Global venture funding reached a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, surpassing all of 2025’s investment for any six-month period. OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounted for 43% of all startup funding in H1, while the second quarter saw record exits including SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion IPO and a $60 billion acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor. Billion-dollar funding rounds also expanded beyond foundation models into infrastructure, defense, robotics, and healthcare.
