflecting a long tail of larger seed rounds.

Series A: 158 rounds deployed $5.0 billion at a median of $17.3 million. Series A continues to be the largest priced-round category by total capital.

Series B: 78 rounds at $4.3 billion, with a median of $34.9 million. Nexthop AI ($500 million) and Cloaked ($375 million) anchored the largest B rounds.

Series C: 42 rounds deploying $3.1 billion at a $44.5 million median. Sierra Space’s $550 million round led the stage.

Series D+: 23 rounds across Series D through G, collectively deploying $5.2 billion. Shield AI’s $2.0 billion Series G was the largest late-stage deal.

Corporate/SAFE/Other: 52 rounds deployed $15.2 billion, dominated by OpenAI’s $10 billion after-corporate round and PT Chandra Asri Alkali’s $800 million SAFE.

Top 10 Deals

The ten largest rounds ranged from $500 million (Mind Robotics, Series A) to $10 billion (OpenAI, after-corporate). Seven of the top ten were US-based. Notable non-US entries include Advanced Machine Intelligence (Paris, $1.03 billion seed) and Legora (Stockholm, $550 million Series D).

Geography

United States

The US accounted for 277 rounds and $25.7 billion (72.5% of global capital). San Francisco dominated with 54 rounds and $11.7 billion — much of that driven by OpenAI. New York followed with 49 rounds and $2.5 billion, establishing itself as a clear second hub. San Diego ($2.1 billion, 6 rounds) and Palo Alto ($1.4 billion, 9 rounds) rounded out the top four.

Global

Beyond the US, Europe posted 185 rounds totaling $4.2 billion, with Paris ($1.2 billion, 16 rounds) and London ($830 million, 38 rounds) leading the continent. Asia recorded 166 rounds and $3.3 billion, with Beijing ($698 million) and Shanghai ($294 million) as the top markets. Stockholm ($687 million, 8 rounds) punched above its weight among European cities.

Who Is Winning

Sector Breakdown

Software led all sector categories at $26.4 billion across 339 rounds, followed by Science & Engineering ($25.1 billion, 286 rounds) and AI ($22.8 billion, 207 rounds). These categories overlap significantly — many AI companies also tag under Software and Data. Financial Services ($4.3 billion, 86 rounds) and Health Care ($2.7 billion, 114 rounds) were the largest non-tech verticals.

Lead Investor Activity

Andreessen Horowitz led 8 rounds in March, deploying $11.1 billion in lead capital (heavily weighted by OpenAI). NEXEA also led 8 rounds, though at the other end of the size spectrum. General Catalyst led 7 rounds worth $496 million, and Accel led 6 rounds deploying $1.1 billion.

Repeat Investors

Y Combinator appeared in 30 rounds — the most active investor in March by participation. General Catalyst (16 rounds), Andreessen Horowitz (15), and Accel (10) followed. Coatue appeared in 9 rounds, concentrating on later-stage deals. Among European firms, Balderton Capital (5 rounds) and Speedinvest (5 rounds) were the most prolific.

SignalRank Qualifiers Snapshot

17 Series B rounds in March featured qualified for SignalRank Series B pro-rata underwriting. Nexthop AI ($500 million), Sunday ($165 million) and Wonderful ($150 million) topped the list. The qualifier set spanned sectors from AI infrastructure to biotech, with the majority of companies headquartered in the US.

What This Means For

VCs

Capital concentration remains a defining feature: half of all capital flows to just 10 deals. For funds outside the mega-round bracket, the competitive landscape is actually more moderate — 685 rounds split $17.0 billion, offering plenty of deployment opportunity. Series A pricing held steady with a $17.3 million median, but the gap between median and average ($31.6 million) signals a growing bifurcation in round sizes.

Founders

Seed-stage founders saw healthy activity with 261 rounds closing in March. Pre-seed remained accessible at a $1.0 million median. For Series A-stage companies, the 158 rounds completed suggest steady but selective investor behavior. The decline in total round count from October’s 1,085 to March’s 695 indicates rising selectivity — founders should prepare for longer processes.

LPs

The trailing 6-month trend shows month-to-month volatility driven by mega-rounds (February’s $180.6 billion spike). Underlying round counts have softened, dropping 36% from October. The investor quality data shows experienced investors continuing to concentrate at Series B and C — a signal that smart money sees value in growth-stage opportunities even as early-stage volume contracts.