CHART: North American startup funding sees pockets of resilience despite 46% Q1 decline

North American startup investors have yet to stage a definitive comeback after experiencing four consecutive down quarters, but first-quarter numbers indicate pockets of resilience amidst a constrained funding climate.

The Q1 2023 figures showed North American funding had reached $46.3 billion, a 46% decrease from the same period last year. However, the amount included a reported $10 billion investment into OpenAI, largely from Microsoft, and a $6.5 billion round for payments giant Stripe.

Excluding those two large deals, Q1 2023 venture funding would have declined by over 60% from the same period in 2020. In comparison to the past nine quarters, funding totals were charted across all stages, and it's clear that early-stage and seed-stage investments were both down quarter over quarter, along with reported deal counts. Additionally, a frozen IPO market and wilted public tech valuations have contributed to suppressing later-stage dealmaking.

This Techloy chart paints a better picture of how things are in the European venture space.