AI Sucks Up a Growing Chunk of VC Funding in the U.S.

Thanks to a record-breaking $40-billion funding round announced by OpenAI on March 31, VC-backed companies based in the U.S. raised $80 billion in the first quarter of 2025. That’s the highest total for venture capital investment in the U.S. since Q1 2022 and more than double the amount invested in Q1 2024. While that’s sounds great on paper, VC investment was on track to fall quarter-over-quarter and wouldn’t have looked nearly as impressive without OpenAI’s latest mega round.

Over the past few years, AI-related startups have attracted an increasingly large chunk of VC funding in the U.S., as investors were eager to get in on the ground floor and participate in the artificial intelligence gold rush. According to Crunchbase data analyzed by EY, AI-related investments accounted for 71 percent of VC funding in Q1 2025, up from 45 percent in 2024 and 26 percent the year before. Including the OpenAI deal, there were six AI-driven investments in the top 10 for the quarter. Looking ahead, AI investments will likely continue to dominate the venture capital space, as there’s still an abundance of investment opportunities for VC firms to pick from.

While plenty of investment is still going towards building the foundation for the AI-centric future, e.g. developing and training AI models and building the necessary infrastructure, EY notes that investors are gradually shifting their focus on the application layer as the next step in the AI value chain.