Black founders raise highest quarterly funding since 2022, but there’s a catch

According to Crunchbase’s latest data on black founders, $643 million has gone into black-founded startups in the US since the start of the year — an amount not seen since 2022, when black founders raised $653 million in funding.

For context, Black founders raised $942 million of all venture dollars last year (or 0.32% of the $290 billion total, per Crunchbase estimates). This means that in just a few months, Black founders have already raised almost 70% of what they raised all of last year.

Driving that funding are just a few offerings (34, to be exact, per Crunchbase), most notably the $350M Series E raised by AI hardware company SambaNova, followed by sports prediction startup Noviq (which raised a $75M Series B) and YC-backed AI insurance platform $7M. However, while the $643 million raised so far is a record amount compared to recent years, Crunchbase notes that it’s still quite small compared to the $252 billion raised by US startups in total over the same period, and doesn’t really indicate that significant progress has been made.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Crunchbase head of research Gené Teare said factors that appear to be holding back many Black founders include “access to networks, relationships and early admissions,” she said, even in the “increasingly concentrated, AI-centric funding market of 2026.”

“We’re eight to nine quarters into a downturn in venture funding, but Crunchbase data showed a persistent decline in funding to Black-founded companies that outpaces the overall decline in startup funding,” he continued.

For now, it remains unclear what might happen next — there could be 34 more big deals this quarter, or there could be literally nothing. In some ways, it’s a reflection of the market, which has been described as bullish and divisive about how some groups, like even some venture capital, have struggled to raise capital.

“One has to wonder if the abundance of attention now in the industry has deterred investors from taking a first-time risk on founders who are more likely to be different,” Teare said.