May set the stage for a new phase for the startup market. While Anthropic’s $50 billion raise — the second-largest startup funding deal on record — pushed global startup investment to one of the highest monthly totals of all time, Cerebras Systems’ successful IPO previews a potential blockbuster infusion of liquidity back into the private markets that could fuel the next wave of startup investment.
All told, global venture funding reached $92 billion in May, marking the second-largest monthly total on record, just behind February, Crunchbase data shows. Of that, Anthropic raised $50 billion 1 , or 54% of the month’s total funding.
Startup funding was up 284% year over year from $24 billion, per Crunchbase data.
The month also had a successful IPO for a venture-backed company as chip company Cerebras, which has benefited from growing demand for AI inference, went public at the upper end of its range at $185 per share and opened at $350. The stock is currently trading around $225 as of June 2, which values the company at just over $49 billion.
On the valuation front, Anthropic rocketed ahead of OpenAI on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board as it became the second-most highly valued private company at $965 billion, just behind SpaceX at $1.25 trillion. Just months earlier in February, Anthropic was valued at $380 billion. The board has shot up in value in recent months and has 1,780 companies altogether valued at $9.9 trillion as of the end of May.
Billions more
Last month, a further $17 billion was raised by 10 companies in rounds of $500 million and above. They include defense tech unicorn Anduril Industries, which raised $5 billion, and China-based AI labs StepFun and Moonshot AI, which each raised more than $2 billion having raised rounds earlier this year. Automated coding lab Cognition raised $1 billion, and Sierra, which develops AI for customer service, raised $950 million in a single round.
Funding to the AI sector totaled $72 billion, or 79% of funding, last month.
The boom funds itself
The Cerebras IPO sets the stage for further public listings, including potentially record-setting ones.
SpaceX publicly filed its prospectus in May, stating its intention to raise $80 billion via its IPO. The space tech giant has raised $9.4 billion in equity funding to date, per Crunchbase.
Anthropic, which is set to beat OpenAI to the public markets after filing its confidential IPO paperwork on June 1, has raised $125 billion in equity funding thus far, compared with its rival’s roughly $180 billion in private funding.
The private markets in 2026 have raised capital at a greater pace than ever before, thanks to larger rounds, faster follow-on fundings and record-breaking valuations. At the same time, if SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI all list this year, as they’ve said they intend to, the resulting liquidity could be the largest in market history, pouring hundreds of billions back into the hands of startup investors who will redeploy it into the next wave of private companies.
Related Crunchbase queries:
- Global Venture Funding In 2026
- Global IPOs For Venture-Backed Companies In 2026
- Global Venture Funding To AI Startups In 2026
Related reading:
- Anthropic Files Confidentially For IPO
- Anthropic Nears $1T Valuation And Leapfrogs OpenAI On Unicorn Board With $65B Funding Round
Methodology
The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of June 2, 2026.
Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.
Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.
Glossary of funding terms
Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.
Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.
Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.
Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)
Illustration: Dom Guzman
Anthropic’s total raise of $65 billion included earlier tranches of $5 billion raised from Amazon and $10 billion from Google announced in April.↩
