The term “startup” conjures up images of scrappy entrepreneurs tirelessly pitching investors to fund their early visions.
However, an increasingly large share of what we call startup funding looks nothing like that.
Rather, it consists of investors pouring billions or hundreds of millions into businesses that already have valuations similar to successful public companies and often have large, established revenue streams as well.
Last year, investors put a total of $61 billion into rounds of $500 million or more for U.S. venture-backed, private companies, Crunchbase data shows. That comprises a whopping 34% of total funding. It’s the highest share in years, as charted below.
Senior startups
While some of those giant rounds were for ambitious startups at early stages, most went to companies that have been around a while and are already well known. This includes Databricks, OpenAI, Waymo and Epic Games, which collectively pulled in nearly $24 billion last year.
To illustrate the startup age breakdown, we put together a list of 11 of the biggest funding recipients last year that were founded nine or more years ago.
Overall, more than half of all capital from rounds of $500 million or more went to companies more than nine years old, Crunchbase data shows.
It’s not just giant deals that are skewing this way. Funding from rounds of all sizes is also increasingly favoring senior startups. Per Crunchbase data, 37% of U.S. startup funding last year went to companies currently more than nine years old. It’s the largest share for companies of comparable age in at least five years.
With exits slow, this isn’t surprising
The rise of giant rounds for senior startups comes amid a lackluster environment for tech IPOs and large acquisitions. This isn’t too surprising. Companies that opt to stay private still want or need capital to fund expansion, along with secondary offerings to provide liquidity to employees and earlier backers.
We saw that last week with Stripe, which announced a tender offer at a valuation of $91.5 billion aimed at current and former employees, along with a plan to repurchase shares. Founded in 2010, Stripe is famously IPO-averse.
So far, however, 2025 hasn’t brought us a high volume of supergiant rounds for older startups. Nor are we seeing much in the way of big-ticket M&A deals or tech public offerings. My guess is investors are in a bit of a wait-and-see pattern, with a particularly close eye on whether the IPO market will pick up later this year.
If it doesn’t, we’ll likely see a return to really large private financings for senior startups.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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