Global venture funding hits record $510B in first half as AI boom accelerates
Startups worldwide raised a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to a new report out today from market intelligence company Crunchbase Inc. The figure was more than investors put into venture deals across all of last year, when the total came to $440 billion. The first half also set a funding record, [...
Key Takeaways
- SiliconANGLE UPDATED 07:00 EDT / JULY 02 2026 AI Global venture funding hits record $510B in first half as AI boom accelerates by Duncan Riley Startups worldwide raised a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to a new report out today from market intelligence company Crunchbase Inc .
The first half also set a funding record, beating the previous record of $375 billion set in the second half of 2021.
- The company raised $65 billion , close to a third of all global venture funding for the period and became the most valuable private company on the Crunchbase Unicorn Board .
It passed OpenAI on the leaderboard after Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
- Seven were frontier labs, among them the China-based foundation companies DeepSeek , StepFun and Moonshot AI , U.
- A total of 32 companies went public at values above $1 billion in the quarter.
After SpaceX, the next two largest listings were inference chipmaker Cerebras Systems Inc.
- 8 billion went to rounds of $100 million and over, while $5 billion went to rounds of $10 million and under.
Stats & Key Facts
- #Startups worldwide raised a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to a new report out today from market intelligence company Crunchbase Inc.
- #The figure was more than investors put into venture deals across all of last year, when the total came to $440 billion.
- #] The post Global venture funding hits record $510B in first half as AI boom accelerates appeared first on SiliconANGLE.
- #SiliconANGLE UPDATED 07:00 EDT / JULY 02 2026 AI Global venture funding hits record $510B in first half as AI boom accelerates by Duncan Riley Startups worldwide raised a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to a new report out today from market intelligence company Crunchbase Inc .
SiliconANGLE UPDATED 07:00 EDT / JULY 02 2026 AI Global venture funding hits record $510B in first half as AI boom accelerates by Duncan Riley Startups worldwide raised a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to a new report out today from market intelligence company Crunchbase Inc . The figure was more than investors put into venture deals across all of last year, when the total came to $440 billion. The first half also set a funding record, beating the previous record of $375 billion set in the second half of 2021.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, artificial intelligence drove the boom, with the bulk of venture capital going into a small group of companies. OpenAI Group PBC and Anthropic PBC alone accounted for $217 billion, or 43% of all startup funding in the first half. That level of concentration in two frontier labs is unprecedented, though Crunchbase noted the boom has spread well beyond a few foundation model developers into AI infrastructure, defense, robotics and healthcare.
The pace eased in the second quarter. Investors still put $205 billion into more than 5,000 startups, the second-biggest quarter on record, though that trailed the first quarter's $305 billion. The first quarter stands as the largest three-month stretch Crunchbase has tracked.
For more details please read the original article at SiliconANGLE AI.
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