North American AI startups not only grew in the first quarter of 2026, they grew significantly, generating $221 billion, nearly six times the previous quarter. According to Crunchbase.
A handful of blockbuster shots did most of the heavy lifting.
OpenAI He grew up A record $110 billion was raised in February in a round led by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, followed by an additional $12 billion round in March. Anthropic Believer The next largest round, raising $30 billion in February Series G, while xAI Believer $20 billion in Series E financing. Waymo He grew up $16 billion in February Series D.
The story did not stop at the top. Investors pumped $25.1 billion into Series A and B rounds, up 17% sequentially and 56% year-over-year, demonstrating the strongest early-stage offering in more than three years, even if it still follows the 2021 peak.
Funding extends beyond mega rounds
Mid-sized deals have continued to flow to startups building enterprise software tied to specific, high-friction workflows, indicating continued investor appetite across the space.
Contrastwhich develops automation tools for compliance and risk workflows, He grew up $21.5 million in the first round. The company is building artificial intelligence agents that can ingest regulatory documents, map requirements to internal policies, and monitor compliance gaps in real time.
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Sona It raised $45 million to expand its payroll and workforce management platform Reported by PYMNTSwhich targets core industries such as retail, hospitality and healthcare with AI-based scheduling, forecasting and pay accuracy tools.
In the field of health care, fixed He grew up $50 million to expand the transaction processing platform that connects providers, payers and clearinghouses. The company focuses on unifying fragmented data flows, converting inconsistent inputs into usable formats and reducing manual reconciliation that slows payments and increases administrative costs.
The workflow in the organization leads to new deals
Enterprise workflows are driving the next wave of deals, especially in IT and insurance, where processes are clearly defined but noticeably slow. Investors are backing startups that can bring speed, automation and reliability to these operational bottlenecks.
Newbird AI He grew up $19.3 million to expand predictive monitoring platform for enterprise IT environments. The system analyzes logs, metrics, and signals across production environments to detect issues before they escalate, identify root causes, and trigger automatic fixes such as restarting services or reallocating resources to reduce downtime.
Yuzu’s health He grew up $35 million in the first round to build software for health insurance operations, including claims adjudication, plan formation and qualification. Its platform uses artificial intelligence to streamline processes that typically rely on multiple intermediaries and manual checks, reducing errors and accelerating workflow across insurers, administrators and third-party service providers.
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