PitchBook has indicated that venture capital activity in artificial intelligence reached explosive new levels during the first three months of 2026, according to PitchBook’s latest research preview. Total AI-related investments climbed to $255.5 billion in the quarter—surpassing the entire $254.4 billion raised across all of 2025. A handful of massive deals in foundational technology platforms drove the surge, while other segments showed more varied performance.
PitchBook also mentioned that horizontal platforms dominated the landscape, pulling in $197 billion across 396 transactions.
That figure alone exceeded the segment’s full-year 2025 total of $110 billion, marking the sharpest quarterly jump in both absolute and relative terms on record.
In contrast, vertical applications saw 948 deals worth $22 billion, with both volume and capital deployment declining from the prior quarter.
Deal counts in this category have now fallen to their lowest point since 2018, though the capital deployed remained close to early-2022 peaks despite roughly half as many transactions.
Semiconductor investments posted the second-strongest quarter ever at $5 billion across 84 deals, just behind the previous period’s record.
Autonomous machines delivered a historic performance, generating $29 billion across 118 transactions—more than triple the deal value from Q4 2025. A single $16 billion late-stage round for Waymo anchored the segment’s breakout.
On a trailing 12-month basis, the split between segments grew even starker: horizontal platforms captured $299 billion, while vertical applications led in deal count but raised far less capital.
Exit activity also set new benchmarks. SpaceX’s $250 billion acquisition of xAI represented the largest AI-related M&A deal in history, eclipsing the combined value of all such transactions over the previous three years.
Horizontal platforms accounted for 91 percent of disclosed exit value among the top 20 deals despite comprising only about one-third of the count.
Public listings and acquisitions remained active, with Zhipu’s IPO and Marvell’s purchase of Celestial AI ranking among the quarter’s other major liquidity events.
Valuations soared amid the capital concentration. Median pre-money valuations nearly doubled from $30 million in Q4 2025 to $69.9 million.
The venture-growth stage posted the biggest leap, jumping more than 165 percent to $868.4 million.
Early- and late-stage medians also rose sharply, while pre-seed and seed valuations stayed relatively steady. Median deal sizes expanded, and valuation step-ups between rounds reached multi-year highs, especially at the early VC level.
Standout financings underscored the trend. OpenAI closed a $122 billion round, Anthropic raised $30.6 billion, and xAI secured $20 billion—all within horizontal platforms.
Waymo’s $16 billion round led autonomous machines, followed by notable checks for Databricks, Nscale, Rokid, Neura Robotics, and others.
The macro environment introduced some caution.
Geopolitical tensions, including conflict in Iran and disruptions in energy shipping, pushed inflation higher and created uncertainty around Federal Reserve policy.
While rate cuts occurred late last year, persistent price pressures could limit further easing and temper exit momentum.
PitchBook expects continued capital focus on frontier horizontal models, moderating growth in vertical applications, sustained tailwinds for semiconductors, and steady interest in autonomous vehicles and robotics. Overall, the update from PitchBook generally paints a picture of an AI investment ecosystem maturing with larger bets on proven platforms reshaping the funding ecosystem.