A THREE-year-old boy on the doomed Lisbon tram screamed for a cop to hold him after the harrowing crash left his dad dead and his mum fighting for her life.

At least 17 people were killed in the horrifying collision which left passengers trapped under rubble while rescuers rushed to save them.

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The boy’s mum was left in critical condition while his dad was found dead after the iconic Gloria Funicular sped out of control and smashed into a building.

The tragic family were on holiday in the Portuguese capital when the cable car reportedly came loose from a wire.

After the boy was rescued, he refused to let go of the police officer who saved his mum, pleading: “Please hold me!”

The 45-year-old officer rushed the mum to hospital while she was in critical condition – with her son staying by his side the entire time, CNN Portugal reported.

The child was luckily left unharmed, but will reportedly undergo psychological treatment.

His mum is still in an intensive care unit.

Chilling footage showed rescuers running over to the wreckage, with distressed onlookers heard screaming: “There’s kids under there.”

Witness Bruno Pereira – who lived on Rua da Glória for 10 years – gave a detailed account of the crash to the outlet.

He described how the bottom tram appeared to derail with a “metallic thud”.

And then a few seconds later – the top tram came screaming down the hill at “breakneck speed”, smashing into the bend as if it had been “thrown down the hill”.

Bruno said: “It was panic. We all ran, everyone there. Some tried to pull people out from under the tram.

“The bodywork was destroyed, there were cobblestones everywhere, and the metal grooves, so to speak, where the elevator used to run were all ripped out.”

He claimed to see the three-year-old German boy coming out of the wreckage, begging for someone to pick him up.

It comes as the first victim of the tram disaster was named as brakeman André Marques.

Including the German mum, at least 21 people were injured in the horrifying crash.

Witnesses described the car crumpling like a “cardboard box” when it hit the wall on Wednesday.

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The list of victims is understood to include eight women, seven men and two unidentified victims.

Among the dead and injured are Portuguese nationals, Germans, Spaniards, as well as people from South Korea, Canada, Italy, France, Switzerland, Morocco and Cape Verde, reports say.

Police are now investigating as they desperately try to piece together the tragedy.

The disturbing footage also showed dozens of bystanders sprinting up the steep road to find the car flipped on its side and torn apart into splintered metal.

Clouds of dust and smoke had engulfed the narrow lane as a crowd of concerned onlookers gathered at the bottom of the hill.

Terrified onlooker Teresa d’Avo told TV channel SIC: “It crashed into a building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box.

“It crashed with tremendous force. It didn’t have any kind of brakes.

“The people inside were obviously scared, and we rushed to help.”

Fire crews and paramedics arrived shortly after as they swarmed the wreckage.

Rescue teams hauling stretchers had to use specialised cutting equipment to get inside the mangled carriage.

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Civil protection officials said 62 rescue workers and 22 vehicles were deployed to the site for the two hour rescue and recovery mission.

Portugal’s National Institute of Medical Emergencies confirmed that some of the victims were foreign nationals.

A pregnant German woman is in a critical condition, according to Observador.

An Italian woman also broke her arm, Corriere della Sera reports citing the Italian embassy in Lisbon.

Portugal‘s government has declared a national day of mourning.

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Global venture funding in August fell to the lowest monthly amount since 2017, Crunchbase data shows. Startup funding last month totaled $17 billion — down 12% from a year ago and a massive 44% drop month over month.

The slowdown marks a respite from the frenzied pace of venture investment in the first half of 2025 — especially for fast-growing AI companies — when startup funding increased by more than a third year over year.

Summer pullback

Since 2023, we’ve seen a noticeable summer pullback in either July or August, when global venture funding typically dips below $20 billion.

It’s typical for late-stage funding to lag in these slower months. Less typically, there was also a significant pullback at the seed stage last month, when funding at that phase nearly halved compared to July and fell a third from a year ago.

Late-stage funding declined more than 50% compared to July and fell by a fifth year over year, Crunchbase data shows.

Early-stage funding also declined month over month, but to a lesser degree, and increased slightly from a year ago. Relative to past months, Series B rounds held up by both counts and amounts.

Series B active

The two largest funding deals last month were Series B rounds to deep tech and AI startups, both based outside of the Bay Area. The largest round went to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion, a fusion energy company that raised $863 million. The second-largest was Colorado-based quantum computing Quantinuum’s $593.8 million raise.

The third-largest round was a tie between Toronto, Canada-based AI lab Cohere’s $500 million Series D and San Francisco-based coding startup Cognition’s $500 million Series C at a $9.8 billion valuation following its earlier acquisition of Windsurf.

US funding dominated

Funding to U.S.-based startups last month totaled $10.4 billion, or 61% of venture investment, per Crunchbase data.

Funding to startups headquartered in the U.S. has increased significantly year to date in 2025 to 68% of global venture capital, thanks to billion-dollar-plus funding deals for American AI companies.

AI led global startup funding again last month, totaling $4.8 billion. Healthcare and biotech followed, with startups in the sector raising $4 billion globally in August, per Crunchbase data, and more than $2 billion each went to startups in the financial services and energy sectors.

Looking forward

Despite the August funding slowdown, there are some positive signs for the startup world to look forward to, notably the reopening of the IPO markets. A more robust exit market will provide some much-needed liquidity to venture capital firms, which could in turn help reopen the funding spigot.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of Sept. 3, 2025.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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Illustration: Dom Guzman

At least 15 people were killed and 18 were injured on Wednesday after a horror crash on the iconic funicular railway in Lisbon, Portugal.

Shocking video from the aftermath shows the tram-like Gloria funicular crushed and destroyed following a derailment that left at least five of the injured in serious condition, officials said.

It is not yet known how many of those hurt are foreigners, they added, as the funicular is a popular tourist attraction.

“Lisbon is in mourning. This was a tragic accident … It’s a tragedy of the like we’ve never seen,” Mayor Carlos Moedas said.

Emergency services could be seen pulling bodies from the wreckage of the yellow-and-white electric-powered streetcar, which was lying on its side.

Local media reported that some of the victims included pedestrians and people in cars that were flipped after the tram broke loose. Horrified eyewitnesses said that they watched the runaway streetcar tear down the slope and land on top of a man walking down the sidewalk.

“It hit a building with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box; it had no brakes,” one woman told the Portuguese TV channel SIC. 

Five people were hospitalized in serious condition, the National Institute for Medical Emergencies confirmed in a statement. A child was also hospitalized, but was not critically injured.

Multiple foreigners were among those injured, but it’s unclear how many, the institute added. 

Other injured were trapped in the wreckage, but emergency responders managed to free them all within two hours.

The cause of the crash on the funicular, which carries more than 40 passengers at a time up and down a steep 900-foot hillside in the Portuguese capital, remains unknown.

An overhead cable came loose along the route, causing the car to lose control and smash into a nearby building, Portuguese newspaper Observador reported.

Emergency services were called to the crash just after 6 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET) during the evening rush hour.