AI was the leading sector, with $12.2 billion in funding, or 38% of the total monthly funding. The healthcare and biotech sector raised around $5.6 billion, while companies in financial services, hardware, and energy each raised funding at or above $4 billion. Early-stage funding totaled $10.9 billion across more than 500 rounds, while seed funding reached $2.8 billion across more than 1,000 companies. Late-stage funding was up by more than 100% month over month with $18 billion invested.
Key takeaways:
- Global venture capital funding in October 2024 reached a record $32 billion, with large funds leading supergiant rounds in capital-intensive businesses such as artificial intelligence, data centers and energy.
- OpenAI raised the largest round of $6.6 billion, led by Thrive Capital, representing around 20% of the month’s total venture investment. This raised OpenAI's valuation to $157 billion, making it the second-most valuable company on the unicorn board after ByteDance.
- AI was the leading sector with $12.2 billion in funding, or 38% of total monthly funding. Other sectors such as healthcare and biotech, financial services, hardware and energy each raised funding at or above $4 billion.
- Seed and early-stage funding held up with early-stage funding totaling $10.9 billion across more than 500 rounds. Seed funding was flat in October and reached $2.8 billion invested across more than 1,000 companies.