Artificial intelligence startups raised $48.70B across 547 funding rounds worldwide in July 2026 (July 1 to July 31). That is 137.1% above July 2025, which took $20.54B, and 5.7% below June 2026 at $51.66B. The largest round was Safe Superintelligence’s $5.0B strategic investment from NVIDIA, followed by Moonshot AI at $3.5B and Databricks at $3.0B.
Across the 499 rounds that disclosed a size, the mean came to $97.59M and the median to $12.71M. This report covers global AI funding for the month: the total, the largest rounds, sector shares, the stage split from pre-seed to growth, metro concentration, and the investors who appeared most often.
On this page
- How much did AI startups raise in July 2026?
- How July 2026 AI funding compares with 2025
- Largest AI funding rounds in July 2026
- Which sectors raised the most AI funding in July 2026?
- AI funding by stage in July 2026
- Where AI funding went in July 2026
- Most active AI investors in July 2026
- AI funding in July 2026: common questions
- Methodology
How much did AI startups raise in July 2026?
AI companies raised $48.70B across 547 deals in July 2026. Of those, 499 disclosed a round size. Across them the mean deal came to $97.59M and the median came to $12.71M, a gap of 7.7 times.
That gap is the month’s defining feature. 113 rounds of $50M or more absorbed $44.23B, or 90.8% of every dollar raised.
Sort the same month by cheque size and 67 rounds of $100M or more took $41.31B, which is 84.8% of the total. Underneath them the volume sits in small cheques: 169 rounds priced between $10M and $50M took $3.68B, 109 rounds between $1M and $5M took $270.08M, and 76 rounds between $5M and $10M took $504.34M.
Two markets sit inside the one total. A short list of model labs, GPU clouds and industrial programs raise nine and ten figures. Beneath them, several hundred companies raise seed and Series A rounds at prices a normal fund can write. The sections below keep them apart.
How July 2026 AI funding compares with 2025
| Month | Funding | Deals | Median round | Rounds of $100M or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2025 | $20.54B | 452 | $12.00M | 36 |
| May 2026 | $101.12B | 480 | $12.50M | 64 |
| June 2026 | $51.66B | 597 | $10.00M | 78 |
| July 2026 | $48.70B | 547 | $12.71M | 67 |
Year on year the total more than doubled, up 137.1% against July 2025. Deal count rose far less, up 21.0% from 452 to 547. Money grew 6.5 times faster than the number of companies raising it, and the same gap shows at the $100M line: 36 rounds cleared $100 million in July 2025 against 67 a year later.
Month on month the direction is flat to down. July took 5.7% less than June and ran 50 fewer deals. May 2026 is still the outlier at $101.12B on 480 deals, just over double July’s total on fewer rounds.
Read across the four months and the total swings by a factor of two while the median round barely moves, between $10.00M and $12.71M. Venture capital at the small end of the market has held steady all year. The headline moves because a handful of nine and ten figure rounds either land in a given month or do not.
Largest AI funding rounds in July 2026
| Rank | Company | Metro | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Safe Superintelligence | San Francisco Bay Area | $5.0B | Strategic Investment |
| 2 | Moonshot AI | Beijing | $3.5B | Not disclosed |
| 3 | Databricks | San Francisco Bay Area | $3.0B | Strategic |
| 4 | Kling AI | Beijing | $2.8B | Not disclosed |
| 5 | Helsing | Munich | $1.8B | Series E |
| 6 | Joulent | Houston | $1.75B | Strategic Investment |
| 7 | Atoms | Los Angeles | $1.7B | Equity |
| 8 | Fireworks AI | San Francisco Bay Area | $1.505B | Series D |
| 9 | Ant International | Singapore | $1.2B | Series A |
| 10 | Quantum Systems | Gilching | $1.15B (€1B) | Series D |
Those ten rounds carry 48.0% of the month’s dollars. The cutoff is steep: first place at $5.0B sits more than four times above tenth.
The table also splits by what the money is for. Safe Superintelligence, Moonshot AI, Databricks and Fireworks AI sit in the compute and model layer. Helsing and Quantum Systems are European defense programs, at $1.8B and $1.15B.
Joulent’s $1.75B came from National Grid, a strategic minority investment in energy rather than a priced venture round. Atoms raised $1.7B in equity funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz, against a physical AI portfolio spanning manufacturing and mobility. Kling AI’s $2.8B is a carve-out financing of Kuaishou’s video business, with Kuaishou keeping majority ownership, rather than an independent startup round.
Geography splits four ways across the Bay Area, Beijing, Europe and the Gulf Coast, which is unusual for a top ten.
None of OpenAI, Anthropic or xAI raised in July, so the largest cheques in the model layer went to Safe Superintelligence at $5.0B and Moonshot AI at $3.5B. In months when one of the three does raise, a single round can carry more than this entire top ten.
Which sectors raised the most AI funding in July 2026?
| Segment | Funding | Deals | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure | $19.98B | 76 | 41.0% |
| Manufacturing & Industrials | $7.27B | 75 | 14.9% |
| GovTech & Defense | $3.90B | 26 | 8.0% |
| Energy & Sustainability | $3.64B | 32 | 7.5% |
| FinTech | $3.54B | 58 | 7.3% |
| Media & Entertainment | $2.97B | 7 | 6.1% |
| Health & Biotech | $2.66B | 80 | 5.5% |
| Cybersecurity | $1.90B | 35 | 3.9% |
| Food & AgriTech | $785.81M | 14 | 1.6% |
| Marketing & Sales Tech | $447.64M | 30 | 0.9% |
Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure took 41.0% of July’s dollars across 76 deals. That segment holds the model labs and the compute infrastructure layer, from training clusters to the data centers that host them, so the Safe Superintelligence, Moonshot AI, Databricks and Fireworks AI rounds all land here. Our AI infrastructure list covers the companies in that layer.
Rank the same segments by deal count and the order changes. Health and Biotech ran 80 rounds for 5.5% of the dollars, more deals than any segment except Developer Tools. Manufacturing and Industrials ran 75 rounds and took 14.9%. Media and Entertainment did the opposite, taking 6.1% on 7 deals, 94.2% of it Kling AI’s $2.8B.
Founders cluster in applied segments where a normal round is $10M to $50M, the band that carried 169 rounds and $3.68B in July. Capital clusters where a normal round is nine figures.
By niche, Cloud Computing took $10.70B across 25 deals and AI Agents took $9.28B across 181, the widest deal count of any niche in the month. Generative AI followed at $8.51B across 71, then Industrial Automation at $6.26B across 69 and Robotics at $5.53B across 48.
AI funding by stage in July 2026
| Stage | Funding | Deals |
|---|---|---|
| Growth | $14.28B | 33 |
| Strategic | $7.15B | 3 |
| Series A | $5.80B | 113 |
| Series C | $5.01B | 22 |
| Series D | $4.24B | 14 |
| Series B | $3.47B | 51 |
| Debt | $3.35B | 19 |
| Series E | $1.80B | 1 |
| Seed | $1.64B | 149 |
| Series F | $1.00B | 1 |
| Other | $807.91M | 88 |
| Pre-Seed | $118.81M | 53 |
The stage table is where July’s headline comes apart. Strategic investments took $7.15B across 3 deals and debt financing took $3.35B across 19. Those two lines are corporate balance sheets and lenders, not venture funds buying equity at a price, and together they account for more of the month than Series A and Series B combined.
Early-stage funding looks ordinary underneath. Seed ran 149 rounds for $1.64B and pre-seed ran 53 for $118.81M, the two largest stages by deal count in the month and two of the smallest by dollars. Series A ran 113 rounds for $5.80B. Our funding stage breakdown sets out how each stage is defined and what a normal round looks like at each step.
Where AI funding went in July 2026
| Metro | Funding | Deals | Share of located capital |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Bay Area | $16.89B | 87 | 34.8% |
| Beijing | $7.14B | 7 | 14.7% |
| New York Metro | $3.27B | 49 | 6.7% |
| Munich | $2.38B | 10 | 4.9% |
| Los Angeles | $2.15B | 11 | 4.4% |
| Houston | $1.99B | 4 | 4.1% |
| Singapore | $1.73B | 10 | 3.6% |
| London | $1.65B | 35 | 3.4% |
| Boston | $1.31B | 11 | 2.7% |
| Gilching | $1.15B | 1 | 2.4% |
Deals landed in 174 distinct locations in July, and the top five metros took 65.6% of located capital while the top ten took 81.8%. The Bay Area held 34.8% on 87 deals, more deals than any other metro.
Beijing is the entry worth reading twice. It took 14.7% of located capital on 7 deals, at a mean of $1.02B per round, against a Bay Area mean of $194.17M. Two rounds carry it, Moonshot AI at $3.5B and Kling AI at $2.8B.
London ran 35 deals for 3.4%, a mean of $47.06M, the opposite profile: many rounds, ordinary cheques. Gilching, a town outside Munich, appears in the top ten on a single deal, Quantum Systems at $1.15B. Our funding by city breakdown tracks how these metros compare over longer windows.
Most active AI investors in July 2026
| Investor | Deals | Participated in deals worth |
|---|---|---|
| Y Combinator | 21 | $677.36M |
| Insight Partners | 11 | $1.33B |
| Accel | 10 | $2.72B |
| Andreessen Horowitz | 10 | $2.51B |
| Khosla Ventures | 10 | $847.19M |
| General Catalyst | 9 | $4.09B |
| Index Ventures | 9 | $2.72B |
| Sequoia Capital | 8 | $1.21B |
| Battery Ventures | 7 | $1.86B |
| New Enterprise Associates | 7 | $1.48B |
These are participation counts, covering lead investors and syndicate members alike. A round with six investors counts once for each of them, and the dollar column is the full size of the rounds an investor appeared in, not the amount that investor put in. The columns do not sum to a market total.
Cheque profiles separate the names. Y Combinator ran the most deals at 21 with a median of $16.5M, and 8 of those sat in the $15M to $25M band. General Catalyst ran 9 with a median of $300M, and 5 of them were $100M or larger.
Index Ventures ran 9 with a median of $125M and 6 above $100M. Andreessen Horowitz ran 10 with a median of $70M, from a $20M floor to $1.7B at the top.
AI funding in July 2026: common questions
How much did AI startups raise in July 2026?
$48.70B across 547 deals worldwide. Across the 499 rounds that disclosed a size, the mean was $97.59M and the median $12.71M.
What was the largest AI funding round in July 2026?
Safe Superintelligence’s $5.0B strategic investment from NVIDIA. Moonshot AI’s $3.5B and Databricks’ $3.0B followed.
Which sector raised the most AI funding in July 2026?
Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure, at $19.98B across 76 deals, or 41.0% of the month.
How concentrated was AI funding in July 2026?
113 rounds of $50M or more took $44.23B, 90.8% of the total. The top five metros took 65.5% of located capital.
How does July 2026 AI funding compare with July 2025?
$48.70B against $20.54B, an increase of 137.1%. Deal count rose 21.0% over the same year, from 452 to 547, and rounds of $100M or more went from 36 to 67.
How much of July 2026 AI funding was venture equity?
Strategic investments accounted for $7.15B across 3 deals and debt financing for $3.35B across 19, so a meaningful share of the headline was corporate and lender money rather than priced venture rounds.
Methodology
Figures cover AI companies that announced funding between July 1 and July 31, 2026, at 547 rounds and $48.70B. 48 of those rounds did not disclose a size, so every dollar figure here, including the mean and the median, is calculated across the 499 that did, while deal counts use all 547.
Amounts are converted to US dollars at the rate prevailing when the round was announced. A company is assigned to the metro of its headquarters, and rounds without a disclosed location are excluded from metro shares, which is why metro percentages are quoted against located capital of $48.50B rather than the full total. Each company is counted once, under its primary industry vertical, so segment deal counts sum to 547. Investor rows count participation in a round rather than exclusive deployment.
Every amount here is the size of a round. A post-money valuation is a different figure and is not used anywhere in this report. The July 2025 and earlier 2026 monthly figures come from our own funding repository on the same definitions as the July 2026 numbers, so the comparison is like for like.
For longer windows, see our AI startup funding statistics, the March 2026 report and the May 2026 report.
About the author
Editorial Staff
The Editorial Staff at Bot Memo is a team of writers, analysts, and AI agents dedicated to mapping the global AI startup ecosystem. Led by Chintan Zalani, the team tracks thousands of funding rounds, classifies companies across verticals, and distills it all into actionable intelligence for investors and founders.
