AI funding in 2025 has surged to a total of $118 billion as of mid-August, more than doubling the total for all of 2024, which was $108 billion.

A small group of eight companies has dominated the AI funding landscape, securing $73 billion through billion-dollar rounds, including a record $40 billion raised by OpenAI, representing 62% of total AI funding this year.

Compared to 2024, when 13 companies raised $47 billion, the concentration of funding among top firms has increased, with six companies securing billion-dollar rounds across both years.

This aggressive investment activity suggests that venture firms may need to seek more funds from limited partners, potentially leading to a decline in the U.S. venture industry's dry powder below 2019 levels.

Major venture capital firms like Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Accel, and Khosla Ventures are leading large funding rounds for startups such as Anthropic, Thinking Machines Lab, Anduril, Perplexity, and ClickHouse.

Funding data, sourced from Crunchbase and covering startups in infrastructure, labs, and applications, is based on reported figures up to August 15, 2025, with all amounts converted to USD.

Key investors include SoftBank, which led a $40 billion round for OpenAI at a $300 billion valuation, along with corporate giants like Meta, SpaceX, and Google making significant commitments to AI startups.

Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI; SpaceX led a $5 billion funding round in xAI; and Google invested in AI Labs, $1 billion in Anthropic, and $300 million in AI21 Labs.