Less Than 2% of 2026 US Venture Funding Went to Post-Election Red States, Crunchbase Says

The share has dropped because the election moved five states out of the red column. The largest is Texas, home to Austin's start-up scene, which Crunchbase now classes as purple after the election of Democratic Senator James Talarico and Governor Gina Hinojosa. Ohio, the next-largest venture market among the five, also moved to purple.

The 17 states still classed as red are home to nearly a quarter of Americans, but their start-ups had raised just $8.6 billion in 2026 as of Election Day. Florida, Tennessee and Utah accounted for much of that. Crunchbase noted the total is less than the US raises nationwide in a typical single week.

The 10 purple states, home to just over a quarter of the population, raised about $28.6 billion, still under 6 per cent of the national total. Blue states have raised a record $481 billion, more than 90 per cent of all US start-up funding. California alone accounts for more than three-quarters, driven mostly by mega-rounds for San Francisco's OpenAI and Anthropic.

The split narrows when deals are counted instead of dollars. About 12 per cent of financings of $1 million or more went to companies in purple states and about 9 per cent to red states. That suggests investors still find companies to back outside blue states, but concentrate the largest cheques, especially for AI, in California and New York.

Crunchbase did not argue that politics drives the pattern. Venture hubs tend to grow where there are deep technical talent pools, large tech employers and research universities, and those are less common in rural states. Mississippi and Alaska, where Senate races had not been called when the analysis was written, were left out of all three groups.

The figures matter for state policymakers. Several of the newly elected Democrats in Texas, Ohio and elsewhere campaigned on curbing AI data centres, while their states are trying to compete for the start-ups and capital that the AI boom is concentrating on the coasts.