Artificial intelligence startups raised $75.37B across 574 funding rounds worldwide in February 2026 (February 1 to February 28). That is 359.8% above February 2025, which took $16.39B, and 65.7% above January 2026 at $45.49B. The largest round was Anthropic’s $30.0B Series G, followed by Waymo at $16.0B and Databricks at $5.0B.
Across the 541 rounds that disclosed a size, the mean came to $139.32M and the median to $12.50M. 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 February 2026?
- How February 2026 AI funding compares with 2025
- Largest AI funding rounds in February 2026
- Which sectors raised the most AI funding in February 2026?
- AI funding by stage in February 2026
- Where AI funding went in February 2026
- Most active AI investors in February 2026
- AI funding in February 2026: common questions
- Methodology
How much did AI startups raise in February 2026?
AI companies raised $75.37B across 574 deals in February 2026. Of those, 541 disclosed a round size. Across them the mean deal came to $139.32M and the median came to $12.50M, a gap of 11.1 times.
Two rounds account for most of that gap. Anthropic’s $30.0B and Waymo’s $16.0B come to $46.0B between them, or 61.0% of every dollar raised in the month by two companies out of 574.
Widen the lens and the shape holds. 113 rounds of $50M or more absorbed $70.32B, 93.3% of the total. Sort by the $100M line and 67 rounds took $67.32B, 89.3%.
Underneath them the volume sits in small cheques: 189 rounds priced between $10M and $50M took $4.08B, 132 rounds between $1M and $5M took $351.58M, 86 rounds between $5M and $10M took $602.45M, and 21 rounds under $1M took $8.80M in total.
How February 2026 AI funding compares with 2025
| Month | Funding | Deals | Median round | Rounds of $100M or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2025 | $16.39B | 479 | $10.00M | 37 |
| January 2026 | $45.49B | 492 | $13.00M | 70 |
| February 2026 | $75.37B | 574 | $12.50M | 67 |
Year on year the total rose 359.8%, from $16.39B to $75.37B. Deal count rose 19.8% over the same year, from 479 to 574. Money grew roughly 18 times faster than the number of companies raising it.
The $100M line moved too, from 37 rounds in February 2025 to 67 a year later. Between January and February 2026 it went the other way, from 70 rounds to 67. February added $29.88B to the monthly total on three fewer nine-figure rounds, so the month-on-month jump came from the size of the largest cheques rather than from more companies clearing $100M.
The median round barely moves across the three months, between $10.00M and $13.00M, while the total swings by more than four times. Round sizes at the small end of the market have held steady. The headline moves when one or two ten-figure rounds land.
Largest AI funding rounds in February 2026
| Rank | Company | Metro | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthropic | San Francisco Bay Area | $30.0B | Series G |
| 2 | Waymo | San Francisco Bay Area | $16.0B | Strategic |
| 3 | Databricks | San Francisco Bay Area | $5.0B | Series L |
| 4 | Wayve | London | $1.2B | Series D |
| 5 | World Labs | San Francisco Bay Area | $1.0B | Not disclosed |
| 6 | Cerebras Systems | San Francisco Bay Area | $1.0B | Series H |
| 7 | Neysa | Mumbai | $600.0M | Series B |
| 8 | Apptronik | Austin | $520.0M | Series A extension |
| 9 | ElevenLabs | New York Metro | $500.0M | Series D |
| 10 | MatX | San Francisco Bay Area | $500.0M | Series B |
Those ten rounds carry $56.32B, or 74.7% of the month’s dollars. First place at $30.0B sits 60 times above tenth at $500.0M, and the first three alone come to $51.0B, 67.7% of February.
Anthropic’s Series G closed on February 12 at a $380B post-money valuation. Waymo’s $16.0B is a strategic investment into an Alphabet-majority-owned subsidiary rather than a priced round at an independent startup, so it belongs in the month’s total but not in a read on venture pricing.
Six of the ten are Bay Area companies. ElevenLabs is counted under New York, where its US operation sits, and also runs a London base. World Labs did not label its $1.0B round, which arrived with Autodesk, NVIDIA and AMD on the cap table. Apptronik’s $520.0M is an extension of an existing Series A rather than a new priced round, backed by Google, Mercedes-Benz and John Deere.
Which sectors raised the most AI funding in February 2026?
| Segment | Funding | Deals | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure | $38.08B | 69 | 50.5% |
| Transportation & Mobility | $18.53B | 24 | 24.6% |
| Manufacturing & Industrials | $5.19B | 61 | 6.9% |
| FinTech | $3.15B | 78 | 4.2% |
| Media & Entertainment | $2.34B | 24 | 3.1% |
| Health & Biotech | $1.96B | 78 | 2.6% |
| Energy & Sustainability | $1.62B | 27 | 2.1% |
| GovTech & Defense | $879.74M | 30 | 1.2% |
| Cybersecurity | $839.26M | 37 | 1.1% |
| Marketing & Sales Tech | $700.10M | 38 | 0.9% |
Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure took 50.5% of February’s dollars across 69 deals. That segment holds the model labs and the data layer, so Anthropic and Databricks both land here. Chip builders such as Cerebras Systems and MatX sit under Manufacturing and Industrials instead, which is why that segment shows 61 deals against $5.19B. Our AI infrastructure list covers the companies in that layer.
Transportation and Mobility is the month’s oddity. It took 24.6% on 24 deals, and two of those deals carry 92.8% of the segment: Waymo at $16.0B and Wayve at $1.2B. Strip the pair out and the other 22 mobility rounds share $1.33B between them, an average of $60.52M.
Rank the same segments by deal count and the order inverts. FinTech and Health and Biotech tie for the most rounds at 78 each, and between them they took 6.8% of the dollars. FinTech’s average round was $40.44M against $551.93M in Developer Tools, a gap of 13.6 times between where founders cluster and where capital clusters.
FinTech is the only segment that sits in the top five by dollars and the top two by deal count at the same time. Health and Biotech matches its 78 rounds but takes 2.6% of the money. Developer Tools takes half the money on 69 rounds. FinTech does both, which is what a segment looks like when the founder supply is broad and the cheques are still ordinary.
By niche, Generative AI took $33.36B across 52 deals and Data Management took $6.18B across 46. Cloud Computing took $6.10B across 25. AI Agents ran the widest deal count of any niche at 206 rounds for $5.66B, followed by Robotics at $2.62B across 36 and Industrial Automation at $2.55B across 52.
AI funding by stage in February 2026
| Stage | Funding | Deals |
|---|---|---|
| Series G+ | $36.34B | 6 |
| Strategic | $16.00B | 1 |
| Series B | $4.98B | 58 |
| Series A | $4.08B | 153 |
| Series D | $3.80B | 14 |
| Growth | $3.45B | 32 |
| Debt | $1.51B | 9 |
| Series E | $1.42B | 5 |
| Series C | $1.31B | 18 |
| Seed | $1.25B | 167 |
| Other | $567.33M | 50 |
| Series F | $499.80M | 3 |
| Pre-Seed | $171.21M | 58 |
Series G+ and later covers six rounds and $36.34B, including Databricks’ Series L. Anthropic is $30.0B of it. The Strategic line is a single deal, Waymo’s $16.0B. Those seven rounds took 69.4% of the month between them.
Strategic investments and debt financing together came to $17.51B across 10 deals, 23.2% of February, more than Series A and Series B combined. The strategic line is Waymo’s round into an Alphabet subsidiary rather than a priced round at an independent company, and the debt line is lender money against assets and receivables. Neither behaves like a venture round when you read the month as a pricing signal.
Early-stage funding looks ordinary underneath. Seed ran 167 rounds for $1.25B and pre-seed ran 58 for $171.21M. Series A ran 153 rounds for $4.08B. Seed and Series A were the two largest stages by deal count, 320 of 574 rounds, and took 7.1% of the dollars between them. 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 February 2026
| Metro | Funding | Deals | Share of located capital |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Bay Area | $58.51B | 115 | 77.7% |
| New York Metro | $3.85B | 61 | 5.1% |
| London | $2.47B | 54 | 3.3% |
| Austin | $1.11B | 11 | 1.5% |
| Mumbai | $701.00M | 7 | 0.9% |
| Beijing | $634.00M | 4 | 0.8% |
| Boston | $563.70M | 13 | 0.7% |
| Los Angeles | $549.00M | 7 | 0.7% |
| Kent, Washington | $350.00M | 1 | 0.5% |
| Shenzhen | $344.70M | 2 | 0.5% |
Deals landed in 152 distinct locations in February. The top five metros took 88.5% of located capital and the top ten took 91.7%.
The Bay Area is almost the whole chart at 77.7% on 115 deals, a mean of $508.75M per round. Anthropic, Waymo and Databricks are $51.0B of that. Take those three out and the Bay Area’s remaining 112 rounds share $7.51B, a mean of $67.02M, a little above New York’s $63.05M.
New York ran 61 deals at a mean of $63.05M and London ran 54 at $45.82M. Six rounds in February reached $1B or more, and Wayve’s $1.2B in London was the only one of them outside the Bay Area.
Beijing and Shenzhen ran six deals between them for $978.70M, all six in Manufacturing and Industrials, and all six went to robotics companies. Spirit AI took $290.0M and LimX Dynamics $200.0M, both building humanoid robots, with AI2 Robotics at $144.7M and Galaxea AI at $144.0M behind them.
Kent, a town south of Seattle, appears in the top ten on one round, Stoke Space’s $350.0M Series D extension. Our funding by city breakdown tracks how these metros compare over longer windows.
Most active AI investors in February 2026
| Investor | Deals | Participated in deals worth |
|---|---|---|
| Y Combinator | 23 | $480.67M |
| Andreessen Horowitz | 17 | $23.53B |
| Lightspeed Venture Partners | 14 | $1.84B |
| Accel | 13 | $478.50M |
| Alumni Ventures | 12 | $278.17M |
| Sequoia Capital | 11 | $17.66B |
| Bessemer Venture Partners | 10 | $16.40B |
| General Catalyst | 10 | $755.02M |
| Insight Partners | 8 | $5.22B |
| Kleiner Perkins | 7 | $16.47B |
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. Four of the names above clear $16B for the same reason: Waymo’s round had 16 investors on it, and each of them carries the full $16.0B.
Cheque profiles separate the names once you strip the mega-rounds out. Across the rounds that disclosed a size, Y Combinator ran the most deals at 23, with a median of $13.00M and a ceiling of $75.0M. Nothing YC touched cleared $100M.
General Catalyst ran 10 disclosed rounds with a median of $72.50M and a floor of $16.6M, the Series A at Bangalore cross-border payments company Xflow. Nothing below $15M. Sequoia Capital ran 10 with a median of $175.00M and a floor of $20.0M, six of them at $100M or more. Index Ventures ran 7 with a floor of $25.0M.
At the other end, Antler ran 7 rounds with a median of $3.00M and six of the seven below $5M. Its one exception was the $47.0M raise at insurance brokerage Harper, where Antler sat alongside Y Combinator and Peak XV. Set Antler’s $3.00M median against Sequoia’s $175.00M and the two ends of this list are working two different markets, even when a name appears on both.
AI funding in February 2026: common questions
How much did AI startups raise in February 2026?
$75.37B across 574 deals worldwide. Across the 541 rounds that disclosed a size, the mean was $139.32M and the median $12.50M.
What was the largest AI funding round in February 2026?
Anthropic’s $30.0B Series G, closed February 12 at a $380B post-money valuation. Waymo’s $16.0B and Databricks’ $5.0B followed.
Which sector raised the most AI funding in February 2026?
Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure, at $38.08B across 69 deals, or 50.5% of the month.
How concentrated was AI funding in February 2026?
Two rounds, Anthropic and Waymo, took 61.0% of the total. 113 rounds of $50M or more took $70.32B, 93.3%. The San Francisco Bay Area alone held 77.7% of located capital.
How does February 2026 AI funding compare with February 2025?
$75.37B against $16.39B, an increase of 359.8%. Deal count rose 19.8% over the same year, from 479 to 574, and rounds of $100M or more went from 37 to 67.
Did OpenAI raise in February 2026?
OpenAI opened a round on February 27 with $110B in commitments, then closed it on March 31 at $122B. A round is counted in the month it closes, so that money sits in our March 2026 report rather than this one. February’s largest counted round is Anthropic’s $30.0B.
Methodology
Figures cover AI rounds recorded as completed between February 1 and February 28, 2026, at 574 rounds and $75.37B. A round that opens in one month and closes in another is counted in the month it closes. 33 of those rounds did not disclose a size. The headline mean and median are calculated across the 541 that did. Segment and metro totals divide the money that was disclosed by every round recorded in that segment or metro, so a mean round quoted for a sector or a city is slightly lower than one calculated on disclosed rounds alone. Deal counts always use all 574.
Amounts are converted to US dollars at the rate prevailing when the round was announced. A company is assigned to the metro recorded as its base, and rounds without a location are excluded from metro shares, which is why metro percentages are quoted against located capital of $75.29B rather than the full total. Each company is counted once, under its primary industry vertical, so segment deal counts sum to 574. 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 except where it is named as one. Debt financing accounted for $1.51B of the total across 9 rounds and is included, so these are AI funding figures rather than venture equity figures. The February 2025 and January 2026 comparisons come from our own funding repository on the same definitions as the February 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.
