Record Q1 funding, concentrated

Global startup funding surged to about $297 billion in the first quarter of 2026, but a handful of giant artificial intelligence rounds drove much of the jump. (intellizence.com) Intellizence said artificial intelligence companies took in more than $188 billion in the quarter, with OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo alone absorbing nearly two-thirds of global venture capital. OpenAI’s reported $122 billion round was larger than the previous quarterly record for total global startup investment. (intellizence.com) Crunchbase put the quarter at roughly $300 billion invested across 6,000 startups worldwide and said four of the five largest venture rounds ever recorded closed in those three months. Its list of the biggest checks included OpenAI at $122 billion, Anthropic at $30 billion, xAI at $20 billion, and Waymo at $16 billion. (crunchbase.com) The record total did not reflect a broad rebound in startup financing. Crunchbase said deal count fell to about 6,000 globally, while C B Insights said global deals dropped to just under 7,000, the lowest quarterly tally since late 2016. (crunchbase.com) (cbinsights.com) C B Insights said OpenAI’s financing alone accounted for 43% of all venture funding in the quarter, and rounds of $100 million or more made up 86% of total funding. The firm said early-stage deals slipped to 64% of all deals, down from 68% a year earlier. (cbinsights.com) PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association found the same pattern in the United States. Their Q1 2026 Venture Monitor said U.S. venture deal value reached $267.2 billion, but excluding the five largest deals would cut that figure by 73.2%. (pitchbook.com) PitchBook said the market under those headline numbers looked much like 2025: liquidity remained tight, artificial intelligence kept dominating, and policy and geopolitical volatility added pressure to exits. The report also said median internal rates of return for North American venture funds launched since 2019 remained in the single digits. (pitchbook.com) Geography was concentrated too. Crunchbase said U.S.-based startups raised $250 billion in Q1, or 83% of global venture funding, while China drew $16.1 billion and the United Kingdom drew $7.4 billion. (crunchbase.com) The quarter’s headline looked like a venture boom, but the underlying market looked narrower: fewer companies got funded, more money went to late-stage rounds, and the biggest artificial intelligence labs captured the largest share of the cash. (cbinsights.com) (pitchbook.com)