AI Startup Funding This Quarter: Deals, Sizes, Valuations

AI took more than 60% of all venture capital raised on Carta in Q1 2026, and CB Insights recorded 89% of Q2 2026 AI funding going to just 142 mega-rounds. This page tracks AI startup funding this quarter by stage and by source, with the period named on every figure. The newest full-quarter AI dataset covers Q1 2026.

Contents

• AI VC investment data and the as-of date on every figure
• Read the reporting lag before you read the numbers
• How much are AI startups raising by stage
• The AI valuation premium and which part you can capture
• AI seed rounds and the floor underneath them
• AI funding trends 2026 point to concentration not expansion
• Is AI funding slowing down
• What share of VC dollars goes to AI depends on who counts
• How to use this before your next raise
• FAQ

Almost every market-wide venture number you have read this year is really an AI number in disguise. More than 60% of all venture capital raised by companies on Carta in Q1 2026 went to AI companies (Carta State of Private Markets Q1 2026). Take AI out of the average and what is left behind prices like a different asset class.

As of August 7, 2026, no publisher has released AI data for the current quarter. CB Insights has published Q2 2026 AI figures, Carta and PitchBook have Q1 2026 AI reports, and AngelList's most recent listed venture report covers H1 2025. This page names the period on every number, because a Q1 2026 figure quoted as if it described today is how founders end up defending a price against a benchmark nobody is using.

AI VC investment data and the as-of date on every figure

Every AI funding figure worth quoting comes with a publisher and a period, and the two travel together or not at all.

Two rules for reading that table, and both matter more than any single row.

• Never add totals across publishers. PitchBook's $255.5 billion and CB Insights' $226 billion are separate series counting overlapping deals with different rules. PitchBook flags its number as an AI-sector total that should not be stacked on top of other publishers' figures (PitchBook Q1 2026 AI VC Trends).
• Never carry a Q1 number into a Q2 sentence. The Q2 2026 rows above exist because CB Insights published them. The Q1 2026 rows have no Q2 equivalent, and inventing one is the most common error in AI market commentary.

The scale is worth pausing on. PitchBook's $255.5 billion of AI venture funding in Q1 2026 exceeded its own reported $254.4 billion for all of 2025 (PitchBook Q1 2026 AI VC Trends). CB Insights recorded a similar step change in its own series: $226 billion in Q1 2026, up 216% from roughly $72 billion in Q4 2025, and above the $217 billion that report attributes to all of 2025 (CB Insights State of AI Q1 2026).

Read the reporting lag before you read the numbers

The freshest AI figure available to you is at least a quarter old, and the freshest stage-by-stage AI benchmark is older than that.

The most recent report is also the thinnest. CB Insights' Q2 2026 AI report says the quarter stayed near record funding levels and produced 37 new AI unicorns, but it does not publish a Q2 dollar total for AI or AI's share of all venture capital (CB Insights State of AI Q2 2026). So "near record" is the publisher's characterization, not a number you can put in a deck.

AngelList is a deal-count source, not a pricing source, for AI. Its H1 2025 report gives an AI/ML share of deals but does not publish an AI/ML share of capital, AI round sizes, or AI valuation medians by stage (AngelList State of Venture H1 2025). If you see an "AngelList AI valuation" quoted anywhere, someone built it themselves.

Do not walk into a partner meeting quoting a headline AI total without the quarter attached. Partners read these same reports, and the quickest way to lose credibility on market context is to present Q1 2026 as though it were live.

How much are AI startups raising by stage

Round sizes at the top of the market and round sizes at your stage moved in opposite directions, and only one of those is your comp.

PitchBook's Q1 2026 AI report describes a market splitting in two: AI deal counts fell to their lowest level since 2018, down 51% from the Q1 2022 peak, while average deal size more than doubled year over year to $24 million as capital consolidated into fewer companies (PitchBook Q1 2026 AI VC Trends). Bigger checks, far fewer of them.

For stage-level AI benchmarks, the most recent complete AI-versus-non-AI split in the primary record is Carta's 2024 dataset. It is older than the totals above, and it is still the best structural picture available.

All four figures come from Carta's 2024 AI fundraising benchmarks. Read them as structure, meaning the shape of the premium as you move up the stack, and not as this quarter's price.

Use the stage table, not the headline total, when you set your ask. The $255.5 billion quarter was built out of foundational-model rounds. Nothing in it says a seed company should raise more, and a partner who sees you reason from it will read it as a founder who does not know which cohort they are in.

The AI valuation premium and which part you can capture

The AI premium is real at every stage, and the version of it you have seen quoted is measured on companies that look nothing like yours.

Here is the number that gets misused most. Carta's Q1 2026 data shows a $300 million median Series A valuation for an AI foundational-model startup against $55 million for a non-AI startup at the same stage, roughly 5.5 times (Carta State of Private Markets Q1 2026). That comparison is explicitly about foundational-model companies. It cannot justify using either the valuation or the multiple as a benchmark for an AI application or wrapper company.

The broad cohort premium is a much smaller number and a much better anchor. For full-year 2025, Carta put the median AI valuation 38% above the median non-AI valuation at Series A, widening to 193% at Series E+ (Carta State of Private Markets 2025 in Review). That is the AI cohort as a whole, model builders and application companies together.

No allowed primary source publishes a wrapper-specific premium. Carta reports that foundational-model companies took 14.2% of total capital in Q1 2026 and close to a quarter of all AI capital (Carta State of Private Markets Q1 2026), which tells you the model builders are a distinct and heavily weighted slice, but no publisher splits the remainder into application-layer premiums by stage. Anyone who quotes you a wrapper premium built one.

So the defensible rule for an application-layer AI company has two halves: anchor on the broad AI cohort premium, and refuse the foundational-model medians outright.

✅ Good: "Carta put the median AI valuation 38% above non-AI at Series A for 2025. We are pricing inside that band, not against the foundational-model medians." Works because it names the cohort you belong to and the period it covers.

❌ Bad: "Carta's median AI Series A is $300 million, so our $80 million ask is conservative." Fails because that median is Carta's foundational-model comparison, and the partner across the table knows it.

There is one more signal in the segmentation data worth holding onto. PitchBook's Q3 2025 year-to-date view found horizontal platforms captured 68.5% of AI deal value (PitchBook Q3 2025 Quantitative Perspectives). Vertical, sector-specific AI companies compete for what is left, which is another reason the aggregate premium overstates what a narrow application company should expect.

For the full pricing mechanics rather than the market flow, see the AI startup valuation benchmarks for 2026.

AI seed rounds and the floor underneath them

Seed is the stage where the AI premium is smallest, best documented, and least likely to be the thing that decides your round.

Carta's 2024 benchmarks put the median AI seed pre-money valuation at $17.9 million, 42% above non-AI seed companies (Carta 2024 AI fundraising benchmarks). AngelList's H1 2025 report describes seed valuations as flat versus 2024 across all sectors, with later rounds up slightly (AngelList State of Venture H1 2025).

The competitive picture at seed changed more than the price did. AI/ML startups made up 41.5% of AngelList deals in H1 2025, close to double their 2024 rate (AngelList State of Venture H1 2025). The premium did not move much; the number of companies claiming it roughly doubled.

Spend your preparation on the Series A question, not the seed premium. SVB reports that in 2025 the median Series A AI company burned $5 to gain $1 of new revenue (SVB State of the Markets). Seed investors know that ratio is coming for you, and a credible answer on unit economics is worth more at the table than an extra turn on valuation.

If you are pricing a round now, the seed valuation benchmarks for 2026 and the walkthrough on raising a seed round for an AI agent startup cover the mechanics this page deliberately skips.

AI funding trends 2026 point to concentration not expansion

The 2026 story is not more money flowing into AI. It is the same money reaching fewer companies.

• Q1 2026, deal size: deals of $100 million or more accounted for 94% of AI funding, and the top three model developers alone raised $160 billion, roughly 71% of the quarter's funding (CB Insights State of AI Q1 2026).
• Q2 2026, deal count: 89% of AI funding went to 142 mega-rounds, and the quarter produced 37 new AI unicorns (CB Insights State of AI Q2 2026).
• Full-year 2025, the whole market: deal count fell 17% to 29,501 while mega-rounds of $100 million or more rose 77% to 738 and captured 65% of total venture funding (CB Insights State of Venture 2025).
• Full-year 2025, the top of the table: the six largest rounds of the year all went to AI companies and totaled $111 billion, equal to 49% of AI funding (CB Insights State of Venture 2025).

In Q1 2026 the top three model developers alone raised $160 billion, roughly 71% of the quarter's AI funding. Every "AI average" you read is mostly three companies.

Stop treating rising AI totals as evidence the market is easier. A total that grows because three companies raised more is a total that says nothing about the odds on your seed round, and reading it the other way is the single most expensive misinterpretation available to a founder right now.

Is AI funding slowing down

Dollars are not slowing and deal counts are, which is why the same quarter can be reported as a boom and a drought.

On dollars, no. CB Insights describes Q2 2026 AI funding as staying near record levels, alongside 37 new AI unicorns (CB Insights State of AI Q2 2026). The Q1 2026 totals from both PitchBook and CB Insights were step changes over their own full-year 2025 figures.

On deals, yes, sharply. PitchBook's Q1 2026 AI report puts deal counts at their lowest level since 2018, down 51% from the Q1 2022 peak (PitchBook Q1 2026 AI VC Trends). Across all of venture in 2025, CB Insights recorded deal count down 17% to 29,501 while mega-rounds rose 77% (CB Insights State of Venture 2025).

Build your raise plan around slot scarcity, not capital scarcity. The money exists. The constraint is how many companies each fund is willing to add to the portfolio this quarter, and that number is falling while the applicant pool grows.

What share of VC dollars goes to AI depends on who counts

There is no single AI share figure, because every publisher measures a different denominator over a different window.

Dollars concentrate into AI far harder than companies do. In PitchBook's Q3 2025 year-to-date view, AI was 55.2% of deal value and 22.3% of startups, a dollar share more than double the company share (PitchBook Q3 2025 Quantitative Perspectives). That gap is the AI market in one line: the sector's dominance is a pricing and check-size phenomenon before it is a headcount one.

Pick the share that matches your question and say which one you picked. If you are arguing that investor attention is on AI, the deal-count shares from AngelList and SVB are the honest numbers. If you are arguing capital has concentrated, use the deal-value shares. Quoting the 60%-plus Carta figure to make a point about deal counts is the mistake that gets you corrected in a partner meeting.

How to use this before your next raise

Market data is only worth reading if it changes who you approach and when.

1. Fix your comparison cohort before you fix a number. Application-layer AI company? Anchor on Carta's broad AI cohort premium, 38% over non-AI at Series A for 2025. Not the foundational-model medians.
2. Date every figure in your deck. Write "Carta, Q1 2026" next to the number. A dated stat reads as diligence; an undated one reads as a screenshot from Twitter.
3. Plan for fewer slots, not less money. With AI deal counts at their lowest since 2018 in Q1 2026 and check sizes doubling, your risk is not a market that has run out of capital. It is a market where each fund does fewer deals.
4. Prepare the burn answer early. A median Series A AI company burning $5 for $1 of new revenue in 2025 means efficiency is the question that decides your next round, whatever your seed price was.
5. Target funds by what they are deploying into now, not by what their website says. Sector labels lag reality by a year or more; recent checks do not.

That last step is where market data runs out. Knowing what the market did tells you what is normal. It does not tell you which funds are actively writing checks into your stage and sector this month. Causo matches you to the investors most likely to fund you and drafts the outreach, so you spend your weeks in conversations rather than list-building. For the concrete version of step 5, start from the Series A AI VCs list and work down it.

FAQ

How much are AI startups raising in 2026? The most recent full-quarter figures cover Q1 2026, when PitchBook recorded $255.5 billion of AI venture funding, more than its own reported total for all of 2025 (PitchBook). Those totals are dominated by a handful of very large rounds: CB Insights reported that deals of $100 million or more accounted for 94% of Q1 2026 AI funding (CB Insights). For a typical early-stage company the useful reference is Carta's stage data, not the headline total.

What is the AI valuation premium right now? No source publishes a live figure, so the honest answer is dated. For full-year 2025, Carta put the median AI valuation 38% higher than non-AI at Series A, widening to 193% at Series E+ (Carta). Carta's separate Q1 2026 comparison of a $300 million AI foundational-model Series A median against $55 million for non-AI is about 5.5 times, but it describes foundational-model companies specifically and is not a general benchmark (Carta).

Is AI funding slowing down? Dollars are not slowing, but the number of companies getting funded is. CB Insights described Q2 2026 AI funding as staying near record levels with 37 new AI unicorns (CB Insights), while PitchBook's Q1 2026 AI report showed deal counts at their lowest level since 2018, down 51% from the Q1 2022 peak (PitchBook). Plan for a market where capital is abundant and funded slots are scarce.

What share of VC dollars goes to AI? It depends on the denominator, and the range is wide. Carta reported more than 60% of all capital raised on its platform in Q1 2026 went to AI (Carta), SVB put AI at about 58% of total US VC investment in 2025 (SVB), and CB Insights put AI at 48% of total venture funding in 2025 (CB Insights). Always quote the share with the publisher and the period attached.

What is the average valuation of an AI startup? There is no single average, because AI valuations differ enormously by stage and by whether the company builds models. Carta's 2024 stage benchmarks show a $17.9 million median AI seed pre-money valuation and a $143 million median at Series B (Carta). Its Q1 2026 foundational-model Series A comparison sits at a $300 million median, which is a different cohort entirely (Carta).

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