The February 2026 monthly funding report reflects a sharp increase in total capital deployed, while deal activity remained broadly stable compared to January. The month was shaped by a small number of exceptionally large investments, alongside a noticeable shift in investor focus toward earlier-stage companies.

Overview

Round	Amount January (USD)	Number deals in January	Amount February (USD)	Number deals February
Pre-seed funding	84,556,000	25	110,052,390	50
Seed Round	904,240,000	149	1,110,900,800	170
Series A	4,333,960,000	133	4,586,600,000	142
Series B	4,281,000,000	71	3,629,440,000	59
Series C	6,816,500,000	47	1,507,790,000	24
Series D	3,771,480,000	20	3,579,180,000	11
Series E	20,973,000,000	5	5,222,300,000	6
Other	6,314,096,700	89	154,760,065,000	98
Total	47,478,832,700	539	174,506,328,190	560

Funding Activity by Number of Deals

The 560 deals recorded in February 2026 show a continued shift toward early-stage activity, with pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds increasing compared to January.

Key observations:
Pre-seed deals doubled from 25 to 50, while seed and Series A also increased, confirming stronger activity at the earliest stages.

Mid to late-stage rounds slowed down, with Series B, C, and D all seeing fewer deals, indicating more cautious investor behaviour beyond early growth phases.

Funding Distribution by Round

While deal activity concentrated in early stages, total funding in February was heavily influenced by very large rounds, reaching $174.5 billion overall.

Key observations:
The largest share of capital was driven by OpenAI’s announced $110 billion round, significantly increasing February’s total and following January’s $20 billion xAI raise.

Despite more early-stage deals, capital remained concentrated in a small number of very large investments, especially in artificial intelligence.

Political & Economic Influence (Global)

Global growth remained moderate in February, with the U.S. economy slowing slightly and inflation easing to ~2.4%, while Europe showed early signs of recovery (manufacturing PMI >50) despite low inflation (~1.7–1.9%). China and some emerging markets softened, with PMIs dipping below 50.

Geopolitical tensions escalated late in the month, pushing oil prices up (~13%) and increasing uncertainty around interest rate cuts, as markets anticipated central banks (especially the Fed) would remain cautious.

At the same time, global policy and capital strongly favoured AI. Initiatives like the India AI summit (~$250B pledged) and discussions such as the EU’s “Buy European” strategy signalled increasing government involvement in tech ecosystems.

Impact on funding:
Macro uncertainty and rate hesitation constrained broad risk appetite, but strong political and strategic backing of AI concentrated capital into large, high-conviction tech deals- making February a record month driven by mega-rounds rather than broad-based activity.

Political & Economic Influence(U.S.)

The U.S. economy showed signs of cooling but remained stable. Job growth slowed (payrolls ~+92K), unemployment edged up (~4.4%), and inflation stayed near target (~2.4%). The Fed held rates steady, reinforcing a “wait-and-see” stance.

Politically, tech policy became more active. The administration emphasised AI leadership (e.g., State of the Union focus), while also introducing restrictions (e.g., limits on military use of certain AI systems). Large government contracts (e.g., Palantir) further highlighted state involvement in tech.

Impact on funding:
Stable but slowing macro conditions, combined with policy focus on AI, pushed investors toward fewer, larger, strategic bets. Funding concentrated in AI leaders, while broader venture activity remained cautious due to rate uncertainty and mixed economic signals.

Key Investment Sectors in February 2026

Artificial intelligence remained the central focus of investment activity in February, spanning a wide range of applications including AI infrastructure, data centers, machine learning, robotics, and enterprise software. Significant capital also flowed into cloud infrastructure and hardware, supporting the growing demand for compute power and data storage. Alongside AI, biotechnology and healthcare continued to attract steady funding across medical, therapeutic, and data-driven health solutions. Additional activity was observed in clean energy and power grid technologies, as well as space technology, fintech, and e-commerce, reflecting ongoing interest in both deep tech and scalable digital platforms.

Domain Name Highlights

The .com extension remains the leading choice, used by 340 companies, reinforcing its position as the most trusted and universally recognised domain, offering credibility, memorability, and global reach.

The .ai extension, used by 78 companies, reflects the continued dominance of artificial intelligence startups, though its niche association may become limiting as companies expand beyond AI.

.io domains appear in 29 cases, commonly adopted by tech startups, but similarly tied to the tech ecosystem and less intuitive for mainstream audiences.

The .co extension, used by 17 companies, offers a shorter alternative to .com, but often competes with the default expectation of .com among users.

Exact brand match (EBM) domains are used by 234 startups, highlighting a strong preference for owning the exact version of the brand name, which improves discoverability, prevents traffic leakage, and strengthens long-term brand equity.

Only 20 companies use hyphenated domains, which are generally avoided due to usability challenges and higher risk of user confusion.

Namepicks

Inertia

Industry: Clean Energy, Energy Management, Power Grid, Renewable Energy

Funds Raised: $450,000,000, Series A

Inertia develops energy storage and grid optimisation solutions designed to improve the efficiency, stability, and flexibility of modern power systems, supporting the integration of renewable energy at scale.

The latest funding will be used to expand infrastructure deployment, accelerate technology development, and scale operations as demand for energy storage and grid resilience continues to grow.

Inertia operates on the EBM domain name Inertia.com, reinforcing a strong, direct connection between its name and online presence.

Loyal

Industry: Biotechnology, Veterinary

Funds Raised: $100,000,000 Series C

Loyal is a biotechnology company focused on developing therapies aimed at extending the health and lifespan of dogs, targeting age-related diseases through advanced veterinary science. The company’s funding supports ongoing research, clinical development, and regulatory progress as it works to bring longevity-focused treatments to market.

Loyal has chosen a domain name that clearly corresponds to their global ambitions and communicates their vision – Loyal.com.

ICEYE

Industry: Space Technology

Funds Raised: $172,300,000 Series E

ICEYE is a space technology company that develops and operates a constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, providing real-time Earth observation data used in defense, disaster response, insurance, and environmental monitoring. Its technology enables imaging in all weather conditions, day or night, making it highly valuable for critical infrastructure and security applications. ICEYE has expanded partnerships with governments and defense organisations, alongside launching new solutions such as deforestation monitoring and climate intelligence tools, reflecting a broader positioning beyond traditional satellite imaging into actionable data and analytics.

ICEYE operate on ICEYE.com. Investing in a .com domain name that matches their brand name ensures their brand is secure online, as well as makes it easy for their customers, business partners and investors to reach them.

Simile

Industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Customer Service

Funds Raised: $100,000,000 Series A

Simile develops AI-powered solutions designed to improve customer service operations, helping businesses automate interactions, enhance response quality, and deliver more efficient support experiences.

The company focuses on applying artificial intelligence to streamline communication between businesses and their customers, reducing operational costs while maintaining high service standards.

Simile has invested in the exact brand match Simile.com, thus making the most out of their marketing across channels and avoiding security risks.

Temporal

Industry: Software, Open Source, Internet

Funds Raised: $300,000,000 Series D

Temporal develops an open-source platform that helps companies build reliable and scalable applications by managing complex workflows and distributed systems. Its technology is widely used by developers to handle long-running processes, retries, and state management in a more resilient way.

The company has gained strong traction within the developer community, with its open-source approach driving adoption among both startups and large enterprises looking to simplify backend infrastructure and improve system reliability.

Temporal has secured an exact brand match domain name for their brand – Temporal.com.

OpenAI

Industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Agentic AI

Funds Raised: $110,000,000,000 Private Round

OpenAI develops advanced artificial intelligence systems used across consumer, enterprise, and developer applications, with products like ChatGPT reaching hundreds of millions of users globally. The company is at the center of the AI race, building large-scale models and infrastructure that power a growing ecosystem of tools and services.

The $110 billion funding round, backed by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank, is the largest private investment in technology history. The capital is largely directed toward scaling global AI infrastructure, including data centers, chips, and compute capacity, as competition increasingly depends on the ability to operate at massive scale rather than just model performance.

Beyond funding, OpenAI has also been active on the branding side. The company continues to expand its domain portfolio, including the acquisition of strategic names such as Chat.com and Sora.com, reinforcing its strategy to control key digital touchpoints as its product suite grows.

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The right domain name is an important consideration when it comes to building and protecting your brand. If you’re ready to take the next step and invest in a perfect domain name for your business, contact us to learn more about our available options and how we can help you get started.

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