Venture investment grew in Pittsburgh during Q2, driven mostly by AI companies, but impactful deals in other sectors may reveal how local startups can stand out nationally.

Pittsburgh companies raised a combined $600.8 million across 19 deals in the second quarter of this year, according to the latest Venture Monitor report from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Pittsburgh doubled its VC investment from Q1 to Q2, after PitchBook amended its first-quarter figures, recalculating to $333.4 million raised.

Over half of the total raised in Q2 was thanks to just one company — but the rest of the top deals show “how Pittsburgh is starting to differentiate itself from a lot of the coastal and competitive tech hubs,” said Sean Luther, executive director of InnovatePGH, a local organization aiming to boost Pittsburgh’s status as a global innovation hub. 

Major wins for deep tech companies suggest Pittsburgh’s path to national recognition may lie in its ability to bring complex, breakthrough innovations to market, according to Luther. 

Abridge, the downtown-based AI notetaking startup, raised $354 million in June and nearly doubled its valuation to $5.3 billion, according to the report. This came as no surprise to those who have kept up with the company, as it has secured almost $780 million since it was founded in 2018, according to PitchBook, and Abridge had just secured $250 million in February when news of the June round was released. 

Among the other top deals in Pittsburgh’s Q2 were Gecko Robotics’ $121.5 million raise that boosted the 12-year-old company to unicorn status, and biotech firm Noveome Biotherapeutics’ $51 million raise in April.

The hardware robotics or precision therapeutics companies — fields that are more complex, costly and aimed at transforming the human experience on both personal and large-scale levels — are examples of startups with longer commercialization timelines starting to break through, Luther told Technical.ly.

“If we can continue to push some of these hard-tech technologies forward, it’s really going to create space for Pittsburgh to show different progress, that we can tackle harder problems, that our founders can get these companies and technologies across the finish line,” Luther said. 

A weak quarter nationally, while Pittsburgh fares well

Fewer, larger deals with later-stage startups is a trend that has continued to define Pittsburgh’s fundraising landscape since last year. This seems to be a national trend as well and tariffs may be partially to blame, according to the report. 

“More uncertainty means fewer investments,” Heather Gates, an audit and assurance private growth leader at Deloitte, said in the report. “If you’ve just increased the cost of doing business, that’s never a great thing for any corporation.”

Nationally, Q2 was significantly down for the VC industry, except for a couple of megadeals, according to NCVA’s President and CEO Bobby Franklin, so Pittsburgh fared well in comparison. 

That may be due to the Trump administration’s focus on sectors like AI and defense tech, which saw the biggest gains, according to the report. In addition to its prominent AI companies, Pittsburgh also attracts substantial federal funding for defense tech. 

Unconfirmed Skild AI deal would boost Q2 total to $1.1B 

PitchBook’s profile on Skild AI says it’s based in Pittsburgh, but the report still didn’t count Skild AI’s $500 million raise toward Pittsburgh’s VC totals. It did list Skild as Pennsylvania’s largest deal. 

The raise was first rumored in January and dated as complete in late April, according to PitchBook. A Form D filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in May showed about $1 million raised, but no official filing has confirmed the full $500 million.

If Skild AI’s deal is included, Pittsburgh companies raised a combined $1.1 billion, which is nearly 80% of the total $1.4 billion raised in Pennsylvania during the quarter. Pittsburgh-area companies were four of the top 10 deals in the commonwealth during Q2, rivaling the number of Philly-based startups that made the list. 

Whether officially counted or not, Skild AI, Abridge and Gecko Robotics’ raises stand out because of the large amounts they raised and the well-known investors involved, like Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, said Ven Raju, president and CEO of startup ecosystem org Innovation Works. 

“The region is well-positioned to harness global sector tailwinds in AI and autonomy,” Raju told Technical.ly. 

Startups across stages rake in multimillion-dollar wins

Beyond the headline-grabbing raises, Q2 deals represented a healthy mix of seed, early-stage and growth-stage funding. 

The common thread among successful fundraisers, according to Raju, was a clear, practical application of AI or autonomy to solve real-world problems:

  • Kadena, a cryptocurrency fintech company, raised $35 million
  • Lovelace AI, a data analysis startup, raised $17.4 million
  • Honeycomb Credit, a small business fundraising platform, raised $11.5 million
  • Contra Health Solutions, a healthcare startup, raised $3.6 million
  • Respair, a medical device manufacturer, raised $2.2 million
  • Skipper, an information technology firm, raised $2 million
  • DeepRx, an AI-powered anticancer platform, raised $1.1 million

Momentum grows as Pittsburgh builds a national startup brand

Pittsburgh’s startup ecosystem is creating a real separation from some of its peer markets for the first time, according to Luther. 

“In Q2 we’re outperforming a lot of our Midwestern peer markets,” Luther said. “When you start looking at some of the big, kind of flashy innovation centers, the Miamis, the Raleighs, the Detroits, we’ve really moved into that competitive pack.” 

While Q2’s momentum is encouraging, Luther said Pittsburgh can’t afford to rest on its laurels. He pointed to a list of 20 to 30 Pittsburgh-based companies valued around $100 million that are now well-positioned to benefit from the city’s rising profile in venture circles, but they’ll still need support from the Pittsburgh startup ecosystem to push forward. 

“What is really exciting for the next crop of companies that are raising right now is that Pittsburgh is a brand, and companies like Gecko and companies like Abridge are being associated in the VC community with a Pittsburgh mailing address,” Luther said. 

Luther pointed to firms like defense tech company Near Earth Autonomy and modern recycling startup RoadRunner Recycling as examples of promising firms approaching the next growth stage.

The region’s growing brand was also on display this summer during Senator Dave McCormick’s Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University. The event drew national figures like President Donald Trump and shone a spotlight on Pittsburgh’s innovation scene, but it won’t necessarily make or break future investment opportunities in the region, according to Raju. 

“The summit will influence future investment to the extent that investors that may not have been paying attention to the region will now take a closer look,” Raju said. “That said, future venture investment in the region will, by and large, be determined by our ability to produce investable companies.”