With more than $37bn invested across 444 deals, January 2026 saw corporates deploy more venture money than in almost any month in the past two years.
The new year started with a bang, with January boasting more than $37bn in startup funding rounds that included corporate backers. This was the the most capital deployed in any month in the past two years, save for December 2025.
The number of rounds in January were about average for the past year at 444, but there were more funding rounds of $100m or more in January than in any month in at least two years.
Year-on-year, January 2026 was significantly stronger than the $21.95bn invested across 398 deals in 2025, and dwarves the numbers in 2024.
As a snapshot of how ravenously VC investors have continued to throw money at artificial intelligence, there has been a 188% increase in corporate-backed rounds raised by AI startups compared to January 2025. Similarly, there has been a seven-fold increase in the number of robotics and unmanned aerial vehicle companies in that same time.
Fernando Moncada Rivera
Fernando Moncada Rivera is a reporter at Global Corporate Venturing and also host of the CVC Unplugged podcast.
