A new quarterly report from Innosphere tracks venture capital activity across five sectors anchoring the Colorado innovation economy — Aerospace & Defense, Quantum & Photonics, Clean Tech & Climate Tech, Life Sciences, and Software-as-a-Service. Building on the recently-published 2025 Venture Capital Comparison Report, this new report tracks how capital is moving sector by sector as 2026 unfolds.

The Midyear Picture

Through the first half of 2026,the five sampled industries deployed $1.69 billion in venture capital, approximately 29.56% of full-year 2025 investment — far short of the 50% pace needed to put the state on track to match last year's total. However, that rollup number obscures a market moving in different directions depending on the sector. Some industries are already ahead of last year's pace, while others are moving at a fraction of their previous momentum.

Aerospace & Defense: Outpacing 2025 Already

88.06% of FY 2025 capital already deployed —  the strongest pace of any sector tracked

In Q2 2026 alone, the sector logged 5 deals and $45 million in capital, with a median deal size of $22.5 million, led by Lunar Outpost's $30 million Series B and Citra Space's $15 million Series A. That momentum follows an outsized Q1, driven by True Anomaly's $650 million Series D and Agile Space Industries' $21.55 million Series A.

Colorado isn't alone in this Aerospace & Defense upswing. National defense tech dealmaking set a record in Q1 2026, with $19.8 billion deployed across 262 deals. Indexed to their own early-2025 baselines, Colorado's growth trajectory and the national trajectory land closer together than in any other sector Innosphere tracks. Investors appear to be underwriting government demand signals as much as commercial traction — a distinction worth watching as the sector matures.

Quantum & Photonics: Lagging Behind

3.59% of FY 2025's total pace — the furthest  behind of any sector tracked

On the other end of the spectrum, Quantum & Photonics is pacing furthest behind. Q2 2026 recorded only 1 deal totaling $25 million. The sector's deal cadence is sparse by nature, with capital arriving in concentrated bursts rather than a steady flow — Q4 2025 alone was carried by Quantinuum's $838.85 million Series B, a single round that dwarfs anything since.

This volatility isn't unique to Colorado. Nationally, quantum funding hit a record $3.9 billion across 127 deals in 2025, with rounds above $100 million accounting for the overwhelming majority of capital invested, despite being a small fraction of total deal count.

Clean Tech & Climate Tech: Steady, But Shifting Later

44.64% of FY 2025 pace, with capital shifting  toward later-stage deals

Clean Tech & Climate Tech sits at 44.64% of its FY 2025 pace, with Q2 2026 producing 15 deals and $132.1 million in capital. Later-stage VC accounted for half of those deals, led by AMP Sortation's $52.5 million round. The pattern points to investors favoring deployment-ready companies with proven unit economics over earlier, less-proven technology.

While the sector is slightly behind its FY 2025 pace, on a rate-of-growth basis Colorado is outperforming the national market. Measured against its own H1 2025 starting point, Colorado's Clean Tech & Climate Tech capital deployment has grown more than three times the national growth rate over the same period.

Life Sciences: Ahead of the Curve

72.14% of 2025 pace, driven by growth in accelerator and early-stage deals

Life Sciences is tracking above its 2025 pace, driven by growth in the accelerator and early-stage pipeline beneath the sector's headline later-stage rounds. Q2 2026 recorded 6 deals and$6.47 million in capital deployed, led by Commense Bio's $2.47 million round.

Nationally, Life Science funding is having its strongest H1 since 2022 at roughly $9.1 billion in invested capital, but two-thirds of that capital is flowing to de-risked, later-stage bets with drug candidates in human trials. Colorado, by contrast, has maintained a more diverse composition of investment toward accelerator and early-stage bets, and its own indexed growth rate continues to run ahead of the national growth rate.

Software-as-a-Service: Broadening, Even as It Slows

10.69% of 2025 pace, even as SaaS remains Colorado's largest destination for capital

Software-as-a-Service remains Colorado's largest destination for capital, even while pacing behind 2025. Q2 2026 logged 23 deals — more than any other sector — totaling $163.05 million, led by EarlyTrade's $30.93 million Series A and Notable Systems' $21.03 million Series B.

Nationally, AI-native enterprise spending surged 94% year-over-year in early 2026, and the national SaaS industry has outpaced its FY 2025 pace at 179.6%. While Colorado lags behind at the midyear, the region didn't produce an AI-native mega-round in H1 2026 — which has commonly distorted total quarterly capital figures elsewhere — and the industry has continued to maintain a healthy deal volume in the absence of one.

What This Means Going Forward

Read together, these five sectors tell a more nuanced story than the topline 29.56% figure suggests. Aerospace & Defense and Life Sciences are outperforming; Quantum & Photonics, Clean Tech, and SaaS are pacing behind — for reasons ranging from deal lumpiness to a genuine shift toward later-stage, lower-risk capital.

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