Both the largest startup funding round ever and the largest acquisition of a venture-backed company occurred in Q1 2025, reflecting a warming startup environment but also one where capital and opportunities were concentrated among a handful of companies and sectors. The deal ' which alone accounts for more than half of U.S. venture funding and a third of global funding last quarter ' pushed global startup investment in Q1 to $113 billion, Crunchbase data shows. Funding to just the AI sector comprised more than half of last quarter's global total. !function(e,n,i,s){var d="InfogramEmbeds";var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];if(window[d]&&window[d].initialized)window[d].process&&window[d].process();else if(!e.getElementById(i)){var r=e.createElement(n);r.async=1,r.id=i,r.src=s,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,"script","infogram-async","https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); OpenAI moved from the third-most valuable private company to the second-most valuable...
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