VC funding for AI startups plunges 30% in Q2 after Q1’s historic $71.9bn high
With Donald Trump announcing a $92bn investment in energy and AI infrastructure, and SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle investing $100bn in the initial phase of the ‘Stargate’ project, I am reaching out to share our latest analysis of venture capital-backed AI startups and the largest funding rounds so far this year.
To showcase the current investment trends of major venture firms, the team at BestBrokers collected investment and fund data from Pitchbook, CB Insights, and several other sources and examined the latest financial disclosures from leading venture capital firms. The data we collected can be accessed on Google Drive via this link.
The most recent figures reveal that in the second quarter of 2025, the number of venture capital deals fell to a nine-year low of 7,272. Of those, 2,146 or roughly 29.5% were investments in artificial intelligence startups. This number of AI-focused deals (less than a third of all), however, raised approximately $50bn in funding or around half (49.2%) of the entire venture capital investment for the quarter.
Here are the biggest AI funding rounds so far this year:
- OpenAI – $40B
- Scale AI – $14.3B
- Anthropic – $3.5B
- Infinite Reality – $3B
- Anduril Industries – $2.5B
- Safe Superintelligence – $2B
- Thinking Machines – $2B
- Groq – $1.5B
- Grammarly – $1.1B
- Anysphere – $0.9B
Other facts and figures from our research
- 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. Nine years ago, the combined funding for these startups totalled $43.1bn; in Q2 2025, this amount ballooned to $101.5bn.
- In the second quarter of 2025, AI startups attracted $50bn in venture capital funding, a 30.6% drop from Q1’s historic high of $71.9bn. The number of AI-focused deals also plummeted – from 2,689 in the first three months of the year, they fell to 2,146 in Q2.
- Since the beginning of the year, venture capital firms have invested a total of $229.9bn in startups in an estimated 16,565 deals. Of those, AI-focused funding reached $121.9bn in roughly 4,835 deals.
- Meta’s $14.3bn bid in Scale AI was the largest AI investment this quarter, and the second highest this year after OpenAI managed to secure $40bn from the likes of Softbank, Microsoft, the Founders Fund, and Magnetar Capital.
Between 2015 and 2018, the sector attracting the largest funding from venture capital firms was Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT). Then, Software as a Service (SaaS) firms started drawing in the most money, which changed in 2024 when artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI & ML) startups gained traction following the unprecedented success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
This is how much venture capital firms invested in startups and the number of deals completed in the first half of 2025:
- AI & Machine Learning – $121.9bn in 4,835 deals
- SaaS – $107bn in3,861 deals
- Big Data – $74.50bn in 1,049 deals
- Cloudtech & DevOps- $45.60bn in 296 deals
- Fintech – $23.70bn in 1,778 deals
- Manufacturing- $19.20bn in 2,087 deals
- Life Sciences – $19.10bn in 1,282 deals
- Healthtech – $18.50bn in 1,504 deals
- Mobile- $16.90bn in 1,374 deals
- Cleantech – $14.60bn in 1,318 deals
- Robotics & Drones – $13.70bn in 627 deals
- Technology, Media & Telecommunications – $10.80bn in 477 deals
- Climate Tech – $10.60bn in 744 deals
- Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) & Wellness – $8.30bn in 1,106 deals
- Advanced Manufacturing – $7.70bn in 560 deals
- Mobility Tech – $7.60bn in 273 deals
- Cryptocurrency/ Blockchain – $7.30bn in 748 deals
- Industrials – $7.20bn in 257 deals
- Digital Health – $6.70bn in 502 deals
- Cybersecurity – $6.20bn in 413 deals
