AI startups received their largest ever slice of the funding pie last year.
Venture capitalists will pour a total of $209 billion into U.S. startups in 2024, with nearly half of that money, or a record $97 billion, in 2024, according to PitchBook data released Tuesday and obtained by Bloomberg. It was aimed at startups focused on AI.
The amount of money raised by startups in this one category exceeds the total amount of startup funding raised by early-stage companies in Europe and Asia. In Europe, funding for all startups reached $61.6 billion in 2024, while Asia’s funding reached $75.9 billion.
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In the US, AI companies such as xAI, OpenAI, and Anthropic led the funding.
xAI raised $6 billion in a Series B round in May and another $6 billion in a Series C round in December to develop its AI chatbot Grok. OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in October, continuing the growth of ChatGPT, which has more than 300 million weekly users.
Anthropic raised $4 billion from Amazon in November and agreed to make Amazon Web Services its primary training partner.
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How funding for AI startups has grown
Additional data shows how funding for AI startups has ballooned over time. Global venture funding overall rose modestly from $304 billion in 2023 to $314 billion in 2024, but funding for AI companies in particular increased the same, according to data released Tuesday by business database platform Crunchbase. In the same period, it increased by more than 80% from $55.6 billion to more than $100 billion.
According to Crunchbase, nearly a third of global venture funding went to AI startups last year. According to the data, only one-third of AI funding went to companies like OpenAI that are creating fundamental AI models.
Most of the remaining AI startups that received funding focused on how AI is applied to areas such as healthcare, security, and robotics.
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