Global Venture Pulse: Q4 2025 Funding Trends
Global Startup Funding Saw a Dramatic Pick‑Up in October 2025
As we finish up Q4, a few data points jumped out because they hint at where capital is flowing and where things might get interesting in early 2026 (and beyond).
On the macro level, global startup funding saw a dramatic pick‑up in October 2025: about $39 billion was invested globally, up from roughly $34 billion in October 2024. (LinkedIn)
But beneath that headline number lies a more dramatic story, a sector‑level breakout in defense & aerospace. According to data compiled by PitchBook (and reported by Business Insider), startups in aerospace and defense raised over $19 billion in 2025, nearly double the ~$10 billion they raised in 2024. (Business Insider)
Some individual rounds were especially large and emblematic of a structural pivot: for instance, Anduril Industries closed a $2.5 billion raise in mid‑2025. Meanwhile, Saronic Technologies — a maritime‑/autonomous‑vessels startup raised $600 million Series C earlier in the year. (Business Insider)
Why I’m sharing this:
The jump in overall startup funding signals a resurgence of risk capital, good context if you’re watching commercial open‑source, infrastructure, or deep‑tech sectors (since capital flow tends to shape where new innovation accrues).
The surge in defense/aerospace suggests investors increasingly view “hard tech + national security + government buy‑in” as a growth vertical, possibly meaning more interest in open‑source tooling that supports hardware, security, supply chain transparency, or “dual‑use” technologies.
For your community-building around commercial open source startups: this could signal rising opportunity in sectors adjacent to defense or infrastructure, where open-source could play a strategic role.
Sector-Level Takeaways
AI & AI infrastructure remain center-stage. The large rounds going into cloud-AI infrastructure, model training, data centers, and AI tooling suggest that the “plumbing layer” for next-gen software remains highly investable. (Lambda, other unnamed AI-cloud startups, broad list of $100M+ rounds) Crunchbase
Defense / aerospace / dual-use hardware & autonomy are seeing a sharp rebound. The ~$19 B raised by aerospace & defense startups in 2025 (almost double 2024) shows renewed investor appetite for “hard tech” with potential government contracts and national-security relevance. Business Insider
Capital concentration around large rounds, meaning fewer, but much larger, financings. That suggests venture investors are placing bigger bets on a narrower set of potentially transformative companies, which could mean higher entry barriers, but also a rising premium on leverage, uniqueness, and defensibility (e.g. open-source tooling, data infrastructure, governance, compliance, dual-use tech).