61 rounds and $1.74bn in October 2026, in line with the $1.83bn average month of the preceding year.
Section 1 The month in figures
Every figure on this page comes from DefiLlama's funding rounds database and is computed by the same rules in every issue. Amounts are over the 49 rounds with a disclosed figure; counts are over all 61.
61Rounds · vs 64.8 (12-month average)
$1.74bnCapital raised · vs $1.83bn (12-month average)
$7.5mMedian round · vs $7.0m (12-month average)
$1bnLargest round · 58% of the month
49Amounts disclosed · of 61 rounds
Section 2 What the market is doing
A single month turns on whether one large round happened to close in it. The line through the bars is the twelve-month average, and it is the one to read for direction. It stands at $1.73bn a month, below the $2.79bn it read at the start of this window.
Capital raised and rounds announced each month for five years, with the twelve-month average drawn through them. The month this issue covers is marked.
Fundraising is seasonal, so October is set against October in earlier years as well as against the months either side of it. Of the eight on record, this one ranks 3rd by capital raised; the largest was 2021 at $3.74bn.
October in each of the last 8 years the source covers. Capital raised above each bar, rounds announced below.
Section 3 Anomaly checks
Every issue runs the same checks over the month's rounds, looking for a single round dominating the month's total, many rounds announced at one identical amount, gaps in what the source discloses, deal count, capital and round size far from their recent norm, a sector or an investor running well above its own rate and the same round listed twice by the source. Anything a check finds is written up here. The checks and the levels that trigger them are listed under Method, so a reader can see what was looked for as well as what was found.
Three anomalies found in October 2026. Each one below names what was measured and the figure that triggered it.
Concentration. One round is 58% of the month. Kalshi raised $1bn on 29 Oct. Without it the month is $736m across 60 rounds. A total that one deal dominates describes that deal, so both figures are reported and neither is presented alone.
Concentration. The five largest rounds are 74% of the month. Five of 49 rounds with a disclosed amount carry 74% of the capital.
Data recency. This month is reported close to the edge of the data. The latest round on record anywhere in the source is dated 30 Oct 2026, 1 day before the end of the month. Rounds are listed some days after they are announced and the largest tend to arrive last, so these figures are more likely to rise than fall.
Section 4 Where the capital concentrated
The largest round is 58% of the month's capital, the largest five 74%, the largest ten 83%. The steeper this curve runs, the more of the month sits in a few rounds.
Rounds ranked largest first; the curve is the running share of the month's capital. Markers at the largest round, the largest five and the largest ten.
Section 5 How large the rounds were
49 rounds carry a disclosed amount, running from $1.0m to $1bn, with a median of $7.5m. The largest group of rounds sharing one amount is four, 8% of those disclosed.
One dot per round with a disclosed amount, on a log scale. Identical amounts stack, so a batch announced at one figure stands as a column.
Section 6 How much a round raises, by stage
Each band is the amount raised in the round, by stage, over the trailing twelve months. Twelve months is the window that holds a band steady when one month or one deal is unusual. Every stage row carries two counts: the rounds behind its band over those twelve months, and the rounds announced this month. The rust dots are those rounds, 40 of them, each placed at what it raised. The source records a stage for 40 of this month's 49 disclosed rounds. The remaining 9 are counted in every other figure on this page and carry no stage to place them on. Series A rose 25% to $15m on 87 rounds. Series B rose 27% to $47.5m on 26 rounds. Strategic rose 33% to $8.0m on 86 rounds.
Amount raised in the round, by stage. Trailing twelve months to Oct 2026, on a log scale. The legend sits under the chart.
Section 7 Who led and who joined
Rounds led and rounds joined are counted separately over the trailing twelve months. An investor that leads sets the round's terms; one that joins takes them. YZi Labs led the most at 34, at a median led round of $0.50m.
Trailing twelve months. The figure at right is the median size of the rounds that investor led.
Section 8 Which sectors were active
Each sector's count for the month against its own average month over the preceding year, so a large sector is not read as an active one. Every sector stayed under 2.5x its own rate.
The month's deal count against that sector's own average month over the preceding year.
Section 9 The largest rounds
The six largest rounds of October 2026 by amount raised, ties broken alphabetically. 61 rounds were recorded in total, of which 49 disclosed an amount; the rest are counted in every figure on this page but are not listed individually. Each company description below is DefiLlama's own text, reproduced without edit.
Kalshi
Kalshi operates a federally regulated prediction market exchange offering event contracts and expanding into cryptocurrency, commodities, and derivatives trading
Raised$1bn · 58% of the month
Stage / sectorSeries G · Prediction Market
InvestorsSequoia Capital led · Wellington Management, Baillie Gifford, Stripes, Andreessen Horowitz and 6 more
Spiko
Spiko issues regulated tokenized money-market funds that let businesses and individuals earn yield on cash while retaining onchain liquidity and programmability
Raised$90m · 5% of the month
Stage / sectorSeries B · RWA
InvestorsNew Enterprise Associates led · Index Ventures, BPI France, Speedinvest, Flourish Ventures and 7 more
Nous Research
Nous Research develops open-source AI models, autonomous agents and decentralized infrastructure for training and deploying AI systems
Raised$90m · 5% of the month
Stage / sectorSeries B · AI
InvestorsRobot Ventures led · Nvidia, M12 Microsoft Venture Fund, Samsung Ventures, USV and 2 more
Pearl Research Labs
Pearl Research Labs develops a Layer 1 blockchain that uses GPU-based proof-of-useful-work mining to combine blockchain security with AI computation
Phase is a Layer 1 blockchain providing decentralized connectivity, computing, and payment infrastructure for autonomous AI agents
Raised$45m · 3% of the month
Stage / sectorFounder Funding · L1
InvestorsKirill Eves led
PhotonPay
PhotonPay provides stablecoin-based payment infrastructure connecting digital assets with traditional banking, foreign exchange, and global payment networks
Raised$40m · 2% of the month
Stage / sectorSeries C · Payments
InvestorsBlockchain Capital led · SBI Group, IDG Capital, GL Ventures, Lightspeed Faction
Section 10 Method, thresholds and sources
Data by DefiLlama. This report is built on data published by DefiLlama, which maintains the funding rounds database it reads and makes it open. We thank them for that work: the round records, the amounts, the investor lists and the sector taxonomy behind every chart on this page are theirs, gathered and kept current at their cost. Anyone who wants the underlying records rather than our reading of them should go to defillama.com/raises, which is free to use and more detailed than any monthly summary. FinDaS adds the normalisation, the twelve-month baselines and the checks in Section 3, and nothing else.
Section 3 is produced by the tests below and by nothing else. Each runs against every issue; a test that does not clear its threshold prints nothing. The thresholds are published here because a threshold a reader cannot see is indistinguishable from an opinion.
What is checked
It is reported when
Oct 2026
Largest round's share of the month
≥ 30%
reported
Largest five rounds' share
≥ 60%
reported
Rounds at one identical amount, as a share of disclosed rounds
≥ 15% and ≥ 3 rounds
not reported
Rounds with no disclosed amount
≥ 25%
not reported
Rounds carrying a stage
< 70%
not reported
Days the source reaches past the month end
< 7 days
reported
Deal count against its trailing-12 monthly average
≥ 1.25x or ≤ 0.75x
not reported
Capital against its trailing-12 monthly average
≥ 2.00x or ≤ 0.50x
not reported
Month median against the trailing-12 median
≥ 40% either way
not reported
A sector's count against its own monthly average
≥ 2.5x and ≥ +4 rounds, on a baseline of 1.5+
not reported
Rounds led by one investor inside the month
≥ 5
not reported
One company listed twice with the same stage and amount
≥ 1 in the month
not reported
Series continuity. Issues up to and including March 2026 were compiled from Token Terminal and Crunchbase. The whole series has since been restated on DefiLlama alone so that figures are comparable across months.
How the figures are computed. Each round is counted once, in the month it was announced. Amounts are computed over rounds with a disclosed figure and counts over all rounds, and both denominators are stated wherever a figure is given. Round stage is normalised from the source's own label; rounds with no stage are excluded from the stage figures rather than assigned one. Medians and interquartile ranges are used throughout. Baselines never include the month they judge.
On valuation. Earlier issues reported a median round valuation. Fewer than one round in ten discloses one, so that median rested on a handful of observations and moved on sampling noise rather than on the market. It has been withdrawn.
Known bias. The source skews toward rounds with large disclosed investors and toward the United States. Largely unregistered token sales are under-represented. Rounds are listed some days after they are announced and the largest tend to arrive last, so a recent month is more likely to rise than fall.
