Joanna Glasner

In a Monday joint appearance with President-Elect Donald Trump, SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son announced plans to invest $100 billion in U.S. businesses and create at least 100,000 new domestic jobs.

In the past three months, investors have plowed close to $1.2 billion into a geographically dispersed group of online banking providers, Crunchbase data shows.

The five most-valuable technology companies have plenty of money to invest in startups. They’re in a particularly strong position today, with shares of each up sharply last year.

Overall, 2024 was a comparatively weak year for cleantech equity funding.

This past year wasn’t the highest-grossing period for robotics startup investment. However, it was one of the flashiest.

North American venture funding spiked in the final quarter of 2024, closing out an up year for startup investment driven by continued momentum around artificial intelligence.

Latin America startup investment closed out 2024 on an up note, with the fourth quarter delivering the highest aggregate funding of the year.

Thanks to venture capitalists’ appetite for artificial intelligence deals, startups saw a measurable pickup in funding last year. But not all investors participated equally in the gains.

A startup, much like a banana, peaks when slightly underripe and its potential is both most obvious and mostly unrealized. We take a look at some of the sectors and startups that bear this out.