AI funding blew past $500 billion in the first half of 2026 alone
Global AI startups raised roughly $510 billion in the first six months of 2026, with OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounting for more than two-fifths of that total, as mega-rounds increasingly dominate the funding landscape.
AI startups raised approximately $510 billion globally in the first half of 2026 — more than the full-year total for AI funding in 2025 — with OpenAI and Anthropic together capturing roughly 43 percent of that figure, according to industry funding trackers.
The concentration goes deeper than just those two companies. Across the second quarter of the year, an estimated 89 percent of all AI funding went into just 142 rounds of $100 million or larger, even as the median AI deal size across the broader market stayed relatively modest at around $5 million. In other words: a small number of already-dominant companies are absorbing an outsized share of available capital, while the long tail of smaller AI startups raises comparatively little.
Geographic concentration tells a similar story — the United States captured roughly 88 percent of global AI funding through the middle of the year, with the San Francisco Bay Area alone accounting for well over $100 billion of cumulative AI investment. For founders outside that small set of hubs and category leaders, 2026’s AI funding boom has, so far, looked considerably less abundant than the headline numbers suggest.
