AI took sixty-four cents of every venture dollar this week — the highest share in thirty-eight weeks of tracking. $8.59B across 68 companies, or 64.1% of all funding. But one company is most of it: Databricks' $5B is 58.2% of every AI dollar raised on earth this week. Strip the mega-rounds out of both weeks and the market went $4.13B to $3.59B — down about 13%. And three of the top five were chip companies. The money is moving down the stack.
$8.59B
AI funding this week
64.1%
of all venture $ — a record
$5B
biggest AI round (Databricks)
$438.1B
cumulative · 38 weeks
Verified live · grok + web
Confirmed official: Databricks, Etched, Higgsfield, Groq — each against the company's own announcement.
Press-reported only: AgicMicro (Preqin reports ~CNY 2B; no company release exists).
Corrected on the second pass: Etched first came back as press-only; a targeted check found the round announced on Etched's own site and X on August 18.
Blank location resolved from primary sources: Wilzy ($2.0M) shipped from Crunchbase with no location and is New Cairo, Egypt — it belongs in Middle East & Africa, not Rest of World.
Not double-counted: Databricks was deliberately excluded from Week 37 as one day outside that window. It lands here.
Analysis 1 · Overview
Of 178 funded companies this week, 68 (38.2%) were AI, taking $8.59B of the $13.40B total (64.1%). Last week had four rounds above $1B. This week has exactly one. The median AI round was $10.80M, essentially flat against last week's $10.75M, and the top five rounds are 78.5% of all AI dollars, up from 69%. This is a more concentrated week, not a bigger one.
Analysis 2 · Regional (AI dollars only)
- United States — $7.38B (85.9%) · 34 cos. Databricks alone is 68% of the US total; add Etched and Groq and it is 82%. The highest US share we have recorded, and it will revert.
- China — $690.8M (8.0%) · 11 cos. AgicMicro ($296.6M) and Elu.AI ($148.3M) are 64% of it. A real step up from last week's $108M.
- Europe — $270.2M (3.1%) · 8 cos. Gravis Robotics ($200M, Zürich) is 74% of the region.
- Asia-Pacific (ex-China) — $131.6M (1.5%) · 11 cos. No round above $40M. Last week this was 26.7% on two one-off rounds; both are gone and it has reverted.
- Middle East & Africa — $20.0M (0.2%) · 2 cos. Includes Wilzy, placed in Egypt from primary sources after shipping with no location.
- Latin America — $0 (0%) · 0 cos. Latin American companies were funded this week; none is AI.
- Rest of World — $98.7M (1.1%) · 2 cos, both Canadian, led by Veeda AI ($90M, Toronto).
The United States is 85.9% of the week, so the six other slices are thin by design. The list above carries the real numbers; the chart is there for the shape.
Analysis 3 · Top 5 AI rounds
1. Databricks — $5B
Private equity · San Francisco · $190B valuation
The platform companies use to store their data and build AI on top of it. This single round is more than half of all AI money raised in the world this week.
2. Etched — $700M
Series D · San Jose · $21B valuation
Builds a chip that does exactly one thing: run transformer models, the architecture behind essentially every modern AI. The bet is that a chip designed for one job beats a general-purpose graphics card. Led by Jane Street, who took delivery of the first rack.
3. Higgsfield — $400M
Series B · San Francisco · $5.4B valuation
AI tools for making and editing images and video. Valuation roughly quadrupled, with annualized revenue reported at $700M. Led by DST Global.
⚑ Most show-friendly — the only one in the top five your audience actually touches.
4. Groq — $350M
Series A · San Jose · $3.5B valuation
Chips and cloud built specifically for running models rather than training them. Led by Disruptive, with Nvidia expected to participate.
5. AgicMicro — $296.6M
Series B · Beijing · reported
Low-power AI chips for small devices — translation pens, learning tablets — plus cloud-gaming acceleration. Reported by Preqin from Chinese state-linked funds; there is no company announcement.
Also notable: Wispr Flow $280M (voice-to-text writing) · Gravis Robotics $200M (retrofits excavators to run themselves) · Elu.AI $148.3M · Velaura AI $110M · Rillet $100M (AI accounting).
Analysis 4 · Trends
- Three of the top five are chip companies. Etched, Groq, AgicMicro. Last week the story was that the top five weren't chatbots. This week they aren't even software — they're the silicon underneath it.
- One check carried the week. Take Databricks out of both sides and AI's share of all venture funding falls from 64.1% to about 43%, and the week is smaller than last week.
- Seed is where the volume is. 28 of 68 AI rounds were seed and another 13 were Series A — 60% of the week's AI rounds at the earliest two stages, at a $10.8M median. Many new companies, small cheques.
- Asia-Pacific was a mirage last week. 26.7% of global AI dollars on the back of two rounds, now 1.5%. In that region, watch the company count, not the total.
- Concentration is rising. Top five went from 69% to 78.5% of AI dollars in a week where the median round did not move.