AI grabbed 41% of VC dollars
AI startups captured 41% of $128B in venture dollars on Carta last year — half the funding concentrated in just 10% of deals, signaling bigger winners getting bigger checks. (x.com) (x.com)
OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI accounted for many of the biggest late‑stage checks: OpenAI closed a $110 billion funding round on Feb. 27, 2026, Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G on Feb. 12, 2026, and xAI completed a $20 billion Series E on Jan. 6, 2026. (bloomberg.com) Carta’s own State of Private Markets report says startups on its platform raised nearly $120 billion in 2025 and that Q4 alone brought $36.1 billion in new capital. (carta.com) Carta’s analysis shows the market is bifurcating: at the Series D stage, 58% of all cash raised went to AI startups, and median valuations at Series E+ jumped 667% year‑over‑year. (carta.com) Independent coverage flagged extreme concentration: TechCrunch reports the top 10% of startups captured roughly half of the capital deployed, describing the market as K‑shaped and naming Peter Walker, Carta’s head of insights, on the shift toward “fewer bets, but more capital.” (techcrunch.com) Carta and TechCrunch both note younger fund vintages that invested after ChatGPT’s late‑2022 debut (vintages 2023–24) are tracking stronger internal rate‑of‑return markups on paper versus funds from 2017–2020, even as realized liquidity remains limited. (carta.com)
