Fast and Furious

Chip stocks weigh on the Nasdaq. The Nasdaq took a couple of sharp dips this week, first on Monday and then again on Thursday, driven by negative sentiment around memory/chip stocks. It finished down 2% for the week as of Thursday’s close, but saw fresh weakness from chip stocks on Friday morning as well. With the backdrop of a fresh flare-up in US-Iran tensions and a weak performance from IBM, the S&P was flat on the week as of Thursday’s close. Our NPM Private Market Tracker*, which shows the average price performance of the 50 largest names in our internal Nasdaq Price® data, is up ~58% YTD versus the S&P 500/Nasdaq up ~10%/~11%. (Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, NPM)

It feels like private capital raising deals are coming fast and furious these days, at least for the names in the spotlight. When we see a company coming to market with a deal, we often find ourselves asking “Didn’t they just raise a round?” or “They need capital again so soon?”

This week, we look into the timing and magnitude of fundraising rounds to see whether companies are, in fact, raising capital in shorter timeframes and with larger valuation step-ups than they have in the past. The data for this report is from PitchBook, a Morningstar company, as of 2Q2026, and reflects median data on a rolling 4-quarter basis.

Our key takeaways are:

1. 01Raises for companies that are large and/or AI-related are coming at a fast clip, almost as fast as they were during the previous bull market of 2021/2022. This may be because AI can be a capital-intensive business, whether capital is needed to fund compute or to manufacture chips, necessitating rounds in relatively quick succession.
2. 02Smaller companies or those that aren’t focused on AI are seeing the time between rounds actually extend, possibly because AI companies are taking up all of the oxygen in the room as far as fundraising and investor attention is concerned.
3. 03The difference is stark for late-stage companies. Large, late-stage companies have seen significant compression in their time between rounds, again likely because of the capital needs of their businesses and excitement around their industry positions and IPO potential. Smaller late-stage companies, many of which might be good businesses that generate cash but are not in the spotlight, are raising less often.
4. 04We see a similar bifurcation in the magnitude of valuation step-ups for subsequent rounds. Large and/or AI-related companies are now raising rounds at ~2.5x their previous valuation, whereas smaller companies and those that aren’t involved in AI are raising well below 2.0x their previous rounds.

Time between rounds: Larger and AI-related deals are seeing time between rounds compress. The median time between rounds – measured in years and on a rolling 4 quarter basis – for the broader market was ~1.8 years during the first two quarters of 2026 and is actually still higher than the ~1.4 median during the previous bull market of 2021/2022. However, when we separate AI companies from the rest, the difference is clear. The time between rounds for AI-related companies stood at ~1.4 years in the first half of 2025, almost back to where it was in 2021 (~1.3 years). For non-AI companies, the time between rounds is the highest it has been in the last 10 years, at ~2.2 years.

We note that we have not broken this data down by sector beyond AI versus non-AI, but in certain sectors such as defense, many companies have raised more than once in a single year owing to the capital intensity of their businesses (Anduril, Saronic and Shield AI each raised twice over the course of around 12 months).

We can see a similar trend bifurcating smaller deals (raises <$100 million) and larger deals ($100+ million). Time between rounds for larger raises has compressed almost back to 2021 levels at ~1.2 years. In contrast, time between rounds for smaller raises, especially for smaller late-stage raises, remains relatively high.

One contrast that stood out to us sharply was the difference in time between rounds for larger late-stage companies (Series C to D+) and smaller late-stage companies. This might reflect market excitement around the industry dominance and IPO potential of larger late-stage companies such as OpenAI and SpaceX, combined with their need to raise capital at a fast clip, compared with smaller late-stage companies that might be cash flow positive but less eye-catching.

Inter-round step ups: A similar have/have-not story for large companies and those focused on AI. For the broader market, the magnitude of valuation step-ups for each subsequent round has not reached the 2021/2022 peak, even though it sometimes feels that way based on the headlines. For 1H2026, the average step up was ~2.0x the previous round for the broader market versus as much as ~2.6x in 2021/2022. AI-related names are back to raising rounds at ~2.4x their previous valuation, whereas non-AI names are well under 2.0x.

Capital appears to beget more capital for larger companies at the moment, as larger companies are raising rounds at larger step-ups than smaller companies.

Based on our proprietary Nasdaq Price® data, the best performers of the large cap names in the private market thus far in 2026 have been:

Prometheus’ June raise catapulted it to the top performer of the year: It raised $12 billion at a $41 billion valuation in June (Tech Crunch, 6/11/26), whereas its publicly filed certificates imply a valuation in the low-single digits billions prior to that. BaseTen raised a $1.5 billion Series F in June at an $11/$13 billion dual-tier valuation (company press release, 6/22/26) up from its previous $5 billion Series E valuation (company press release, 1/23/26). SambaNova raised a $1 billion Series F in July at an $11 billion valuation (Reuters 7/8/26), compared with its Series E earlier this year closer to a $2 billion valuation based on its publicly filed certificates.

Based on our proprietary Nasdaq Price® data using weighted averages for each sector, the top performing sectors YTD taking into account the top 100 largest names are AI and Machine Learning (97%), Consumer (+76%) and Industrials (+54%). Prometheus’ valuation jump has provided even more juice to AI and Machine learning after Anthropic and Cerebras.

1. 01
   TSMC is planning to invest another $100 billion in the USA. The Information · 7/16
2. 02
   Samsung electronics plans to begin operating its first chipmaking plant in Yongin by 2029. The Information · 7/13
3. 03
   Apple sued OpenAI, alleging it stole hardware trade secrets. PitchBook · 7/13
4. 04
   Stripe and Advent International have made a joint offer to buy PayPal at a valuation of over $53 billion. Wall Street Journal · 7/15
5. 05
   Uber agreed to acquire Germany’s Delivery Hero for around $14 billion. The Information · 7/16
6. 06
   SpaceX shares fell below their June IPO price of $135. Bloomberg · 7/15
7. 07
   IBM shares suffered their biggest drop in history (~25%) after the company reported weakness in its infrastructure arm. Wall Street Journal · 7/14
8. 08
   New York became the first state to enact a data center moratorium, pausing environmental permits for up to one year for large-scale data centers. PitchBook · 7/15
9. 09
   Meta said it would double its Louisiana data center capacity to 5GW. The Information · 7/14