On paper, AI funding just got cut in half. It didn't. AI raised $4.68B across 77 companies — 41.1% of all venture dollars. Last week's $11.64B looked twice as big, but 76% of it was one China wave. This week China goes quiet and the money comes home: US AI funding nearly tripled, $1.34B → $3.74B, four of every five AI dollars. And the biggest checks all went to the same place — the infrastructure that runs AI. Baseten ($1.5B) and Groq ($650M) are both about running models, not building them. The app is the show. The money's going to the stage crew.
$4.68B
AI funding this week
$1.5B
biggest round (Baseten)
$383.7B
cumulative · 30 weeks
Verified live · grok + web
All five top rounds confirmed. Baseten ($1.5B, $13B valuation), Groq ($650M), and Dream ($260M, $3B valuation) are confirmed by the companies' own announcements. LibLib AI ($300M) and Mirendil ($200M) are confirmed by reputable press (WSJ, Yicai) with no official release — labeled as such. Two big rounds were left OUT of the AI bucket on purpose: AppsFlyer ($1B, mobile-ad analytics) and STARK ($570M, defense drones) describe themselves as adtech and military hardware, not AI companies. Counting them would inflate the AI number.
Analysis 1 · Overview
Of 201 funded companies this week, 77 (38.3%) were AI, taking $4.68B of the $11.37B total raised (41.1%). The honest read: it looks like AI funding fell off a cliff from last week's $11.64B — but that was a China week, $8.9B of it. Strip the geography and the opposite is true: US AI funding nearly tripled, from $1.34B to $3.74B. The drop is an illusion. The US engine surged.
Analysis 2 · Regional (AI dollars only)
- United States — $3.74B (80.0%) · 38 cos. Owned both the dollars and the deal count this week. Four of every five AI dollars.
- China — $329M (7.0%) · 3 cos. Carried by LibLib AI ($300M). Nearly absent after dominating last week.
- Middle East & Africa — $272M (5.8%) · 3 cos. All Israel — Dream's $260M sovereign-AI round is nearly the whole bar.
- Europe — $230M (4.9%) · 15 cos. The most companies after the US, but small checks. Led by Multiverse Computing ($122M, Spain).
- Rest of World — $65M (1.4%) · 6 cos (incl. Canada).
- Asia-Pacific (ex-China) — $36M (0.8%) · 12 cos. Lots of small rounds. Latin America: $0.
Analysis 3 · Top 5 AI rounds
1. Baseten — $1.5B
Series F · San Francisco · $13B valuation · AI inference
The plumbing that runs AI models inside other companies' products, fast and in real time, so they don't build their own data-center stack. The biggest check of the week is for running models, not training them. They raised it just months after their last mega-round.
2. Groq — $650M
Venture round · San Jose · AI inference chips
Designs its own chips to run AI models fast and cheap, an alternative to Nvidia's GPUs. The juicy part: this lands right after a $20B deal with Nvidia and a re-staffing. The most show-friendly story — the Nvidia challenger that just did a deal with Nvidia.
3. LibLib AI — $300M
Series B · Beijing · $2B+ valuation · AI image generation
China's AI art platform — create and share AI images and models. The week's biggest non-US round, and proof China's consumer-AI scene stays well funded even in a quiet China week.
⚑ Press-confirmed (Yicai, 36Kr) — no official company release.4. Dream — $260M
Series C · Tel Aviv · $3B valuation · sovereign AI + cyber defense
Sells AI that helps governments defend critical systems — power grids, national infrastructure — and turn sensitive data into fast decisions. A theme to watch: nations buying their own AI defense.
5. Mirendil — $200M
Seed · United States · ~$1B valuation · AI research lab
Ex-Anthropic and Google researchers building AI tools that help scientists create their own models. The anomaly of the week: a seed round of $200M at a billion-dollar valuation — a16z, Kleiner Perkins, AND Nvidia, all in before there's a product. Seed used to mean a few million. Now it can mean you already won.
⚑ Press-confirmed (WSJ) — no official release. Location not in Crunchbase; verified US lab.Also notable: Upscale AI $190M (AI-data-center networking), Lightwheel $147M (robot simulation), Assort Health $120M (AI voice agents for clinics), Runpod $100M (GPU cloud).
Analysis 4 · Trends
- The money is in the plumbing, not the apps. Baseten, Groq, Upscale AI, Runpod, Lightwheel — the biggest checks went to the infrastructure that runs AI. Picks-and-shovels are eating the funding.
- Inference beat training. Both top US rounds are about running models cheaply, not building new ones. The market shifted from "build the model" to "serve it to millions."
- Wide at the bottom, heavy at the top. 40 seed + 19 Series A rounds (59 of 77 AI deals) — lots of new bets. But the dollars pool in a few late-stage infra rounds.
- Seeds are getting absurd. Mirendil's $200M seed and Trase's $107M seed. "Seed" no longer means small.
- US concentration is back. After a China-dominated week, 80% of AI dollars came home. The US AI engine nearly tripled.