Exits in 2026: the most billion-dollar deals since 2021, the thinnest deal count since 2016

For angel investors, 2026 presents two facts that are hard to reconcile. First, the exit window has genuinely reopened: Q2 2026 brought the most exits worth $1 billion or more since the 2021 market peak, per Crunchbase data. Second, the odds of an early cheque reaching that point have narrowed: global deal counts fell to their lowest level since late 2016.

A peak in value, a trough in count

Crunchbase recorded $510 billion of global startup funding in H1 2026, above the $440 billion invested in all of 2025 and the highest half-year on record. OpenAI and Anthropic alone took $217 billion, or 43% of the total. Q2 also produced the largest venture-backed exit of all time in the SpaceX listing, and the largest startup acquisition ever, as SpaceX paid $60 billion for Anysphere, parent of the coding tool Cursor.

The concentration is measurable. The Q1 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor put quarterly deal value at $267.2 billion, above every full-year total except 2021 and 2025, with exit value of $347.3 billion, the highest quarter on record. Strip out the five largest deals and exits and those figures fall 73.2% and 86.6% respectively. The part of the market where most founders and angels actually operate is largely unchanged from 2025.

Fewer deals, and fewer investors writing cheques

CB Insights recorded $285.5 billion invested in tech startups in Q1 2026, the highest quarter ever, with OpenAI's $122 billion round alone accounting for 43% of it; excluding that round, the figure was $163.5 billion. Mega-rounds of $100 million or more took 86% of all dollars. Deal volume, meanwhile, fell 15% quarter over quarter to roughly 7,000, the lowest since late 2016 and 61% below the 2022 peak. CB Insights also flagged a shrinking pool of active investors and an exit count at a two-year low in Q1.

Europe repeats the same shape. PitchBook data shows the region drew EUR 44 billion in H1 2026, equal to 67% of the 2025 full-year total, but across just 3,612 deals versus 7,930 in all of last year. AI took EUR 26.5 billion, or 60.2% of all capital invested, against 37.8% for full-year 2025. More money, fewer recipients: the pattern now shows up in all three major capital centres.

Who the buyers are, and what they pay for

• SpaceX bought Anysphere, parent of Cursor, for $60 billion — developer tooling
• Qualcomm bought Modular for $4 billion — software layer for AI chips
• Eli Lilly bought gene therapy developer Kelonia Therapeutics in a deal valued at up to $7 billion in cash
• Salesforce bought Fin — AI-enabled customer experience tools

The list shows strategic buyers in 2026 paying for tooling and infrastructure close to where work actually happens, not for end applications competing on price. Life sciences illustrates the role of M&A when the listing window narrows: Crunchbase records more than $38 billion committed over the past two calendar years to acquire venture-backed biotech companies, while only 21 biotech, pharma or medical device companies went public in 2025, the lowest in years, and under 9% of all US startup funding went to the sector.