AI startup funding doubled in Q2, Crunchbase data shows

Investors bet $24 billion on AI companies during the second quarter, new Crunchbase data shows, doubling the amount invested in the burgeoning space in the first quarter. AI investments represented 30% of the total dollars invested in the quarter.

AI attracted more investment than all other sectors for the first time since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, Crunchbase finds.

“And there are signs that larger M&A deals increased in Q2, providing much-needed liquidity to venture capital markets,” the report states. Translation: AI companies are getting acquired, providing an immediate payoff to investors. This makes investors very happy.

The $24 billion is the biggest quarterly investment in AI in recent years, even while investors are nervous about the real value AI can create for customers and consumers compared to their sky-high valuations.

Five out of six billion-dollar funding rounds during the quarter went to AI companies. The AI-focused cloud provider CoreWeave raised an additional $1.1 billion, then secured $7.5 million in debt financing. Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, pulled in an additional $6 million. AI data company Scale AI raised a cool billion in May. The British automated driving company Wayve raised just over a billion from Nvidia and others.

Hardware companies raised $11 billion—money needed to support the expanding demand for AI infrastructure and compute power.

Overall global startup funding increased to $79 billion in the second quarter, marking a 16% increase over Q1 and a 12% increase over the same quarter a year ago. Still when you look at the two 2024 quarters together, they amount to $146 billion in investments, a 5% decline from the $154 billion invested in the first two quarters of 2023, Crunchbase says.

Crunchbase says we are “eight to nine quarters” into the current funding decline.

“While this past quarter was amongst the highest for funding since Q1 2023, it is not necessarily a signal of a venture market comeback,” Crunchbase analysts write in the report. “Since 2023, funding has fluctuated quarter by quarter based on an increase in large growth rounds to pre-IPO companies and to companies in the AI sector–this past quarter is no exception.”