Current Startup and Venture Capital News for Friday, 9 January 2026: Record AI Rounds, Mega Fund Activity, Unicorn Growth, and a Resurgence in the IPO Market.
The global startup and venture capital market welcomes the year 2026 on a wave of renewed activity. Premier funds are once again raising substantial capital, investments in artificial intelligence are hitting record highs, and the window for initial public offerings (IPOs) is starting to open after a period of stagnation in recent years. Below are the latest news in venture investment and startups as of Friday, 9 January 2026, crafted for international investors and funds.
Venture Mega Funds are Making a Comeback
Following a downturn last year, leading venture players are raising record capital once again, intensifying market concentration. Although the number of new funds reached a decade low in 2025, several mega funds have significantly uplifted the overall industry metrics. Investors are concentrating their resources with proven teams, banking on their access to the most promising deals. Among the largest new funds:
- Lightspeed Venture Partners raised approximately $9 billion in total (across six new funds), finishing 2025 with the largest capital raise in the market. Lightspeed has solidified its status as a mega fund, focusing on large bets in AI.
- Dragoneer Investment Group formed a new fund totalling $4.3 billion, continuing its strategy of significant investments in late-stage companies, including over $3 billion invested in OpenAI.
- Founders Fund closed a growth fund of $4.5 billion in 2025, along with several early-stage funds focused on technology unicorns.
- Lux Capital announced at the beginning of 2026 the closure of a $1.5 billion fund—the largest in the firm’s 25-year history, which specializes in science-driven startups (defence, space, biotech).
Additionally, major funds such as Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst previously raised $7–8 billion each (in 2024), while Thrive Capital is aiming for $6–8 billion. Although the total number of new venture funds has decreased, the top ten players gathered about half of all capital, reflecting a trend where capital is gravitating towards 'mega funds', leaving fewer opportunities for smaller teams. For venture investors, this signals a growing role of large institutional LPs and challenges in raising capital for new funds without a renowned brand.
Record Investment Rounds in AI
Startups focusing on artificial intelligence continue to attract unprecedented amounts of funding. The year 2025 was marked by a surge in mega-rounds within the AI sector—according to industry analysts, 15 companies raised $2 billion or more, with total funding exceeding $100 billion. The largest deals set historical records in the venture market:
- OpenAI secured $40 billion in investment in March 2025 (with SoftBank as the lead investor). This represents the largest venture financing in history, showcasing immense investor confidence in generative AI platforms.
- xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup, raised $20 billion in its Series E round by early 2026, exceeding the initially planned $15 billion. This round saw backing from major funds based in the US, Qatar, and elsewhere, highlighting the global nature of the race for AI leadership.
- Scale AI obtained $14.3 billion from Meta in the summer of 2025. This investment came with a strategic partnership, as Scale AI's team partially transitioned to Meta, collaborating on the development of AI models. The deal valued the startup at $29 billion.
- Anthropic raised $13 billion in September 2025 (Round F) with an estimated valuation of around $183 billion. Investors included Iconiq Capital, Fidelity, Lightspeed, among others. Such a high valuation reflects the frenzy around the developers of advanced large language models.
- The Prometheus Project, a new startup led by Jeff Bezos, launched at the end of 2025 with $6.2 billion in funding. The company aims to leverage AI for tackling physical challenges, and such generous initial funding indicates investors’ readiness to invest in ambitious long-term projects.
In addition to these, the market also focused on significant rounds from xAI (which has raised over $22 billion since its inception), Databricks ($4 billion in December 2025 at a $134 billion valuation, amidst explosive revenue growth from the AI data platform), and other deals. Even comparatively young projects are raising massive sums: for instance, the startup Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, attracted $2 billion in seed investments with a valuation of $10 billion—setting a record for seed rounds in the market. The dominance of AI is evident: the overwhelming majority of mega deals are concentrated in this sector. Global venture investors largely agree that a few standout AI companies are likely to yield disproportionate high returns, hence financing is being concentrated around them. However, experts caution that not every AI startup within this hot sector will meet expectations, and investors are increasingly discerning in selecting 'priceless' teams among a multitude of similar players.
Diversity: Defence, Energy, and Crypto
It is not only artificial intelligence that can attract substantial investment—2025 also witnessed large deals in other segments of the tech market. Notably, the defence technology and energy sectors stood out, alongside specific projects within the crypto and fintech industries:
- Defence Technology. The geopolitical climate has driven unprecedented investments in defence-tech. American startup Anduril Industries secured $2.5 billion in its Round G (June 2025) while doubling its valuation to over $30 billion. According to Forbes, at least 10 new 'unicorns' emerged in the defence sector in 2025, with total venture investments in defence technologies surpassing $48 billion. Funds that invested in military tech well before the trend (such as Lux Capital) are now reaping rewards, with investors seeing consistent demand from governments for innovations in security.
- Energy and Climate Technologies. The push towards clean energy received a fresh impetus thanks to AI technologies. British energy giant Octopus Energy spun off its technological platform Kraken into a separate company at the end of 2025, which attracted about $1 billion in investments with an $8.65 billion valuation. The Kraken platform utilises AI for optimising energy grids and customer service, and this deal signals the market's readiness to funnel large amounts into climate-tech if they offer scalable solutions. In the same clean energy sphere, Octopus Energy had previously raised $320 million for expansion into the US markets. A significant deal was also noted in Europe: Dutch chipmaker ASML invested $2 billion in French AI startup Mistral AI, valuing it at $13.2 billion and supporting the development of European competences in AI and hardware.
- Cryptocurrencies and Fintech. Despite a downturn in interest in crypto-assets, some major players are making targeted investments. The operator of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, announced in October 2025 plans to invest up to $2 billion in the blockchain platform Polymarket (a prediction market), giving the startup a valuation of approximately $8 billion and demonstrating traditional financial institutions' interest in the Web3 infrastructure. Additionally, the Abu Dhabi-based investment fund MGX infused $2 billion into the global cryptocurrency exchange Binance in March, providing support against regulatory challenges. The fintech sector did not see new mega-rounds, yet it retains positive momentum: in India, fintech startup Knight FinTech secured $23.6 million, while payment and neobank services are expanding their customer bases, with the most valuable fintech unicorns (Stripe, Revolut, etc.) preparing for IPOs as market conditions improve.
Overall, 2025 demonstrated that investors are willing to finance not only software AI companies but also 'real sector' projects if they possess technological breakthroughs. The synergy of AI with sectors once distant from IT has led to major rounds in agritech (e.g., Indian startups Arya and Unnati raised tens of millions for agricultural platforms), healthcare (biotech companies worldwide continued to attract capital, even though they did not garner as much media attention), and industrial automation. Robotics is also on the brink of growth: the decreasing cost of sensors and advancements in AI promise a new generation of robotics startups emerging with significant investments in 2026. Thus, beyond the AI internet, investor demand is forming for projects in defence, climate, and other niches capable of addressing tangible challenges.
Revival of the IPO Market
After nearly two years of inactivity, venture stars are once again hitting global exchanges—the IPO market started to regain its vitality in the second half of 2025. A reduction in inflation and stabilization of interest rates have created conditions for a return of liquidity, and several technology companies have successfully launched IPOs, infusing optimism into the venture community. In the US, numerous 'unicorns' went public: for example, companies from the Lightspeed Venture Partners portfolio—cybersecurity firm Rubrik, cloud service Netskope, and corporate travel startup Navan—conducted IPOs in 2024–2025, showcasing sustainable growth to investors and offering much-anticipated exits. These listings confirmed that investors are willing to purchase shares of high-tech firms again, provided they have strong fundamental metrics.
Movements are also observable in other markets: Indian OYO (an online hotel booking platform) resumed its IPO plans at the end of 2025, signalling a recovering appetite for public offerings even in developing ecosystems. In Europe, cautious optimism reigns—several IPOs of technology companies have taken place on the London and Amsterdam stock exchanges with moderate success, although the levels of the 2021 boom are still far off. Nevertheless, a wave of IPOs is expected to continue into 2026. Analysts are naming candidates from among the largest private startups likely to go public: financial giant Stripe, data platform Databricks, software robotics manufacturer Automation Anywhere, and a number of companies from the AI sector. The revival of the IPO catalogue is critically important for venture funds—successful listings elevate valuation multiples and allow LP investors to realise long-awaited profits. Concurrently, the mergers and acquisitions market is also picking up: many 'stalled' late-stage startups prefer strategic M&A when IPOs are unavailable, allowing for exits for venture players as well.
Growth in the Number of Unicorns and New Valuations
Despite more selective funding, the total number of 'unicorn' startups (valuation over $1 billion) has reached a new record. According to industry trackers, by the end of 2025, there are over 1300 private companies globally valued at over $1 billion, compared to around 1100 at the beginning of 2023. During 2025, the market birthed at least 80 new unicorns, with a significant portion of them in AI and defence. There are even companies that have skipped the unicorn status and directly become 'decacorns' (valuations over $10 billion) or higher. For instance, the previously mentioned Anthropic and xAI exceeded valuations in the tens of billions well ahead of their IPOs. Such rapid valuation growth has led to the emergence of the term 'pegasus'—as some investors propose to label a startup that attracts $1 billion in funding already at the seed stage. While this is currently a semi-joking designation, the market truly sees an increasing number of cases of enormous rounds at the earliest stage, especially if the founders are industry stars with previous successes.
Nonetheless, the rapid increase in valuations is not uniform across the entire market. For most startups, access to capital has become more challenging than during the era of low rates a few years back. Investors are demanding compelling metrics and uniqueness: the hundredth AI startup with a similar idea is unlikely to receive a high valuation now. However, those companies offering breakthrough solutions can still achieve valuations exceeding a billion in record times. In 2025, startups demonstrated revenue growth from $0 to $100 million within just a year or two, which previously seemed incredible. In 2026, the trend of 'accelerated unicorns' is expected to continue, particularly if generative AI technologies rapidly integrate into business and life.
Capital Concentration Among Market Leaders
One of the key themes in the venture industry has been the concentration of capital in the hands of the largest players and evolving investor strategies. Traditional 'mid-sized' venture funds are feeling the pressure—limited partners (LPs) prefer to invest in fewer large funds that have access to top deals and can write checks in the hundreds of millions. As a result, most venture capital is flowing to a few prestigious firms or specialised niche funds, while new teams are facing difficulties in fundraising. This trend enhances the influence of large institutional LPs (pension funds, sovereign wealth funds), who impose stringent terms and demand proven results from VC managers.
In response to this capital redistribution, the venture industry is seeking new approaches. Some top firms are diversifying their product lines: ideas for launching proprietary mutual funds or platforms for attracting capital from retail investors (including through relaxations in 401(k) retirement accounts in the US) are emerging. The aim is to access even broader resources beyond traditional LPs, as fees for managing a large fund prove more predictable than profit shares (carry) in an uncertain future. Simultaneously, smaller and newer funds are experimenting with fee structures and strategies, trying to attract capital amid market consolidation. In 2025, according to PitchBook, the number of new funds nearly halved, but individual fund sizes increased—forcing young teams to seek their niches or to align with larger players.
The influx of capital from non-financial investors has also become notable. Family offices and sovereign funds are filling the gap left by the exit of several traditional LPs: direct investments from wealthy families and states into startups have surged. For instance, Middle Eastern funds are actively participating in major deals (including the aforementioned investments by Qatar's QIA in xAI, MGX in Binance, etc.), providing checks in the hundreds of millions when traditional venture funds are exercising caution. This results in late-stage startups increasingly being financed by consortia of multiple mega funds and sovereign investors, altering the balance of power in the venture field.
Discipline and Efficiency of Startups
For startups themselves, the new reality of the venture market means heightened demands for efficiency. If two to three years ago, capital was available for bold ideas with minimal metrics, now both funds and shareholders expect evidence of business sustainability. The best founders of 2025 demonstrated the ability to run a company with financial discipline in mind: optimising costs, extending the 'runway' through expense reduction, and improving gross margins and customer retention. Investors are increasingly interested not only in market potential but also in how close a startup is to breakeven or whether it has a clear plan for achieving profitability.
In a market still in recovery, success stories about smart execution of strategy are proving more favourable than merely having a visionary idea. Startups that were able to grow in 2025 while improving key metrics (EBITDA, LTV/CAC, unit economics) are now in high demand among investors. In 2026, this trend is expected to strengthen: investors want to see how companies are not just 'burning' raised funds, but are rationally constructing business processes. For example, in many hot segments (AI, SaaS, fintech), the race to capture market share at any cost has ended—instead, those who can retain customers and generate stable cash flows are winning. Even among AI startups, where competition is particularly fierce, investors are beginning to prefer not the tenth similar prototype but teams that offer narrowly specialised solutions or proprietary technologies that are difficult to replicate.
Consequently, the global startup market enters 2026 at a new stage of maturity. Significant capital has not disappeared—it remains abundant and is ready to support groundbreaking innovations across various sectors. However, capital has become 'smarter': it is concentrating with the largest funds, selecting the best of the best, and demanding returns. For venture investors and funds, this means the need to stay attuned to new trends (whether generative AI, defence, or climate technologies) while also being prepared for more meticulous engagement with portfolio companies. For startup founders, a successful strategy for the upcoming year entails balancing bold innovation with stringent operational metrics. It is precisely the combination of bright ideas and business discipline that will help attract investors and turn a startup into a sustainable growth business on the global stage.
