Black-founded startups raise $643 million in 2026, but funding gap persists

Black-founded startups in the United States raised $643 million in the first part of 2026, their strongest quarter since the second quarter of 2022. The headline number looks like a rebound, but the underlying math tells a different story: just 34 deals produced the total, and one company, SambaNova, accounted for more than half of it with a $350 million Series E in February.

That round for the Palo Alto, California, AI chip startup, co-founded in 2017 by chief technologist Kunle Olukotun, was backed by Cambium Capital Partners and Vista Equity Partners. Two other deals helped lift the quarter, including sports prediction startup Noviq’s $75 million Series B and YC-backed AI insurance platform Harper’s $47 million round. Even with those checks, the total remains tiny next to the $252 billion raised by U.S. startups overall in the same period.

Gené Teare, head of research at Crunchbase, said the funding gap is still being driven by “access to networks, relationships, and early introductions.” Teare said those barriers remain in an “increasingly concentrated, AI-centric funding market of 2026,” and that Crunchbase data shows a persistent decline in funding to Black-founded companies that is falling faster than the broader startup market.

The recent quarter also sits against a much weaker backdrop. Black-founded startups raised $942 million in all of 2025, or 0.32% of total U.S. venture funding, according to Crunchbase. That was down more than two-thirds from three years earlier and far below the $5.2 billion peak in 2021, when venture capital rushed toward Black founders in the wake of the 2020 racial justice movement.

The longer-term picture has been grim for years. CNBC has reported that Black entrepreneurs typically receive less than 2% of all venture capital dollars each year, and that financing for Black businesses fell 45% in 2022 even as overall venture dollars declined 36%. Columbia Business School research found that only 3.47% of founders seeking funding from venture firms are Black, and that Black-founded startups raised only about a third as much as non-Black-founded startups. Cornell researchers later concluded that the post-George Floyd surge in support was short-lived and came largely from investors who had not previously backed Black entrepreneurs.

Henri Pierre-Jacques, managing partner at Harlem Capital, said the pullback also reflects a sharper political chill, with fewer conversations about Black entrepreneurship and some investors reluctant to speak openly. The latest quarter shows that a handful of large checks can still produce a milestone, but it does not erase the structural gap beneath it.