With a conducive ecosystem and several start-ups working in different emerging areas, the US remained the top market for venture capital (VC) funding within the North American region in 2021, says GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company found that all the top five VC funded companies in the region in 2021 were headquartered in the US, with four of these based in California.

GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database reveals that the five start-ups collectively raised $16.9 billion. The four California-based companies included Cruise, Robinhood, Databricks and Chime Financial. Pennsylvania-based GoBrands is the only non-California based company to feature in the top five list.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “With California renowned for being an innovation hub, it is no wonder that start-ups are attracting significant interest from investors. On the back of a conducive ecosystem, startup activities remain strong in California and VC investors also flock to such markets.”

While Robinhood and Chime Financial operate in the fintech space, Databricks is an artificial intelligence firm and GoBrands is a delivery service provider.

Cruise managed to top the list by raising $6.5 billion during 2021. It was followed by Robinhood with $3.7 billion, Databricks ($2.6 billion), GoBrands ($2.2 billion) and Chime Financial ($1.9 billion).