Two AI Labs Took 43% of All Venture Dollars

OpenAI and Anthropic absorbed $217 billion, 43% of all global startup funding, in the first half of 2026. Crunchbase put the half-year at a record $510 billion, more than the $440 billion invested in all of 2025. The leftover $293 billion is the market everyone else, including most AI companies, actually lives in.

That split did not stay a first-quarter freak. It is now how venture works, and it is shutting the rungs below the labs.

OpenAI and Anthropic Took 43 Cents of Every Dollar

Crunchbase counted $305 billion in the first quarter and $205 billion in the second, spread across more than 5,000 companies. On March 31, OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion post-money valuation, anchored by Amazon’s $50 billion and $30 billion each from Nvidia and SoftBank. Microsoft stayed in. The company said it was generating $2 billion in monthly revenue and that ChatGPT had more than 900 million weekly active users. It also took in more than $3 billion from individuals through bank channels and expanded a revolving credit line to about $4.7 billion.

Anthropic had already taken $30 billion in a February Series G. On May 28 it raised $65 billion in Series H at a $965 billion post-money valuation, led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital. That single check was close to a third of second-quarter global venture funding. Combined, the two labs’ 2026 cheques were $217 billion.

We've raised $65 billion in Series H funding at a $965 billion post-money valuation, led by @AltimeterCap, Dragoneer, @Greenoaks, and @sequoia.

This investment will help us advance our research and expand our capacity to meet growing demand for Claude.

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) May 28, 2026

THE H1 2026 SPLIT

The rest of the “AI boom” is still a megadeal story. Sixteen companies raised billion-dollar rounds in the second quarter, totaling $108.6 billion, or 53% of that quarter’s funding. Seven of those names were frontier labs, including DeepSeek, StepFun, Moonshot AI, Prometheus, and Isomorphic Labs. More than 70% of second-quarter capital went to AI-focused companies, up from just under 50% a year earlier.

$51.4 Billion for Rounds Under $100 Million

In the United States, the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, as of June 30, put first-half deal value at $412.7 billion. AI companies took $355.9 billion of that, or 86% of every dollar. Rounds of $100 million or more made up 87.5% of the total. Deals under $100 million drew $51.4 billion, 12.5% of US venture dollars, down from 43.8% in 2024 and 33.1% in 2025.

The seven US rounds of $1 billion or more in the second quarter, from Anthropic, Prometheus, Anduril Industries, Baseten, MiRus, Kalshi, and Cognition, totaled $87.2 billion. Five were AI companies. Anthropic’s pre-money mark stepped up 157.1% to $900 billion from $350 billion three months earlier.

THE 2026 MEGADEAL CALENDAR

1. February 2026: Anthropic closes a $30 billion Series G. Waymo raises $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation.
2. Q1 2026: xAI raises $20 billion. SpaceX completes a $250 billion merger with xAI, per the same PitchBook-NVCA report.
3. March 31, 2026: OpenAI closes $122 billion at $852 billion. The four Q1 megadeals sum to $188 billion, leaving $117 billion of the $305 billion quarter for everyone else.
4. May 28, 2026: Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H makes it the most valuable private company on Crunchbase’s board after SpaceX lists.
5. Q2 2026: SpaceX goes public at $1.77 trillion, raising $75 billion, then agrees to buy Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, for $60 billion.

Median pre-money value at Series D and later sat at $4.25 billion for AI companies and $644 million for non-AI peers in the US book. Those lab rounds are buying chips, data centers, and power, including the gas-fired plants feeding AI campuses that now sit next to the model race.

Why Pre-ChatGPT Startups Cannot Raise

PitchBook’s valuation estimates put companies that last raised in 2021 at 68% below that mark, and those that last raised in 2022 at 52% below. More than 220 firms that once cleared $1 billion have fallen under that line, a group that includes Glossier, Savage X Fenty, AG1, The Farmer’s Dog, and scheduling software maker Calendly. Seventy-five SaaS companies sit on that fallen list, double the next-largest group, fintech.

Investors are treating software built before large language models as a product one API call can copy. Fundraising that closed in weeks in 2021 now runs for months or dies. A lab that barely existed last year can print a higher mark than a five-year-old firm with real revenue.

THE 2021 VINTAGE HAIRCUT

• 2021 last raise: Worth 68% less on average, per PitchBook estimates.
• 2022 last raise: Worth 52% less on average.
• Fallen unicorns: More than 220 companies that once cleared $1 billion.
• SaaS share: 75 software firms, the largest class on the fallen list.

Founders still in the old software cohort are running the same three plays, and none of them restores the 2021 mark.

PATHS LEFT FOR THE 2021 CLASS

• Bolt-on AI: Ship a chatbot or an agent, then rebrand the company as AI-first to get back in the room.
• Down round: Take new money at a lower price, dilute the last cap table, and hope the story resets.
• Sit tight: Skip a round, live on old cash, and wait for an acqui-hire or a buyer who wants the engineers, not the product.

Late-stage dollars in the second quarter still totaled $134 billion, up 141% from a year earlier. That money did not rotate back into the 2021 names. It went to the labs and to a thin ring of defense, robotics, and infrastructure firms that can stand next to them.

First-Time Funds Sink to a 2016 Pace

The same report that logged the $412.7 billion also logged who is allowed to write the next checks. US venture funds raised $72.4 billion across 405 vehicles in the first half, almost matching the $74.9 billion raised in all of 2025, but the money landed in fewer hands. Funds of $1 billion or more took $49.5 billion across 16 vehicles, already above the $27.5 billion those funds raised across 13 vehicles in all of 2025.

Andreessen Horowitz raised $14.2 billion across seven funds, Thrive Capital $10 billion across two, and Founders Fund $10.6 billion across two. Those three firms took in $34.8 billion, or 48.1% of all venture capital raised in the first half. Experienced firms raised $64.5 billion against $7.9 billion for emerging firms, 89% of the capital, the highest share in a decade. First-time funds raised only $3.4 billion across 53 vehicles, well below the $11.4 billion they raised in all of 2025, and the count is annualizing to the lowest total since 2016.

Seed dollars look healthier than seed access. Global seed funding was $12 billion in the second quarter, Crunchbase said, but $2.8 billion of that sat in seed rounds of $100 million and over, with $5 billion in rounds of $10 million and under. A large vehicle cannot own enough of a company that only needs a few million to matter for fund returns, so those funds keep crowding into the capital-hungry labs. The next manager who would have written the first check to a boring software company is not raising a fund.

Crypto’s $4 Billion Quarter

Galaxy Research said venture firms put $4 billion into crypto and blockchain startups across 355 deals in the first quarter, down about 50% from the fourth quarter in dollars and 16% in deal count. Trading, exchange, investing, and lending took about $2.6 billion of that. The United States captured 70.2% of the dollars.

New crypto venture funds are thinner still. Allocators put about $1.1 billion into eight crypto funds in the first quarter, the fewest new funds in a quarter since the third quarter of 2020. Annualized, that pace is about $4 billion for 2026, below the $8.75 billion raised in 2025. Galaxy’s researchers named the AI rotation, along with spot ETFs and digital-asset treasury companies, as competitors for the same institutional money.

Four billion dollars is a rounding error next to one OpenAI close. Crypto and pre-ChatGPT software now compete for the $293 billion that is not sitting in two San Francisco labs, and for the $51.4 billion in the US that still goes to rounds under $100 million.

The LP Bind After SpaceX

OpenAI and Anthropic have confidentially filed to list, the PitchBook-NVCA monitor said. Those listings, if they price, will mint paper gains for the funds already on the cap tables. They will not recycle cash to the managers who missed them. Jen Kha, managing partner and head of global partnerships at Andreessen Horowitz, put the allocator problem in blunt terms on September 11.

Every week, I come across an LP who has nearly zero exposure to the three current frontier models (SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI).

Jen Kha, Managing Partner, Head of Global Partnerships, Andreessen Horowitz, on X

Limited partners are staring at two private marks they cannot easily sell, while distributions from the rest of the 2021 book stay slow. The same AI buildout is already crowding other corners of the bond market, so the crowding is not only a venture problem. LPs who did get into the labs are overweight two names. LPs who did not are explaining a cottage-industry allocation to boards while those two names reprice the asset class.

The half-year record will keep printing as long as the labs raise. The $3.4 billion that reached first-time funds is the number that decides whether a company founded this year ever gets a Series A.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of published venture-capital data, company announcements, and public comments. It is informational only and does not constitute investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any private or public security, fund interest, or token. Readers who are considering venture funds, private-company stock, or related products should consult a licensed financial adviser or other qualified investment professional who can review their objectives, liquidity needs, and risk tolerance. Dollar figures, valuations, round sizes, and filing statuses reflect the cited datasets and company statements as of their publication dates and can change with restatements, new closes, or later filings.