Seattle’s startup scene stayed consistent with its venture capital activity in 2025.
Financial tech company Carta is out with its latest annual list of U.S. cities as measured by total capital raised by startups on its platform, from seed through Series C rounds.
Seattle ranked No. 6, with nearly $2 billion raised — just 2.9% of total capital tracked across Carta. Seattle also finished sixth on the list in 2024, with $2.1 billion raised that year.
The Bay Area, unsurprisingly, gobbled up nearly 39% of all capital in 2025, up slightly from the prior year. New York was second at 13.2%; Los Angeles third at 8.1%; Boston fourth at 7.9%; and Austin fifth at 5%.
Seattle ranked fourth for the software-as-a-service category. The city ranked sixth, seventh, or eighth in other categories, including AI, hardware, and fintech.
Some of the Seattle region’s largest funding rounds (per GeekWire’s fundings list) last year included:
- nuclear energy company TerraPower ($650 million)
- reusable rocket company Stoke Space ($510 million)
- fusion company Helion Energy ($425 million)
- health data company Truveta ($320 million)
- battery company Group14 ($400 million)
- cybersecurity company Chainguard ($356 million)
- developer tools company Temporal ($146 million)
- green chemistry company Tidal Vision ($140 million)
See the full city rankings from Carta here. The San Francisco-based company is used by startups to manage their cap tables.
