European Startup Funding This Quarter: 2026 Data by Market

European startup funding this quarter totals $25.6 billion, the closed Q2 2026 figure from Dealroom, inside $44.5 billion for H1 2026. Country splits publish annually, not quarterly: the UK led 2025 at $14 billion per Atomico. European seed pre-money sat at a 5.6 million euro median in Q1 2025 per PitchBook.

• European VC funding 2026: every headline number and its period
• Why the same quarter shows two different totals
• UK, Germany and France funding data: why country splits lag the headline
• London, Paris, Berlin and the Nordics: size and velocity are different questions
• Europe seed valuations: what normal actually looks like
• Europe vs US valuations: what a US structure is actually worth
• What Atomico's State of European Tech 2025 adds to the quarterly prints
• How to turn this quarter's data into a target list
• FAQ

Data on this page is current as of 7 August 2026, and the most recent closed quarter in the primary datasets is Q2 2026. The big European trackers publish quarterly, so anything dated after Q2 2026 on this page is labelled as a forecast or as an announcement, never as booked funding.

Europe reported as a single market is close to useless to a founder raising a first or second round. London, Paris, Berlin and the Nordics price rounds differently, fund at different speeds, and concentrate capital in wildly different ways. What follows is the quarter broken out as far as the public data honestly goes, with the Europe versus US valuation gap attached, so you can see what is normal where you are and what a US structure would actually be worth.

European VC funding 2026: every headline number and its period

Every figure below carries its period and whether it is actual or forecast, because the numbers in circulation mix the two constantly.

Only one number in that table is a closed quarter: the $25.6 billion European startups raised in Q2 2026, per Dealroom. H1 2026 at $44.5 billion is also booked money. Everything carrying a full-year 2026 label is not.

The $89.1 billion figure is a run rate, not capital that has been raised. Dealroom presents its quarterly bars through Q2 2026 as actual closed-quarter sums and the $89.1 billion full-year number, shown as +40% versus 2025, explicitly as a forecast (Dealroom). If you see $89 billion quoted as what Europe raised in 2026, whoever quoted it read the chart wrong.

The 2025 baseline is $63.8 billion, which Dealroom describes as close to tenfold growth over the prior five years (Dealroom). Put the two side by side without editorialising: the first half of 2026 booked $44.5 billion against $63.8 billion for all of 2025. For the worldwide version of the same exercise, the global startup funding this quarter breakdown runs the same actual-versus-forecast split.

Why the same quarter shows two different totals

Two credible sources report the same half of 2026 differently, and the gap is definitional rather than an error.

Atomico's roughly $44 billion is the clearest case of a different universe. It excludes biotech, debt, lending capital and grants, and it was extrapolated from data available on 30 September 2025 rather than counted at year end (Atomico). Stacking it against a Dealroom or PitchBook total as if they measure the same thing produces a false trend line.

Pick one source and stay on it for the whole raise. Quoting Dealroom for your headline and PitchBook for your sector slide gives a partner who reads both an easy way to pull your deck apart, and the two totals for H1 2026 are close enough that nobody gains anything from the mix.

UK, Germany and France funding data: why country splits lag the headline

The continental total refreshes quarterly; the country breakdown does not, and treating annual country data as current-quarter data is the most common error in European funding coverage.

The most recent country-level figure in the primary sources is annual. Atomico has the UK in the top country position with $14 billion of 2025 funding, up 22% year over year. That is a full-year 2025 number. It is not a description of the current quarter, and nothing on this page turns it into one.

The Nordics are the one sub-region with a genuine quarterly print. Dealroom puts Nordic startups at $4.0 billion in Q2 2026, on the same page that reports $7.7 billion for full-year 2025. Both figures are actuals for their stated periods, and the Q2 2026 number is a single quarter.

If someone shows you a German or French quarterly number, ask which dataset it came from. Country-level quarterly splits for the big continental markets are not in the public releases this page draws on, so most such numbers are reconstructions. Treat them as directional. For the ground-level version of one of those markets, the raising a seed round in Germany and Berlin guide works from fund behaviour rather than from national aggregates.

London, Paris, Berlin and the Nordics: size and velocity are different questions

London is still the larger market and Paris is the faster-growing one, and those two facts point at different fundraising strategies.

PitchBook identifies London, Paris and Berlin as Europe's big three private-market hubs and discusses Stockholm as a challenger. That is the right unit of analysis for a founder, not "Europe".

Dealroom is specific about the London and Paris relationship: London's VC funding remains higher than Paris's, while London's funding has been flat or slightly falling and Paris has shown stronger growth and momentum. Size and direction are telling you two different things, and the founder-relevant one is direction.

That last sentence is a judgment call rather than a data point, and it should be labelled as one: the public quarterly releases do not break out active check-writer counts by city, so nobody can prove the velocity argument from the headline numbers.

Concentration is the statistic that should actually change your target list. Atomico reports that in 2025 the top five deals represented more than half of funding in France and Sweden, 80% in Finland, but only 25% in the UK.

Source: Atomico State of European Tech 2025.

In a market where five deals are 80% of the total, the national funding number is not about you. A Finnish seed founder reading a national total is reading somebody else's mega-round. On that 2025 list, the UK at 25% is the only market where the aggregate reflects a broad spread of companies, which is a real reason to weight UK benchmarks more heavily when you are calibrating a small round.

Europe seed valuations: what normal actually looks like

The European seed median is a single clean number, and the figure most often misquoted next to it is not a Series A benchmark.

European seed pre-money ran at a 5.6 million euro median as of Q1 2025, up from 5.3 million euros in 2024, per PitchBook. That is the anchor to reach for when a European investor tells you your ask is rich.

Do not use 6.2 million euros as a Series A benchmark. PitchBook's Q1 2025 European table reports an aggregate early-stage VC median of 6.2 million euros, and it does not publish a standalone Series A median in that accessible table (PitchBook). Early-stage in that taxonomy is a category spanning more than one round, so quoting it as a Series A norm is simply wrong.

Good: "PitchBook has the European seed pre-money median at 5.6M euros as of Q1 2025, up from 5.3M in 2024, so we priced at the median." Names the source, the period and the exact metric, which makes it checkable.

Bad: "European Series A valuations are around 6.2M euros." Wrong round, wrong category, and any partner who has read the report will know it.

This is the oldest number on the page, and that matters more than founders like. The European seed median here is a Q1 2025 print, and the public reports do not offer a current-quarter European pricing benchmark. Treat 5.6 million euros as the last verified reading rather than as today's clearing price, and say so out loud when you cite it.

Europe vs US valuations: what a US structure is actually worth

The Europe-to-US pricing gap is real in the raw numbers and much smaller than it looks once you match sector and date.

European figures: PitchBook Q1 2025 European VC Valuations Report. US figures: PitchBook analyst note on seed pricing.

Four things break that comparison before you can act on it. Europe is quoted in euros and the US in dollars. The European reading is Q1 2025 and the US reading is as of 30 September 2025. The US table splits AI from non-AI deals while the European seed median does not (PitchBook). And the European early-stage line is a category median, not a Series A.

So do not read the raw gap as money you collect by flipping. Match your sector mix against the US AI and non-AI split before you treat any US median as an achievable premium. If re-domiciling is genuinely on the table, the trade-offs are laid out in the raising VC outside Silicon Valley guide, which handles the structure question rather than the pricing question.

Good: "We are raising in Europe at the local median and will revisit a US structure at Series A, when the sector-matched gap is measurable." Ties the decision to a specific round and a matched comparison.

Bad: "US seed valuations are far higher than European ones, so we are flipping to Delaware." Compares a Q1 2025 euro median with a September 2025 dollar median across different sector mixes.

The bigger Europe versus US gap is not at entry, it is at exit. Atomico's 2026 commentary says Europe generates 17% of new global enterprise value but captures only 10% of exit value.

Europe generates 17% of new global enterprise value and captures 10% of exit value. That is a liquidity gap, not a round-pricing gap.

What Atomico's State of European Tech 2025 adds to the quarterly prints

The quarterly totals tell you how much capital moved; Atomico's annual report tells you which stage it moved into, and the two stories diverge.

Growth stage carried 2025, not early stage. Atomico says early-stage funding has remained roughly stable since 2018 while growth-stage capital was on track for its strongest year since 2022. A rising continental headline is not evidence that your seed round got easier.

The sector mix moved sharply, and in one direction. Deep tech captured 36% of European VC dollars in 2025, up from 19% in 2021, per Atomico. If you are building hardware, semiconductors, robotics or applied science in Europe, the capital pool has been re-weighting toward you since 2021.

The 2025 total itself is an estimate, and Atomico says so. The roughly $44 billion figure for private European tech investment in 2025, a 7% year-over-year increase, was extrapolated from data available on 30 September 2025 (Atomico). It also excludes biotech, debt, lending capital and grants, so it will never reconcile cleanly with Dealroom's $63.8 billion for the same year (Dealroom).

What to take from all three sources at once: the continental total is rising, the rise is concentrated at growth stage and in a handful of markets, and the early-stage picture underneath has been comparatively flat. That combination is why a founder can read a record European funding headline and still find their seed round hard.

How to turn this quarter's data into a target list

Market data tells you what is normal; it does not tell you which funds are deploying into your stage and sector right now.

1. Fix your benchmark to one source and one period. Write down which dataset and which quarter you are quoting before you build a single slide, and put the period on the slide itself.
2. Price against the local median, not the US median. The 5.6 million euro European seed pre-money median as of Q1 2025 (PitchBook) is the figure a European partner is likely to have in mind.
3. Discount the national total by concentration. If the top five deals in your market are most of the annual total (Atomico), the national headline is describing somebody else's round.
4. Weigh direction alongside size when picking a market. London's VC funding stays higher than Paris's while Paris shows stronger growth (Dealroom), and those suit different strategies.
5. Build the list from funds, not from countries. A country total is an outcome; a fund with a live thesis at your stage is an action.

Knowing what the market did is only useful if it changes who you approach and when. Causo matches you to the investors most likely to fund you at your stage and sector, then drafts the outreach, which is the step no market report can do for you. For the concrete version of step five, start from the active pre-seed funds in Europe list and narrow it to the funds that have deployed recently in your sector.

FAQ

How much VC funding is Europe raising in 2026? European startups raised $25.6 billion in the closed second quarter of 2026 and $44.5 billion across the first half, per Dealroom. Dealroom also publishes an $89.1 billion full-year 2026 figure, but that is a run-rate forecast rather than booked funding. PitchBook, counting on its own methodology, reported 44 billion euros of European VC deal value for the same half.

How do European valuations compare to the US? PitchBook put the European seed median pre-money valuation at 5.6 million euros as of Q1 2025. Its US table, as of 30 September 2025, shows $16.0 million for AI seed deals and $15.3 million for non-AI. The two are not like for like: different currencies, different dates, and the US figures split AI from non-AI while the European median does not.

Which European market is most active? The UK held the top country position in 2025 with $14 billion of funding, up 22% year over year, per Atomico. PitchBook names London, Paris and Berlin as Europe's big three private-market hubs, with Stockholm as a challenger. Dealroom adds that London's VC funding remains higher than Paris's while Paris shows stronger growth and momentum.

Is European funding growing? Dealroom put full-year 2025 at $63.8 billion and the first half of 2026 at $44.5 billion. Atomico separately estimated about $44 billion of private European tech investment in 2025, a 7% year-over-year increase extrapolated from data available on 30 September 2025. Atomico also notes that early-stage funding has stayed roughly stable since 2018, so the increase sits at later stages.

What is the average valuation of a European startup? There is no single average, but the most useful public anchor is PitchBook's European seed median pre-money valuation of 5.6 million euros as of Q1 2025, up from 5.3 million euros in 2024. PitchBook's early-stage VC median for that period was 6.2 million euros, which is an aggregate category median rather than a Series A benchmark. Pricing varies sharply by country and sector, so treat the median as a starting point, not a rule.

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