OpenAI and Anthropic continue to lead a fundraising bonanza in artificial intelligence, raising historic rounds and stratospheric valuations. But when it comes to finding AI exits for venture firms, the market looks a lot different. AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of this year, nearly matching the $104.4 billion total for 2024, according to PitchBook. Almost two-thirds of all U.S. venture funding went to AI, up from 49% last year, PitchBook said. The biggest deals follow a familiar theme. OpenAI raised a record $40 billion in March in a round led by SoftBank. Meta poured $14.3 billion into Scale AI in June as part of a way to hire away CEO Alexandr Wang and a few other top staffers. OpenAI rival Anthropic raised $3.5 billion, while Safe Superintelligence, a nascent startup started by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, raised $2 billion. While Meta’s massive investment into Scale AI amounted to a lucrative exit of sorts for early investors, the overarching trend has been a lot more money going in than coming out. In the first half, there were 281 VC-backed exits totaling $36 billion, according to PitchBook. That includes the roughly $700 million acquisition of EvolutionIQ, an AI platform for disability and injury claims management, by CCC Intelligent Solutions, and the public listing of Slide Insurance, which builds AI-powered insurance offerings for homeowners. Slide is valued at about $2.3 billion.

Full report : AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of the year, nearly matching all of 2024.