New York has never followed the Silicon Valley script. While the Bay Area often dominates the narrative, the heartbeat of innovation in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens has always been self-authored — fast-moving, resilient and wired for reinvention. And, between 2021 and 2024, that resilience was tested — and it evolved.
According to Crunchbase data, more than 6,000 funding rounds were completed in NYC during this four-year period, spanning everything from pre-seed and seed investments to Series A and Series B deals. This volume funneled billions into one of the most diverse startup ecosystems in the world.
Specifically, 2021 was a high-water mark: Capital was abundant, term sheets were signed in days and startups commanded record-breaking valuations. But, that era of hyper growth was short-lived. As macroeconomic headwinds emerged, New York’s startup beat shifted. Thus, by 2024, deal activity had cooled significantly, but median round sizes held steady — signaling that while volume fell, conviction did not.
NYC’s Deal Count Fell From 1,979 in 2021 to 1,083 in 2024 as Median Raises Held Steady
Zooming in on the data, 2021 marked New York’s most active funding year at the height of the post-pandemic surge, with 1,979 rounds closed and a median raise of $3.4 million. At this time, the market was booming with early-stage energy, seed rounds accounted for 43% of early-stage deals and nearly one-third (28%) were pre-seed. In particular, healthtech, fintech and AI dominated the conversation, together accounting for 43% of all startup activity.
Then, in 2022, the momentum began to settle, but nevertheless remained impressive: The total number of funding rounds dipped slightly to 1,680, while the median round value nudged up to nearly $3.6 million — evidence that investors were still comfortable writing meaningful checks, but were starting to pick their bets more carefully.
Meanwhile, seed rounds accounted for 48% of activity, suggesting VCs were diversifying their bets and engaging with more emerging startups than in previous years. Interestingly, the top three industries also shifted: AI claimed 16% of total deal share, and healthtech dropped to 13%, while fintech maintained a steady 14%.
The correction came in 2023, when rising interest rates and global economic uncertainty filtered through to venture capital. Consequently, early-stage funding rounds dropped to 1,373 — a 22% year-over-year decline — and the median amount slipped to $3 million. Yet, even amid that tightening, early-stage energy persisted: 80% of early deals were either pre-seed or seed, while Series A and B rounds together represented just 20%.
So, despite being riskier, pre-seed and seed rounds offered VCs a chance to deploy smaller checks and spread exposure across more startups. This approach allowed them to stay active while they waited for later-stage valuations to reset. Furthermore, AI remained at the forefront, representing one-quarter of deals (25%) — its share nearly doubling compared to 2021.
By 2024, the number of rounds eased further to 1,083, but the median value rose to $3.2 million in a subtle, yet telling shift that showed renewed confidence in quality over quantity. The funding mix also barely changed with seed remaining dominant at 47% and pre-seed at 29%, while Series A and B together accounted for 24%. Last year, AI reached a record 32% of all startup deals, consolidating its position as New York’s most invested sector.
NYC’s Industries: AI Surges to 188 Funded Startups as Fintech & Health Decline
While deal and capital volume remain important benchmarks, another telling indicator of New York’s evolution lies in the industries that continued to attract investor attention. Across all four years, AI became the dominant force in the startup landscape, widening its lead.
Of course, AI already ranked high in 2021. But, unlike other sectors, it kept climbing: It grew from 114 funded startups in 2021 to 142 in 2022, then jumped to 188 in 2023 — the peak of the period — before settling at a still-strong 159 in 2024. No other industry even came close to matching that scale or consistency.
At the same time, categories that once defined New York’s early pandemic boom steadily lost momentum. For example, fintech fell from 89 funded companies in 2021 to just 30 in 2024. Similarly, health dropped from 81 to 33. But, blockchain and cryptocurrency, which had brief surges during the speculative cycle of 2021-2022, declined even more sharply, shrinking from dozens of deals to only a small handful by 2023.
The pattern is straightforward: New York didn’t shift between multiple priorities — it consolidated around one. As enthusiasm for short-term growth sectors faded, AI remained the only category that grew across the entire period, becoming the anchor of both investor interest and founder activity.
4 Years of Major NYC Fundraises Highlight Technologies That Investors Believe in Most
A look at New York’s top fundraises from 2021 to 2024 makes the city’s priorities easy to spot: Investors wrote their biggest checks to companies tackling technically demanding problems in health, AI and financial infrastructure.
The most eye-catching moment came in 2021. Articulate, an e-learning software firm, raised a staggering $1.5 billion in one of the largest single Series A rounds in U.S. edtech. That same year, Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, secured more than $420 million.
By 2022, the boom in food-delivery and on-demand dining had investors backing companies trying to push the model further. Namely, Wonder — the food-tech company founded by Marc Lore — raised $350 million to grow its vertically integrated mobile kitchens. That same year also saw the most striking seed rounds in the entire period. To that end, Chestnut Carbon, a company developing large-scale reforestation projects that generate carbon-removal credits, secured a $200 million seed investment.
Likewise, in 2023, New York saw several major raises across fintech, crypto infrastructure and biotech. For example, Clear Street secured $270 million to modernize institutional brokerage systems, and Paradigm followed with $203 million for its crypto infrastructure platform, showing that investor interest in digital asset tools hadn’t fully faded. Otherwise, in biotech, Tourmaline Bio raised $112 million to advance its therapeutic pipeline, reinforcing the sector’s growing presence in the city.
Then, in 2024, the shift toward deep tech was unmistakable. Metsera returned to the spotlight with its $290 million round, while blockchain upstart Monad raised $225 million — both deals signaling a renewed confidence in complex, technical innovation.
The Money Movers: The Investors Behind the Momentum
New York’s investor landscape from 2021 to 2024 was anchored by a small group of firms that consistently appeared in the city’s largest and most frequent deals. Combined, their activity shaped much of the funding environment across stages and sectors.
FJ Labs led with more than 1,600 investments to more 1,000 portfolio companies, as well as 127 exits, including 19 initial public offerings (IPOs). Tiger Global followed closely, recording 1,221 investments, 703 lead rounds, and 87 IPO exits with a strong presence in fintech and enterprise technology. Not to be outdone, Insight Partners was one of New York’s most active growth investors with 1,200 investments, 781 lead rounds and 262 exits, including 53 IPOs.
In the same way, Goldman Sachs held broad influence across stages with 1,119 investments in 866 portfolio companies, closing 433 exits — more than 200 of them IPOs. And, at the early stage, VentureOut continued to stand out with 1,091 investments, 1,085 portfolio companies and 126 exits, positioning it among the city’s most active seed accelerators.
Additionally, Flybridge contributed 885 investments, 120 lead rounds, and 106 exits, whereas Greycroft logged 838 investments, 261 leads and 154 exits, including 219 diversity-led deals. BoxGroup also added 735 investments and 139 exits, and Lerer Hippeau reached 681 investments, 118 leads and 173 exits.
Finally, RRE Ventures reinforced both early-and late-stage activity with 612 investments, 152 lead rounds and 135 exits, including 16 IPOs.
Altogether, these firms formed the core of New York’s investment engine, driving much of the flow across seed, growth and late-stage deals.
Methodology
All figures in this report were sourced from Crunchbase to reflect the performance and evolution of New York City’s startup ecosystem between 2021 and 2024. The dataset includes information on venture, seed, equity, and convertible-note rounds, excluding undisclosed amounts and post-acquisition activity.
Each data point represents verified funding rounds associated with startups headquartered or primarily operating in New York City. The analysis draws on several key variables from Crunchbase:
- Number of Lead Investments refers to the number of funding rounds in which an investor acted as the lead backer. This metric is used to identify investors with the strongest influence and decision-making power in the ecosystem.
- Top Industries reflects the most frequently mentioned sectors among startups that received funding during the period. Because most startups are tagged under multiple industries in Crunchbase — for example, a company might appear in both Artificial Intelligence and HealthTech — these counts represent the frequency of industry mentions, rather than unique deal totals.
- Share of Total Deals indicates the proportion of deals associated with a given industry in a particular year. Because startups often span multiple categories, these percentages are not mutually exclusive and do not add up to 100%. As such, statements like “25% of deals made in 2023 were in AI” are accurate, but cumulative totals across industries would double-count overlap.
- Median Money Raised represents the midpoint of funding amounts raised per round during a given year, thereby offering a snapshot of typical deal size, rather than cumulative investment.
- Total Funding Amount represents the total capital raised by a startup across all of its funding rounds up to the time of data extraction, not just within a single year.
