VC data: AI takes 86% of US venture dollars, concentrated in very few companies
ilparone · x · 2026-10-30
True Ventures founder Jon Callaghan argues in "Scarcity vs. Abundance" that AI is not winner-take-all but "many take a lot," along an unpredictable path — which is good for early-stage venture.
Key data: US startups raised $412.7B in H1 2026, more than any full year on record and 15% above 2021; megadeals of $100M+ took 87.5% of those dollars, and AI captured 86% of all venture dollars (82.7% of dollars on just 45% of deal count through September). Over 40% of seed and Series A dollars went to rounds of $100M or more.
His thesis: innovation and capital run on different clocks — we're early in a long-duration innovation cycle while capital behaves like it's a short-term land grab, so expectation timing is out of whack and most of these dollars won't end well. We're in a capital bubble and an innovation boom, with VCs applying a scarcity view to a market defined by abundance.