Startup Funding Rose 64 Percent While Hiring Fell 10 Percent

Startup Funding Rose 64 Percent While Hiring Fell 10 Percent

Author

Peter Walker

|

Read time: 

1 minute

Published date: 

March 5, 2026

Across 50,000+ US Carta startups, the past 3 years show an unprecedented split: nearly B raised while total hiring declined—a divergence never seen before in...

LinkedIn: Startup Funding Rose 64 Percent While Hiring Fell 10 Percent

Funding rose 64% and hiring fell 10%. That's the story in startups.

Across the 50,000+ US startups on Carta, the past 3 years have seen nearly 1 million people hired and over $300 billion raised.

But the trends are in exact opposite directions.

I don't have data from say 2008, but at least since 2013 we have never seen a period where total hiring fell while total funding rose by leaps and bounds.

Startups truly are building with smaller teams.

The big remaining question: what will the 2026 hiring number be? I wonder if you think it's over or under 250,000...

Peter Walker
Author: Peter Walker
Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.

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