This week delivered a bountiful supply of big startup funding rounds, led by two $400 million financings for cybersecurity unicorns and large financings for startups across hot sectors, including foundational AI, drug discovery, neurotech, and even rainmaking. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

From January through August, U.S. tech layoffs reached at least 94,046, up 16.8% from 80,486 in the same period of 2025. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly, many of the cuts came as tech companies redirected spending toward AI and restructured operations to reduce costs. news.crunchbase.com/layoffs/…

So far this year, companies in the gaming space have raised around $2 billion in seed- through growth-stage funding. That's already ahead of the 2025 full-year total, driven in large part by big rounds for companies at the intersection of AI and gaming. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

San Francisco-based Dextr AI is emerging from stealth with $6.7 million in seed funding to build agents that handle reservations, guest requests, staff coordination and other hotel tasks. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

So far this year, global startups have secured at least 114 Series A rounds of $100 million or more, per Crunchbase data. That’s the highest annual total in years and on track to top the all-time peak. We take a look at where the money is going. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

As AI agents gain access to enterprise data, systems and tools, they are emerging as a new class of active identity requiring specialized permissions, monitoring and governance, writes guest author @ItaySagie. He believes the market, and its M&A opportunities, will likely form around specific control points, making precise positioning crucial for startups. news.crunchbase.com/ma/emerg…

In an interview with Crunchbase News, Van Espahbodi (@vdadmahi), general parter at Generational Partners, discusses how AI is changing hardware economics, why software investors are rushing into industrial technology, and what he believes many of them misunderstand about the sector. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

Baselayer, an AI-powered startup that helps financial institutions verify businesses and assess fraud risk, has raised a $35 million M13-led Series A to expand its identity technology to AI agents. news.crunchbase.com/ai/verif…

After a week of multiple billion-dollar-plus rounds, startup investors have reduced the number of zeroes on their funding checks. Last week, the largest U.S. startup funding rounds were in the hundreds of millions, topped by a $550 million financing for AI infrastructure company Temporal Technologies and a $308 million investment in space vehicle developer Impulse Space. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

The most-fundable startups prioritize a clear go-to-market strategy and test distinctive marketing channels early, treating distribution and disciplined focus as durable competitive advantages, explains guest author @AaronGolbin, a co-founder and general partner at @LVLUP, who believes that seed-stage success depends on focused execution, diversified financing, built-in distribution, rapid learning and AI designed as core infrastructure. news.crunchbase.com/seed/sta…

Based in New York, newly launched Skalar provides startups with capital to fund sales and marketing initiatives in a fairly straightforward, though somewhat unusual model which lets the startups pay it back out of the revenue generated by the customers acquired with that capital. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

From putting nuclear reactors on barges to grading how well AI models can control robots, this month’s crop of interesting startup deals takes AI and other emerging technologies well beyond the conventional software stack. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

The IPO market is open, but it’s increasingly a winner-takes-almost-all game. So far in 2026, U.S. venture-backed tech companies raised nearly $90B in public offerings, the second-highest annual total on record, with @SpaceX capturing 83% of that sum, and @cerebras another 6%. Energy, nuclear, quantum, defense and space tech led the broader field, while enterprise SaaS was largely absent as AI reshapes the sector. news.crunchbase.com/public/e…

Startups across sales, marketing and customer management have raised $7.5 billion so far this year, according to Crunchbase data. The largest rounds span everything from advertising and customer data to sales software, e-commerce and customer support — reflecting just how many companies are still trying to build a better way to market and sell. news.crunchbase.com/sales-ma…

AI startups are reaching massive valuations and liquidity events so quickly that young founders and employees often acquire life-changing wealth before they are prepared to manage it. Ron Honig of From-Honig Family Office, advises that the company's financial plans should remain flexible, balancing long-term security with future opportunities. news.crunchbase.com/startups…

We ranked August’s most active startup investors across several categories, including lead backers, prolific venture dealmakers, highest spenders and seed investors, which were once again dominated by familiar names. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

The standard four-year founder vesting schedule can leave departed founders with large equity stakes, complicating financing and control, and prompting costly litigation aimed at reclaiming shares. Guest author David Siegel, a partner at @GrellasShahLLP, shares ways startups can reduce these risks. news.crunchbase.com/startups…

It was a monster week for U.S. startup funding, with four companies each raising $1 billion or more. @boringcompany led with a $3 billion Series D, followed by AI coding startup @cognition at $2 billion. Joining them near the top was fleet management software provider Motive, which landed $1.3 billion, while reusable rocket developer @stoke_space raised another $1 billion. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

Iman Abuzeid left clinical medicine to tackle healthcare problems at scale, co-founding Incredible Health, a hiring platform that reverses traditional recruiting by having employers apply to healthcare professionals. news.crunchbase.com/venture/…

AI itself is no longer a durable differentiator, argues guest author @scmoatti of @MightyCapital, who says he strongest startup moats are counter-positioning and network economies. news.crunchbase.com/ai/moats…