New data released today by Crunchbase Inc. finds that global venture capital funding continued to decline in April as broader macroeconomic issues, 40-year-high interest rates and the war in Ukraine continue to disrupt global markets.

In April, total global venture capital investments dropped 56% year-over-year, with the slowdown affecting all funding stages. Seed funding dropped 56% year-over-year, early-stage funding was down 48% and late-stage funding dropped 62%.

New unicorns, companies with an on-paper valuation of $1 billion or more, dropped to low single digits in the month, down from 40 new unicorns in April 2022.

VC funding in April also fell precipitously from March. However, the report does note that the March figure was skewed by the $6.5 billion invested into payment technology company Stripe Inc., and without that round, the drop was not as significant.

Venture capital funding in the month came in at $21 billion, down 56% from $47.8 billion in April 2022. The figure is the second-lowest monthly amount since July 2022, when global venture capital started to scale below $30 billion.

Amid the decline in funding, there were two standout sectors in the month: healthcare and artificial intelligence. The healthcare sector saw more than $5.7 billion in venture capital invested in April, while AI saw $2.8 billion. Notable AI rounds included $300 million for OpenAI LP, $221 million for CoreWeave Inc., $100 million for both Pinecone Systems Inc. and AlphaSense Inc., and $97 million for Replit Inc.

Funding into the fintech industry saw the most significant decline in the month, from $7.7 billion in April 2022 to $2.7 billion in April this year.

The April data comes after Crunchbase reported last month that funding in the first quarter of 2023 dropped 53%. Across various stages, funding was down 44% to 54% year-over-year, with investors scaling back as they took time to assess new investment opportunities while guiding existing portfolio companies.

Although the Crunchbase report didn’t cover cybersecurity, a report released by DataTribe on April 27 found that funding in the sector fell off a cliff in the first quarter. Levels of investment into cybersecurity startups were at or near decade lows and the downturn was seen across all stages of cybersecurity funding.

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