Venture capital is no longer a level playing field. In the first quarter of 2026, AI startups swallowed $242 billion out of $297 billion in global VC deployment, capturing 81% of the entire pie. That's a staggering jump from just 30% in 2022 and 61% in 2025. The concentration is so extreme that fewer than 3% of all deals generated the majority of invested capital, with mega-rounds over $100 million accounting for roughly 73% of total AI deal value last year.
OpenAI alone raised $122 billion in a single funding round this quarter. That one deal represented more than 40% of everything deployed globally. When you stack that against Anthropic and xAI's substantial raises, it becomes clear that a handful of companies are vacuuming up the oxygen. Everyone else, whether building in crypto, fintech, biotech, or elsewhere, is competing for roughly 19% of the global VC pie.
Crypto VCs feel the squeeze hardest
The drain is hitting crypto-native venture funds particularly hard. Several crypto-focused VCs have reported a noticeable outflow of both talent and limited partner interest toward AI-focused strategies. The LPs writing the checks, pension funds, endowments, family offices, are increasingly asking why they should back a crypto fund when AI funds are posting eye-popping deployment numbers. AI has captured the institutional imagination in a way that crypto did during the 2021 bull run. The key difference is that AI's narrative has corporate revenue to back it up. Spending on AI applications skyrocketed from $11.5 billion in 2024 to $37 billion in 2025.
The adaptation game
Some crypto VCs are adapting by broadening their investment mandates to include AI-adjacent opportunities. Projects sitting at the intersection of AI and blockchain are getting a closer look from funds that might have dismissed them two years ago. But that pivot requires capital reserves and institutional credibility that smaller crypto funds often lack. The mega-round machine keeps accelerating, and the gap between mega-cap AI plays and everything else only widens.
This material is informational and does not constitute financial advice. Market dynamics and fund performance are subject to change.
