Crunchbase Data: Global Startup Investment Hit Record $510B In H1 2026 As AI Boom Accelerates Funding And Exits

openai — global venture funding reached a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, surpassing the $440 billion invested in all of 2025 and setting a new high for startup investment in any half-year period on record, Crunchbase data shows. The data also illustrates how capital is concentrating into a handful of companies at unprecedented scale while IPOs and acquisitions have returned in force, with the second quarter notching one of the strongest periods for venture-backed exits in years.

OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounted for $217 billion — 43% of all startup funding in H1 — underscoring how a small handful of frontier AI companies is reshaping venture markets. At the same time, other massive funding deals across industries including AI infrastructure, defense, robotics and healthcare — combined with record IPO and M&A activity — signal that the AI investment boom has grown well beyond a select few top foundation labs. Q2 2026 was the second-largest quarter on record for global venture investment, following on the heels of the largest quarter in Q1. All told, investors poured $205 billion into more than 5,000 startups in Q2, following $305 billion invested in Q1. Table of contents Exits peak in Q2 Capital concentration Beyond Anthropic Late-stage funding Early-stage funding Seed Record exits market returns A new venture cycle takes shape Methodology Glossary of funding terms Exits peak in Q2 Record funding defined the first half of the year as the period topped the previous half-year peak, reached in H2 2021, of $375 billion. The second quarter also marked a turning point for liquidity. IPOs and startup acquisitions accelerated alongside venture investment, producing the strongest exit market since the 2021 boom, Crunchbase data shows. The largest IPO ever for a venture-backed company and the largest startup acquisition ever both took place in Q2. Both deals involved SpaceX, as it went public at a value of $1.77 trillion, raising $75 billion, and less than a week later confirmed its intent to acquire Anysphere, maker of the AI coding tool Cursor, for $60 billion. Capital concentration Despite the resurgence in exits, the defining characteristic of venture investment in the AI boom remains its extraordinary concentration in terms of companies, industries and geography. Close to a third of Q2 global venture funding went to just one company: Anthropic. The now-leading foundation lab raised $65 billion last quarter and became the most valuable private company on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board as SpaceX exited and Anthropic surpassed OpenAI on the leaderboard. The U.S. also again dominated global funding. Two-thirds of startup capital in Q2 went to U.S.-based companies, down from 83% in Q1 and in line with proportions in Q2 2025.