Global venture funding totaled $59 billion in October, a 45% increase year-over-year, driven largely by a record-breaking round for China's DeepSeek.
DeepSeek raised $15.9 billion at a $90 billion valuation, marking the largest venture deal ever for a Chinese company. The round places DeepSeek among the top 10 most funded private companies globally and makes it the second most valued Chinese company after ByteDance and the third most valued private frontier lab after U.S.-based Anthropic and OpenAI.
Seven companies that raised billion-dollar rounds accounted for just over 40% of October's total venture funding. U.S. and China-based companies raised $28 billion and $20.6 billion respectively. The last time China saw more than $20 billion invested in a single month was June 2018, when Ant Group raised $14 billion in its Series C.
Other major October rounds included Re:Build's $2.1 billion for manufacturing capacity, Axiom's $2 billion for data center power infrastructure, Ramp's $1.85 billion for spend management, Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion Series E for semiconductors, Kalshi's $1 billion Series E for prediction markets, and Flapping Airplanes' $1 billion Series A. TypeSafe AI raised $870 million for its decision model Jev.
Private equity and multistage firms including Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Lux Capital led much of the funding. AI-driven companies captured 66% of global funding in October, with semiconductor companies gaining market share.
Moonshot AI, a rival Chinese frontier lab, reached a $50 billion valuation in October and reportedly confidentially filed for a Hong Kong stock exchange listing.