US venture capital deal value reached $515.8 billion in the first nine months of 2026, about 44% above the previous annual record with a quarter still left, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Much of the total came from OpenAI and Anthropic, which together raised more than $200 billion in the first half. Exits have not kept pace with investment, leaving limited liquidity for investors. The gap between record funding and weak returns is the central issue for business.
Record funding driven by AI megarounds
Third-quarter deal value fell about 40% to $98.4 billion, with most of the decline in venture-growth rounds. Startups still closed an estimated 5,012 deals in the quarter, the second-busiest quarter in PitchBook records after early 2022. AI accounted for a record 82.7% of the year-to-date deal value, although its quarterly share declined to 65.9% in the third quarter. Without the two largest AI rounds, analysts said dollar totals followed much the same trend as since late 2024.
Databricks took the largest check of the third quarter at $5 billion, far below the triple-digit billions raised by frontier labs earlier in the year. The structure of funding remains concentrated at the top, while deal count stays broad across smaller startups. Venture-growth activity absorbed most of the quarterly pullback in value. That combination explains how total value can fall while the number of financings stays near a record.
On the fundraising side, US venture firms raised $108.5 billion across 699 funds so far this year, almost 39% above the full-year 2025 total. Megafunds of $500 million or more captured 78% of that capital while accounting for just 6% of new funds. Andreessen Horowitz alone closed funds worth $23.8 billion. Only 211 emerging firms closed a fund this year, down from 927 in 2022, and first-time funds raised $4.9 billion across 81 vehicles.
What weak exits mean for AI business
For companies buying or deploying AI, concentrated funding supports continued development by large labs and infrastructure providers such as Databricks. Availability of models and data platforms is unlikely to shrink in the near term because capital remains focused on leading AI developers. Smaller vendors face a different position, with fewer emerging funds to back new entrants. Large enterprises keep a wide choice of suppliers, while small firms depend more on products from well-funded platforms.
The exit data call for caution when judging startup valuations and vendor stability. SpaceX's $60 billion all-stock purchase of Anysphere accounted for 53.1% of third-quarter exit value and ranks as the second-largest acquisition of a venture-backed company on record. Without it, quarterly exits were $53 billion, the lowest since late 2024. Airtable was sold to Bending Spoons for $1.3 billion against an $11.7 billion valuation, and Miro is expected to sell for $1.4 billion after a Series C at $17.5 billion.
The marker to watch is whether large AI developers reach public markets and broaden exits beyond acquisitions. OpenAI has reportedly ruled out an IPO this year, Anthropic pushed its offering to November, and PitchBook assigns them 86% and 12% chances of listing within a year respectively. Healthcare produced 12 of 18 venture-backed IPOs in the quarter, with no AI listing of the kind needed for liquidity. If the IPO pipeline keeps slipping, pressure on valuations and fundraising for 2027 will grow.
