According to data presented by Stocklytics.com, AI startups secured $22.3 billion in Q1, the second-highest quarterly total on record.

VC funding surges, nearly doubling in a year

Despite high interest rates, economic slowdown, stricter regulations on big tech and AI, Trump's tariff policies, and global trade wars, AI continues to outperform nearly every other area of the tech sector, both in market forecast and VC investments.

Huge investments in key companies like Elon Musk's xAI, which is in talks to raise $10 billion, and Figure AI, negotiating $1.5 billion, alongside new AI applications like Meta's AI-powered humanoid division, have sparked an even bigger investor interest. At the same time, investors have shifted focus to practical AI solutions, pressuring startups to accelerate AI development. This perfect storm of events has resulted in one of the strongest first quarters this market has ever seen.

According to Crunchbase data, AI companies raised $22.3 billion in Q1, nearly double the money raised in the first three months of last year. Moreover, this is the second-highest quarterly figure on record, trailing only the $35.7 billion raised in Q4 last year. To put this figure into perspective, it took only 90 days of 2025 for AI startups to raise 70% of the value VC investors poured into this market throughout 2022 and 2023. With this pace of investment, 2025 is on track to outperform a record set in 2024, the best year for AI startup funding so far.  During the twelve months, VC investors poured nearly $90 billion into the market, a record that could be broken as early as this year.

AI funding surpasses IT by 30% and fintech by nearly 3x

AI startup funding is also quite impressive when compared to other sectors that also attract significant VC investments. In Q1, AI startups raised nearly three times more money than fintech startups ($8.5 billion), 30% more than IT startups ($17 billion), and $6 billion less than the biotech sector ($28.8 billion).

With $22.3 billion of fresh capital injected into the AI startup market in Q1 and another $2.5 billion in the three weeks of Q2, the total amount raised by these companies has surged to over $300 billion. Nearly 80% of that value, or $238 billion, was raised in the past four years.

Statistics show US startups lead in total funding, with $205 billion raised to date. Asian AI startups raised only one-quarter of that value, $52.1 billion, while European companies follow with $35.1 billion.

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