The venture market shifted in the first half of the year

Author:
Ashley Neville
| Read time:
2 minutes
Published date:
July 8, 2026

H1 2026 venture funding rose to $58.7B, but capital concentrated at the top — Series C+ jumped to $31.8B while Seed fell nearly in half to $3.8B.

Q2 is closed. But the data will keep being recorded on cap tables in the weeks to come. We won't release the Q2 State of Private Markets until mid August.

In the meantime, here's what we're seeing.

Total venture funding is up. $56.5B was raised in H1 2025. $58.7B is already recorded for H1 2026.

The stage story is concentration. Seed fell nearly in half. $6.5B to $3.8B. Series B is down. $13.5B to $10.4B. Series A held flat at $12.7B. All of that compression is being absorbed by one place. Series C+. Up from $23.9B to $31.8B. The big checks are getting bigger. Everything below them is getting squeezed.

The industry story is bifurcation. Hardware nearly doubled. $8.6B to $14.3B. SaaS held steady at roughly $24B. Below those two the rows get lighter. Pharma down. Healthcare Tech down. Medical Devices collapsed from $1.7B to $585M. Advertising Tech from $335M to $65M.

Energy is the quiet story. Up from $1.2B to $2.2B. Consistent flow. No single massive week. Just steady accumulation.

The middle is disappearing. At both the stage level and the industry level. Capital is moving to the top and to the known winners.

Each row in the chart above represents a stage or industry. Each column is a week.

The two rows per group tell the year-over-year story. 2025 above. 2026 below. The darker the cell the more capital raised that week. White or near-white means little to no activity.

Read it horizontally to see the rhythm of a category. Some industries raise consistently every week. Others show long quiet stretches with occasional spikes.

Read it vertically to spot moments when capital moved across multiple categories at once.

Cheers,

Ashley Neville

Carta Insights

Author: Ashley Neville

Ashley Neville leads strategy for the Insights team at Carta, bringing 15 years of experience in the data industry. A former evangelist for Tableau and Salesforce, she is an expert in data culture and literacy who is passionate about helping people harness the power of data. Ashley studied economics at Georgetown.