For New York metro-area startups, it’s starting out as a big year for exits.
This month, Google announced plans to acquire New York-based cybersecurity provider Wiz for $32 billion in what could rank as the largest startup acquisition of all time.
Meanwhile, another metro-area company — Livingston, New Jersey-based CoreWeave — is on track to go public at a reported target valuation around $32 billion.
In the world of startup funding, however, things are off to a slower start.
So far this year, New York metro-area companies have pulled in around $3 billion in seed and venture funding, per Crunchbase data. That’s on track to be the lowest total of the past five quarters, as charted below.
While this year is off to a slow start, it’s worth remembering that New York regularly ranks as the second-largest venture hub after the San Francisco Bay Area. In the past couple years, funding to the region has remained far below the 2021 peak, but the area still attracts hefty sums.
Big rounds in the mix for 2025
Although overall funding is slow this year, we did see some large rounds close.
The largest financing went to ElevenLabs, developer of an AI audio platform offering text to speech, voice cloning and dubbing capabilities. The 3-year-old company secured a $180 million January Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Growth.
Another big round went to Chestnut Carbon, a startup that develops forestland and provides carbon removal credits, which secured a $160 million Series B in February. And just this week, Character Biosciences, a precision medicine company initially focused on eye disease, secured a $93 million Series B.
Largest rounds of the past year
Looking at the largest rounds for the past year, meanwhile, the numbers get much bigger. Below, we put together a list of 10 of the largest investment recipients.
Numbers may decline as startups exit
Reviewing last year’s most heavily funded companies, it’s hard to miss that the top two are CoreWeave and Wiz. It’s also obvious that, if things go according to plan, these companies won’t be raising another venture or growth-stage round.
Given this, one takeaway is that it’s not always a bad thing to see startup funding totals decline if it’s due to some of the top names going on to IPO or getting acquired for huge sums.
On the other hand, the New York metro area still has an immense pipeline of earlier-stage startups ready for follow-on funding. Hopefully, as the year goes on, we’ll see more of them secure it.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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