AI funding looks up 43% this week. It isn't. AI raised $6.67B across 83 companies, about 29% of all venture dollars. But $2.8B of that is one company — China's Kling AI, the AI-video studio. Strip that single round and the real market was $3.87B, actually down ~17% from last week's $4.68B. On paper China led with 56% of AI dollars; strip Kling and the United States is the real engine at $2.47B across 44 rounds. One giant check can make a soft week look loud. The tell is always what everyone else raised.
$6.67B
AI funding this week
$2.8B
biggest round (Kling AI)
$390.4B
cumulative · 31 weeks
Verified live · grok + web
All top rounds confirmed as genuinely AI: Kling AI ($2.8B, Kuaishou's AI video), Together AI ($800M, $8.3B valuation), AI² Robotics ($736M), and General Intuition ($320M, $2.3B valuation). Left OUT of the AI bucket on purpose after verification: Joulent ($1.75B, an energy / power-plant company) and Ionic Digital ($400M, ex-Celsius bitcoin mining). They power or host AI but are not AI companies; counting them would inflate the week by $2.15B.
Analysis 1 · Overview
Of 197 funded companies this week, 83 (42%) were AI, taking $6.67B of the $22.7B total raised (29%). The headline reads +43% over last week's $4.68B — but that jump is one round. Kling AI's $2.8B is 42% of the entire AI week. Strip it and AI funding was $3.87B: a soft week dressed up by a single mega-check.
Analysis 2 · Regional (AI dollars only)
- China — $3.76B (56%) · 8 cos. Led the dollars, but $2.8B of it is Kling AI alone. Strip that and China is ~$1B.
- United States — $2.47B (37%) · 44 cos. The real engine: five times China's deal count, and the market leader once you remove the one Kling round.
- Latin America — $120M (2%) · 3 cos.
- Europe — $110M (2%) · 16 cos. The most companies after the US, but small checks.
- Rest of World — $110M (2%) · 3 cos (incl. Canada).
- Asia-Pacific (ex-China) — $100M (1.5%) · 10 cos. · Middle East & Africa: $10M.
Analysis 3 · Top 5 AI rounds
1. Kling AI — $2.8B
Private equity · Beijing, China · AI video
Kuaishou's AI video-generation studio — China's answer to Sora and Veo. This single round is 42% of the entire AI week and the number that defines it.
⚑ Most show-friendly — the consumer AI-video name, and the one check that faked a boom.2. Together AI — $800M
Series C · San Francisco · $8.3B valuation · AI cloud
An open-source AI cloud where developers train, fine-tune, and run models. The pick-and-shovel bet: not a model, the place other people's models run.
3. AI² Robotics — $736M
Series C · Beijing · embodied AI
Builds humanoid, embodied-AI robots (its AlphaBot). Part of China's humanoid-robot surge that keeps pulling big checks.
4. General Intuition — $320M
Series A · New York · $2.3B valuation · AI agents
A young research lab teaching AI agents by training them on video-game and video data. A huge Series A for a lab this new.
5. Quantifind — $200M
Growth · United States · risk AI
AI for financial-crime and risk screening — fraud and sanctions. The unglamorous, very fundable "AI that keeps banks out of trouble."
Also notable: DexForce $147M (AI robots with 3D vision), 8090 Solutions $135M (AI-native software development), Twelve Labs $100M (AI video understanding).
Analysis 4 · Trends
- One mega-round distorts the whole week. Kling's $2.8B is 42% of AI dollars. Always strip it to see the real market ($3.87B).
- Physical AI is loud. AI² Robotics ($736M) and DexForce ($147M) — embodied and robotics money keeps flowing.
- AI video is its own category now. Kling and Twelve Labs ($100M) both raised.
- Seed-heavy week. 38 of 83 AI rounds were seed — lots of new bets, few late-stage.
- US vs China. The US wins on volume, China wins the headline dollar — but only because of one round.