Where Data Tells the Story
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Chemistry had Mendeleev. AI now has its own periodic table.
I mapped 305 AI startups that raised funding between Feb 2025 and Feb 2026 into 14 categories, encoding five dimensions per element: total funding, startup count, YoY growth, momentum trend, and ecosystem layer.
A few things jumped out:
Foundation Models still eat most of the capital. $80B across just 43 startups, nearly 2x every other category combined. But the growth story is elsewhere.
AI Coding is the fastest-growing category at +320% YoY. Developers are building tools for developers, and VCs are pouring fuel on the fire. AI Agents (+260%) and Vertical SaaS + AI (+250%) aren't far behind.
Vertical AI quietly overtook Horizontal AI in funding for the first time: healthcare, legal, fintech, drug discovery. Domain-specific AI is where the real deployment is happening. The "AI for everything" era is giving way to "AI for this specific thing."
The Emerging & Frontier tier tells you where the next wave is forming. Security & Compliance, Autonomous Robotics, and Voice/Conversational AI: 48 startups, $8.8B, and some of the highest growth rates on the board.