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A.I. Companies Shatter Fund-Raising Records, as Boom Accelerates
OpenAI, Anthropic, Waymo and other artificial intelligence companies hauled in $297 billion in funding in the first three months of the year.
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Such large funding rounds are one sign that many investors no longer fear the A.I. boom could turn into an A.I. bust.
Aaron Wojack for The New York Times, Marissa Leshnov for The New York Times, Loren Elliott for The New York Times
By
Erin Griffith
Reporting from San Francisco
April 1, 2026,
2:13 p.m. ET
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OpenAI, Anthropic, Waymo and other artificial intelligence companies shattered fund-raising records in the first three months of the year with a $297 billion haul, according to
data from Crunchbase
, which tracks private investment.
To put that sum into perspective: Last year was already record breaking, with technology start-ups raising $425 billion, up 30 percent from 2024. The first three months of 2026 put the industry on track to almost triple that amount.
The funding was driven by enormous financing rounds for the largest A.I. companies, which made up four of the five largest ever recorded deals. OpenAI
raised $122 billion
, Anthropic
raised
$30 billion, xAI
raised
$20 billion and Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company,
raised
$16 billion. Overall, A.I. deals made up 81 percent of all funding in the first quarter. Crunchbase’s data includes start-ups from around the world.
Such large funding rounds are one sign that many investors no longer fear the four-year-old A.I. boom could turn into an A.I. bust. Market watchers have also been concerned that geopolitical and economic upheaval could hurt the industry’s growth.
So far, those fears have been directed at other tech companies. New products this year from some of the A.I. companies have prompted sell-offs of companies that could be disrupted by cheaper A.I. services. One area that has felt the pain are “software-as-a-service” companies, which are now undergoing what some have called the “
SaaSpocalypse
” as investors fear that A.I. tools may replace their services.
OpenAI and Anthropic are unprofitable and constantly need cash to pay for the chips, energy and infrastructure required to support their power-hungry data centers. Because they are privately held, the companies can raise money only from private investors, including venture capital funds, private equity funds, wealthy individuals, sovereign wealth funds and hedge funds.
Executives from the companies have been flying around the world to ferret out new sources of capital. Venture funds, which historically have written small checks to help companies get off the ground, have raised ever-larger pools of capital from a broadening group of backers
to keep up
.
The opportunity in A.I. is once-in-a-lifetime, many of the companies and their investors have said. One investment fund, Coatue, recently projected that Anthropic, which was founded in 2021 and is valued at $380 billion, would be
worth $2 trillion by 2030
, according to a Coatue presentation that was published by the tech newsletter Newcomer.
Soon, individual investors may get a chance to bet on these companies. Anthropic and OpenAI have made moves to list their shares on the stock market, potentially as soon as this year. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which includes the A.I. venture xAI,
filed confidentially to go public
on Wednesday and is expected to list on the stock market in the next few months.
Erin Griffith covers tech companies, start-ups and the culture of Silicon Valley from San Francisco.
See more on:
Anthropic AI LLC
,
OpenAI
,
SpaceX
,
Waymo
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