87.5% of venture dollars flowed to AI in H1 2026

PitchBook released its Q2 2026 U.S. VC Valuations report this week, painting a portrait of an increasingly skewed venture market dominated by artificial intelligence. According to the data, AI megadeals captured 87.5% of all U.S. venture dollars in the first half of 2026. The gap between AI and non-AI valuations is stark: non-AI companies at the median saw valuation step-ups of 1.6x, whereas AI companies achieved 2.2x. The disparity becomes even more pronounced at later stages—at Series D and beyond, AI companies have reached 6.6x valuation step-ups.

The velocity of deal value at the Series D stage and later has accelerated sharply. According to Emily Zheng, PitchBook's senior research analyst, "Median velocity of value creation at that stage jumped from $108.9 million in 2025 to over $1 billion in 2026, nearly a 10x increase." Zheng attributed this surge directly to top-tier AI companies driving growth, specifically highlighting Anthropic, whose valuation grew 5.3x in just eight months. Zheng noted that this dynamic reflects how AI has reshaped venture return expectations: "Venture returns already follow a power law, and AI has raised the bar for what an outsized valuation looks like."

Liquidity pathways for startups remain constrained. The IPO window is narrow, with only SpaceX and Cerebras offering compelling evidence that going public is worthwhile. Acquisitions show mixed results. While 2026 acquisition value has reached $375.4 billion—a decade high with valuations up to 1.9x from last year's 1.2x—individual deals vary widely. ServiceNow's acquisition of cybersecurity company Armis for $7.8 billion represented an increase from Armis's prior $6.1 billion valuation, whereas Capital One's $5.2 billion acquisition of fintech company Brex amounted to a substantial markdown from Brex's peak $12.3 billion valuation.

Secondary markets reveal the starkest divide in venture sentiment. On the platform Forge, startups that raised capital this year or last year trade at a median discount of zero to 5%. For startups that last raised in 2021 or 2022, that median discount widens to 54% and 59% respectively. Zheng observed that "winners are bigger than ever, overshadowing the rest of the venture market," adding that "companies that cannot raise on strong terms right now generally are not raising at all." The article acknowledges that while some of the startups facing capital constraints may be solid companies that are simply off-trend, the 2021–2022 cohort also included periods of "irrational exuberance"—notably the NFT boom. Nonetheless, the rate of shift is striking: after years of relatively consistent AI-tilted valuations, the venture market has undergone a wholesale reorientation toward AI leaders and away from virtually all other sectors.