US AI funding reached $377.59B across 1,493 funding rounds in the first half of 2026 (January 1 to June 30). The largest was OpenAI’s $122.0B strategic financing in March, backed by SoftBank, Amazon and Nvidia.
Q1 2026 booked $250.74B and Q2 booked $126.85B, a 49.4% quarter-over-quarter fall, while deal count eased from 734 to 656. The median US AI round was $20.0M against a mean of $271.64M. This report covers US AI funding at the 2026 midpoint, with the largest rounds, sector shares, the stage split from seed to late stage, city concentration and the most active investors.
On this page
- How much did US AI startups raise in H1 2026?
- US AI funding H1 2026 by quarter: Q1 vs Q2
- Largest US AI funding rounds in H1 2026
- Which sectors raised the most US AI funding in H1 2026?
- US AI funding by stage in H1 2026: early stage vs late stage
- Which US cities raised the most AI funding in H1 2026?
- Which investors backed the most US AI rounds in H1 2026?
- What H1 2026 says about US AI funding
- Frequently asked questions
How much did US AI startups raise in H1 2026?
Artificial intelligence companies headquartered in the United States raised $377.59B across 1,493 deals in the first half of 2026. The mean deal came to $271.64M and the median came to $20.0M, a gap of more than thirteen times.
Capital concentration explains the gap. 414 mega-rounds of $50M or more absorbed $363.05B, which is 96.1% of every dollar that went into US AI companies in the window. Narrow the cut and 257 rounds of $100M or more took $352.63B, or 93.4% of the total.
At the other end, 205 rounds priced between $5M and $10M took $1.40B between them, and 203 rounds priced between $1M and $5M took $595.53M.
Two markets sit inside one total. A short list of frontier AI labs, GPU clouds and autonomy programs raise rounds in the billions from sovereign funds and corporate balance sheets. Beneath them, several hundred AI startups raise seed and Series A rounds at prices an ordinary fund can pay. The sections below keep the two separate.
US AI funding H1 2026 by quarter: Q1 vs Q2
| Quarter | Deals | Funding | Median deal | Mean deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | 734 | $250.74B | $21.0M | $341.61M |
| Q2 2026 | 656 | $126.85B | $20.0M | $193.36M |
Funding fell 49.4% quarter over quarter while deal count slipped by 78. The median round barely moved, from $21.0M to $20.0M, so the typical company kept raising at the same price.
Almost all of the drop came from the mega-round layer, and it tracks the timing of the OpenAI round rather than a change in appetite. Our global Q1 2026 report covers the first quarter worldwide.
Monthly totals show how sharp that timing effect is. March closed at $149.64B, up 123.1% from February and the peak of the half, carried by the OpenAI round. April fell to $11.44B, down 92.4%, the thinnest month of the six on dollars even though it recorded 230 deals.
May rebounded to $85.10B on Anthropic’s $65.0B Series H, then June settled at $30.31B across 242 deals. Deal count stayed in a band of 184 to 268 all half, while dollars swung by a factor of thirteen.
Largest US AI funding rounds in H1 2026
| Rank | Company | City | Amount | Round | Closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OpenAI | San Francisco | $122.0B | Strategic | March 2026 |
| 2 | Anthropic | San Francisco | $65.0B | Series H | May 2026 |
| 3 | Anthropic | San Francisco | $30.0B | Series G | February 2026 |
| 4 | xAI | Palo Alto | $20.0B | Series E | January 2026 |
| 5 | Waymo | Mountain View | $16.0B | Strategic | February 2026 |
| 6 | Prometheus | San Francisco | $12.0B | Series B | June 2026 |
| 7 | CoreWeave | Livingston | $8.5B | Debt Financing | March 2026 |
| 8 | Databricks | San Francisco | $5.0B | Series L | February 2026 |
| 9 | Anduril | Costa Mesa | $5.0B | Series H | May 2026 |
| 10 | Saronic | Austin | $1.75B | Series D | March 2026 |
Those ten rounds hold 75.5% of all US AI funding in the half. Three of them went to two companies: OpenAI raised $122.0B, and Anthropic raised twice inside six months, a $30.0B Series G in February and a $65.0B Series H in May.
Below the model labs the table splits into three kinds of company. Waymo and Saronic are autonomy programs, in robotaxis and naval systems. Anduril’s $5.0B Series H is the defense entry.
CoreWeave’s $8.5B is debt rather than equity, underwritten against contracted revenue and GPU hardware, and the companies doing that borrowing sit alongside the rest of the compute layer in our AI infrastructure list.
Eight of the ten rounds went to California companies, with CoreWeave in New Jersey and Saronic in Texas as the exceptions. The cutoff is steep, too. Tenth place at $1.75B is about seventy times smaller than first.
Which sectors raised the most US AI funding in H1 2026?
| Segment | Funding | Deals | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure | $268.68B | 233 | 71.2% |
| Manufacturing & Industrials | $26.94B | 116 | 7.1% |
| Transportation & Mobility | $18.91B | 42 | 5.0% |
| GovTech & Defense | $12.29B | 64 | 3.3% |
| Health & Biotech | $12.14B | 242 | 3.2% |
| FinTech | $9.02B | 171 | 2.4% |
| Energy & Sustainability | $6.59B | 56 | 1.7% |
| Cybersecurity | $5.14B | 112 | 1.4% |
| Media & Entertainment | $3.70B | 38 | 1.0% |
| Marketing & Sales Tech | $3.39B | 102 | 0.9% |
Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure took 71.2% of all H1 dollars across 233 deals. That segment holds the model labs, the GPU clouds and the tooling layer underneath them, so the OpenAI and Anthropic rounds land here. Every other segment shares what is left.
Rank the same segments by deal count and the order rearranges. Health and Biotech ran 242 rounds, more than Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure, for 3.2% of the dollars. FinTech ran 171 rounds for 2.4%, and Cybersecurity ran 112 for 1.4%.
Founders cluster in applied segments where a normal round is $10M to $50M, the band that carried 546 rounds and $12.53B this half. Capital concentrates in the compute and model layer, where rounds run to nine figures and beyond.
Three segments break that rule. Manufacturing and Industrials took 7.1% of dollars on 116 deals, with Prometheus’s $12.0B inside it. Transportation and Mobility took 5.0% on only 42 deals, because Waymo sits inside it. GovTech and Defense took 3.3% on 64 deals, carried by Anduril and Saronic.
The niche cut underneath those segments is where the two-market split gets sharpest. Generative AI drew $249.96B across 175 deals. AI Agents drew $187.72B across 620 deals, more than three times the deal count for three quarters of the capital.
Reasoning Models drew $119.96B across 78 deals, and Robotics drew $15.69B across 75. Agent companies carry the founder volume, while foundation model and reasoning work draws the largest checks.
US AI funding by stage in H1 2026: early stage vs late stage
| Stage | Deals | Funding |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | 416 | $5.14B |
| Series A | 379 | $14.59B |
| Other | 184 | $17.02B |
| Series B | 174 | $27.13B |
| Series C | 87 | $10.79B |
| Pre-Seed | 82 | $202.62M |
| Growth | 49 | $4.89B |
| Series D | 42 | $10.39B |
| Debt | 34 | $14.92B |
| Series E | 19 | $23.53B |
| Series G+ | 12 | $104.63B |
| Series F | 11 | $5.25B |
| Strategic | 3 | $139.00B |
| Convertible | 1 | $100.0M |
Early-stage funding dominates the count. Seed produced 416 venture rounds for $5.14B and Series A produced 379 rounds for $14.59B, and between them they are more than half the market by deal count.
The dollars sit at the other end of the table. Three strategic rounds took $139.00B and 12 Series G and Series H rounds took $104.63B. Our stage-by-stage breakdown sets these bands against prior years.
34 debt rounds raised $14.92B, more than the entire Series C stage ($10.79B across 87 deals) and more than the entire Series D stage ($10.39B across 42 deals). CoreWeave’s $8.5B facility is the largest of them.
Lenders pricing GPU capacity against contracted revenue is a different underwriting exercise from a venture fund pricing a growth round, and this half it moved more money than two traditional venture stages.
Smaller rounds sat far below all of this. 546 rounds cleared between $10M and $50M for $12.53B, and 157 rounds cleared between $50M and $100M for $10.41B.
Which US cities raised the most AI funding in H1 2026?
| City | Funding | Deals | Share | Mean deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $257.63B | 372 | 68.3% | $692.57M |
| Palo Alto | $23.84B | 35 | 6.3% | $681.01M |
| New York City | $19.35B | 362 | 5.1% | $53.45M |
| Mountain View | $16.84B | 10 | 4.5% | $1,683.80M |
| Livingston | $8.50B | 1 | 2.3% | $8,500.00M |
| Costa Mesa | $5.00B | 1 | 1.3% | $5,000.00M |
| Austin | $4.46B | 45 | 1.2% | $99.02M |
| Boston | $3.49B | 62 | 0.9% | $56.23M |
| San Jose | $2.54B | 21 | 0.7% | $120.98M |
| San Diego | $2.50B | 22 | 0.7% | $113.68M |
San Francisco took 68.3% of the capital that carries an identified location, on 372 rounds, and the San Francisco AI company list shows how deep that bench runs. New York City recorded 362 rounds, second only to San Francisco on count, for 5.1% of the dollars.
The average San Francisco round came to $692.57M against $53.45M in New York, a gap of thirteen times on similar deal counts. Our 2025 city rankings give the prior-year order.
Concentration is tighter on dollars than on activity. The top five cities hold 86.5% of located capital and the top ten hold 91.3%, while deals were recorded across 226 separate US locations.
Some high-ranking entries are single rounds rather than deep benches. Livingston’s $8.50B is CoreWeave alone, Costa Mesa’s $5.00B is Anduril alone, and Mountain View’s 4.5% share rests on 10 deals with Waymo inside them. Austin ($4.46B across 45 deals) and Boston ($3.49B across 62 deals) are the top-ten cities outside the Bay Area and New York built on many rounds rather than one. San Diego’s $2.50B spans 22 deals, though a single Shield AI round makes up most of it.
Which investors backed the most US AI rounds in H1 2026?
| Investor | Rounds | Deals joined worth | Median round joined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Y Combinator | 111 | $4.07B | $15.5M |
| Andreessen Horowitz | 93 | $178.15B | $35.0M |
| General Catalyst | 56 | $70.89B | $45.0M |
| Sequoia Capital | 55 | $110.14B | $110.0M |
| Lightspeed Venture Partners | 50 | $73.54B | $82.5M |
| Accel | 38 | $4.77B | $80.0M |
| Khosla Ventures | 38 | $4.60B | $41.0M |
| Alumni Ventures | 38 | $1.74B | $17.0M |
| Kleiner Perkins | 33 | $21.51B | $99.0M |
| Bessemer Venture Partners | 33 | $19.98B | $50.0M |
Y Combinator joined 111 US AI rounds, more than any other firm, and Andreessen Horowitz joined 93. They look like rivals on deal count, but they back very different round sizes. The median round Y Combinator joined was $15.5M, and the median round Andreessen Horowitz joined was $35.0M, across rounds worth $178.15B in total.
Sequoia Capital shows the other end of the same trade. It joined 55 rounds at a median of $110.0M, half the volume of Y Combinator at seven times the round size. Accel, Khosla Ventures and Alumni Ventures each joined 38 rounds, and their medians run from $17.0M to $80.0M, so equal activity says nothing about equal exposure.
Rounds joined counts every participant in a round, so these totals describe participation rather than dollars deployed by each firm, and they cannot be added together.
What H1 2026 says about US AI funding
US AI funding in the first half of 2026 was concentrated in a small number of very large rounds. The $377.59B topline is real, and 96.1% of it sits in 414 mega-rounds of $50M or more.
Below that layer sits an ordinary venture market, with 416 seed deals and 379 Series A deals spread across 226 locations. The median across all rounds with a disclosed amount was $20.0M.
For founders, the typical round price was stable through a half where the headline halved between quarters. The median across all rounds moved by $1.0M from Q1 to Q2. The scarce thing was late-stage capital at scale, which went to a small group of model, compute, autonomy and defense companies rather than to the long tail.
For investors, any AI investment benchmark built off the $271.64M mean prices a company against 414 rounds it will never resemble. Comparable sizing, ownership targets and follow-on reserves belong to the $20.0M median layer, where the competing bidder is another Series A fund rather than a sovereign wealth fund.
Run the half-year numbers twice, once with the mega-rounds in and once with them stripped out, and underwrite against the second set. Our 2025 funding statistics give the prior-year base for that comparison.
Frequently asked questions
How much did US AI startups raise in H1 2026?
US AI startups raised $377.59B across 1,493 funding rounds between January 1 and June 30, 2026.
What was the largest US AI funding round in H1 2026?
OpenAI’s $122.0B strategic round in March 2026, in San Francisco. Anthropic’s $65.0B Series H in May was second.
Which sector raised the most US AI funding in H1 2026?
Developer Tools and AI Infrastructure, at 71.2% of all dollars, $268.68B across 233 deals. Manufacturing and Industrials was a distant second at 7.1%.
What was the typical US AI deal size in H1 2026?
The median US AI round was $20.0M. The mean was $271.64M, lifted by 414 rounds of $50M or more.
Did US AI funding grow in 2026?
It fell between quarters. Q1 2026 booked $250.74B and Q2 booked $126.85B, a 49.4% drop, with deal count down from 734 to 656. The median round moved only from $21.0M to $20.0M, so the decline came from the largest deals rather than the broad market.
Which US city raised the most AI funding in H1 2026?
San Francisco, with $257.63B across 372 rounds, 68.3% of the capital that carries an identified location. Palo Alto was second on dollars with $23.84B, and New York City was second on deal count with 362 rounds.
How concentrated was US AI funding in H1 2026?
414 rounds of $50M or more took 96.1% of every dollar. The top five cities held 86.5% of located capital, and the top ten held 91.3%.
Which investors were most active in US AI in H1 2026?
Y Combinator joined 111 rounds, Andreessen Horowitz 93, General Catalyst 56, Sequoia Capital 55, and Lightspeed Venture Partners 50.
Based on 1,493 US AI funding rounds tracked by Bot Memo between January 1, 2026 and June 30, 2026. Totals include strategic and debt financings, which appear as their own lines in the stage table. Mega-rounds are rounds of $50M or larger. Quarterly and monthly deal counts cover rounds with a disclosed amount; the 1,493 total covers all tracked rounds.
City shares are calculated on the capital that carries an identified location. San Francisco includes rounds recorded only as the San Francisco Bay Area; Palo Alto, Mountain View and San Jose are listed separately. Each round sits under one primary segment, while niche totals overlap because a company can carry several niches. Investor totals reflect participation in a round, not exclusive deployment. Median round joined is the median size of the rounds each firm joined, among rounds with a disclosed amount.
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.
