Big checks got bigger: Crunchbase says 80% of 2026 US VC is in $500M-plus rounds

Why it matters

For founders outside the megaround tier, the money did not disappear, but it is competing with unprecedented gravity at the top. The path to winning capital now runs through workflow depth, data moats, and focus where AI giants are spread thin.

If you are building without a megacheck, the ground is shifting under your feet. Crunchbase News reports that by April 2026, U.S. venture totals were already on par with all of 2025, and 80% of this year's startup investment has flowed into $500 million-and-up rounds across just 29 companies.

The numbers founders are up against

Crunchbase's data shows capital concentration accelerated in 2025 and is intensifying in 2026. In 2025, 70% of U.S. funding (more than $200 billion) went to 389 companies raising $100 million-plus rounds. A staggering $90 billion of that went to just six companies that each pulled in over $5 billion.

Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 companies split the remaining 30% of U.S. venture in 2025: $88 billion in rounds from $1 million up to less than $100 million. That concentration was even tighter than the last peak in 2021, when 60% of capital went to $100 million-plus rounds. The composition also changed: in 2021, more dollars hit the $100 million to $500 million band across around 770 companies; in 2025, a greater share piled into just 50 companies raising $500 million and above.

One important nuance for early-stage founders: while capital clustered at the top in 2025, sub-$100 million rounds did not collapse. Crunchbase says those dollars ticked up by around $8 billion year over year to roughly the same number of companies, with only $1 million to $10 million rounds slipping less than 10%.

What investors say the shift means

The concentration narrative is inseparable from the AI supercycle and a few breakout platforms. The success of OpenAI and Anthropic (@claudeai) looms over the market. But investors on a Crunchbase News-hosted virtual panel argued that blockbuster raises can expand, not shrink, the opportunity set.

"While Anthropic and OpenAI are absolutely amazing companies, by virtue of the capital they've raised, they are going to have to go after incredibly large markets," said Daniel Docter, managing director at Dell Technologies Capital. "There's just so much white space around that, where really interesting founders and startups can play."

Madison Faulkner, partner at NEA Ventures, echoed the point and pushed founders to attack the giants directly. "This is a moment where I'm extremely excited about betting on seed and Series A, especially in spaces that do compete with Anthropic and OpenAI," she said. "I think they've really struggled to focus at this point in time, and they've been spending so much time trying to win lots of different use cases."

For founders wondering how to defend against platform risk, Nnamdi Okike, co-founder of 645 Ventures, emphasized depth and data. If a startup is "very deeply embedded into a company's workflow, where you're doing many different tasks, not to mention you're assembling a proprietary corpus of data that you can train your models on, we think that can be a sustainable moat over time."

How to play the white space

Put together, the data and the investor lens sketch a playbook for founders operating outside the megaround tier:

• Build deep into a specific workflow where switching costs grow with usage. Depth and embeddedness can offset budget gravity toward platforms.
• Accumulate proprietary data as a byproduct of serving that workflow. If it improves your models and outcomes, it compounds.
• Pick a wedge where mega-players are spread thin. When incumbents chase many use cases, focus wins.

Concentration may continue through 2026, but the dollars going into sub-$100 million rounds did not evaporate last year. The challenge for founders is not the absence of capital; it's telling a sharper story about why your edge persists in a market living under a few very large shadows.