Asia’s startup funding swung higher in the first quarter of this year, boosted by a rebound in Chinese venture investment.

Overall, investors put $27.4 billion to work across seed- through growth-stage financings for Asian companies in Q1, per Crunchbase data. That’s up about 20% from the prior quarter and nearly double year-ago levels.

Total funding also hit its highest level in more than three years, as charted below.

Funding went to bigger rounds, not more of them. Per Crunchbase data, deal counts were flat with the prior quarter and up incrementally from prior year levels. In general, deal counts haven’t fluctuated widely from quarter to quarter over the past few years, as seen in the chart below.

Table of contents

Most gains go to China

An estimated $16.5 billion — or 60% of all Asian startup funding — went to China-based startups in Q1. It was also the third consecutive quarter for increased Chinese venture funding, which hit a multiyear low in the first half of 2025.

AI funding drove the gains in China. The quarter’s largest rounds all went to AI-focused companies, including foundational model startup StepFun, agentic AI company Moonshot AI, and AI-enabled robot developer Galaxy Bot.

After China, the next-largest venture funding recipient in Asia was India, with $3.8 billion in reported Q1 investment, the highest number in the past four quarters. A big chunk of the funding went to the quarter’s largest equity round, a $600 million financing for AI systems developer Neysa.

Below, we chart out venture funding by country to seven leading investment hubs in Asia, showing how regional funding has trended since 2023.

Funding rose across stages, with most going to later stage

Later-stage, early-stage and seed funding all rose sequentially in the first quarter.

Of these, later-stage and technology-growth deals captured the highest share of funding, estimated at $11.7 billion in Q1. The quarter’s largest late-stage round by a long shot was a $2 billion Series C for Singapore-based data center company DayOne.

Overall, it was the largest later-stage tally in five quarters, as charted below.

Early stage was strong too

Early-stage investment also rose in Q1, hitting its highest point in two years.

Per Crunchbase data, an estimated $11.2 billion went to Asian companies around Series A and Series B stages. That’s nearly double year-ago levels and up about 17% from the prior quarter, as charted below.

Seed also showed an upswing

Investors also poured more money into seed-stage companies, with AI as a core driver.

Around $3.6 billion went to reported seed and angel rounds in Q1, up 85% year over year and 45% quarter over quarter. Reported deal counts dipped a bit, indicating concentration of capital among a smaller subset of hot startups. However, we expect this number to rise over time, as seed deals are often added to the dataset weeks after they close.

A record quarter for AI

It would be remiss to close out a quarterly report these days without some mention of how much investment went to artificial intelligence.

For Q1, Asian startups in AI-related categories pulled in about $11.2 billion, per Crunchbase data, the highest sum we’ve tracked to date.

Looking up

Overall, the quarterly numbers show increasing momentum in China’s startup ecosystem, fueling much of the rising funding totals in Asia. Investment to startups in India, Singapore and South Korea also rose sequentially in Q1, while funding to Israel declined some.

In sum, it was a solid quarter, peppered with signs of optimism about the regional startup pipeline going forward.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of March 31, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration: Dom Guzman