With 2,146 AI deals raising $50B and 5,126 non-AI deals raising $51.5B, artificial intelligence dominance in venture funding is undeniable.
Despite fewer deals overall, artificial intelligence companies are pulling in massive funding rounds that dwarf other sectors.
The venture capital world is experiencing a dramatic shift that’s hard to ignore: AI startups are eating everyone else’s lunch.
New data from BestBrokers reveals that while the second quarter of 2025 saw venture capital deals drop to a nine-year low, artificial intelligence companies managed to secure nearly half of all the money being invested. That’s a pretty remarkable concentration of capital in one sector.
“In the second quarter of 2025, the number of venture capital deals fell to a nine-year low of 7,272,” according to the BestBrokers analysis. “Of those, 2,146 or roughly 29.5% were investments in artificial intelligence startups.”
Here’s where it gets interesting: those AI deals – less than a third of all venture investments – “raised approximately $50 billion in funding or around half (49.2%) of the entire venture capital investment for the quarter.”
The billion-dollar club is getting crowded
The size of these funding rounds is frankly staggering. OpenAI topped the charts with a $40 billion raise, followed by Scale AI’s $14.3 billion round (backed by Meta), and Anthropic’s $3.5 billion funding.
But it’s not just the household names. Companies like Infinite Reality pulled in $3 billion, while Anduril Industries and Safe Superintelligence each secured $2 billion rounds. Even newer players like Thinking Machines raised $2 billion, and hardware specialist Groq managed $1.5 billion.
The trend extends beyond the mega-deals too. Grammarly raised $1.1 billion and Anysphere closed a $0.9 billion round, showing that AI funding is flowing at multiple levels. The venture capital landscape is consolidating in a way that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. The BestBrokers research shows that “there were only 7,272 venture capital deals in the second quarter of 2025, the lowest count since Q3 of 2016, when VC firms invested in 7,264 startups.”
But here’s the kicker: nine years ago, those 7,264 deals “totalled $43.1 billion; in Q2 2025, this amount ballooned to $101.5 billion.”
That’s a complete transformation in how venture capital operates – fewer bets, but much bigger ones.
AI’s dominance is just getting started
Looking at the first half of 2025 as a whole, the numbers are even more striking. “Since the beginning of the year, venture capital firms have invested a total of $229.9 billion in startups in an estimated 16,565 deals,” according to the analysis. “Of those, AI-focused funding reached $121.9 billion in roughly 4,835 deals.”
That puts AI & Machine Learning at the top of the funding hierarchy with $121.9 billion, ahead of traditional Software as a Service companies that raised $107 billion. Big Data came in third with $74.5 billion, while Cloud tech & DevOps managed $45.6 billion.
The timing of this AI investment surge coincides with some major policy announcements. The BestBrokers team noted that “with Donald Trump announcing a $92 billion investment in energy and AI infrastructure, and SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle investing $100 billion in the initial phase of the ‘Stargate’ project,” the investment climate for AI companies has become increasingly favorable.
Not all sunshine and unicorns
Despite the massive dollar amounts, AI funding actually declined from the first quarter. “In the second quarter of 2025, AI startups attracted $50 billion in venture capital funding, a 30.6% drop from Q1’s historic high of $71.9 billion,” the research shows.
The number of AI deals also fell “from 2,689 in the first three months of the year, they fell to 2,146 in Q2.”
This suggests that while the total money flowing to AI remains enormous, investors are becoming more selective about which companies get funded.
The concentration of venture capital in AI represents a fundamental shift in how innovation gets funded. When nearly half of all venture dollars are flowing to one sector, it signals that investors believe artificial intelligence will drive the next wave of economic transformation.
Whether this concentration proves wise or creates dangerous bubble conditions remains to be seen. But for now, AI startups are clearly in the driver’s seat when it comes to accessing capital.
The complete dataset and research methodology are available through BestBrokers, providing a comprehensive look at how venture capital allocation is reshaping the startup ecosystem in real time.
More information on VC investments, major AI deals, and our complete research methodology can be found in the full report
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