41% of VC Dollars Deployed In 2025 Have Gone To 10 Startups - 8 Are AI

While AI has undoubtedly triggered a 'happy days are here again' vibe in the venture and tech investing universe, there are elements of it that are giving some observers pause. 

The primary issue is concentration, specifically on AI firms and within that, just a few of them. This is a big boys' game. The primary source of investor monetization is driven by the biggest eating the bigger who have already eaten the merely big. The potentially excessive focus on one technology requiring vast sums of capital and - as well as possibly unsustainable demands for content and energy - in addition to a number of other questions and challenges all at the top of the already crowded tech food chain, seems to be begging for a correction. The airy dismissal of doubters and skeptics by the AI lotus eaters is eerily reminiscent of the dotcom era's 'they just don't get it' social police. But hey, it may all work out as the cheerleaders are claiming. Or it may not. Worth pondering. JL 

Rosie Bradbury and Jacob Robbins report in Pitchbook:

So far this year, 41% of all VC dollars allocated in the US have gone to just 10 companies—a 75% increase from the share awarded to the top 10 companies in 2024 and a greater share than any year in the last decade. The top 10 startups by capital raised, eight of which are AI companies, have secured $81.3 billion in 2025. In total, VCs have invested $197.2 billion in capital this year. Blue-chip VCs have coalesced around a handful of AI companies that they expect to win big. “Markets are way more winner-take-all than they’ve ever been before, but FOMO is a terrible way to invest."

VC dollars are pouring into the hottest AI companies at such a clip it would make even Adam Neumann nervous.

So far this year, 41% of all VC dollars allocated in the US have gone to just 10 companies—a 75% increase from the share awarded to the top 10 companies in 2024 and a greater share than any year in the last decade.

 

The top 10 startups by capital raised, eight of which are AI companies, have secured $81.3 billion in 2025. In total, VCs have invested $197.2 billion in capital this year.

OpenAI alone raised $40 billion, the largest single financing event in the VC industry’s history. xAI and Anthropic took silver and bronze, having raised a collective $20 billion.

Capital naturally concentrates in top-performing companies due to the power law—the idea that one big win can offset many failed bets.

But, when taken to an extreme, it can reduce diversification and participation in the asset class.

“Markets are way more winner-take-all than they’ve ever been before,” said Brandon Gleklen, a principal at Battery Ventures. “I think as a result, you’re seeing more investors say, ‘Hey, if I am not in the winner, then yeah, I shouldn’t be in the game to bein with.’”

Blue-chip VCs have coalesced around a handful of AI companies that they expect to win big. However, should several of these companies fall short of their vaulted valuations, the follow-on effects for LPs could be severe for those with concentrated positions.

“It’s a very dangerous thing,” said Anna Barber, partner at M13. “Where there’s a lot of consensus and massive amounts of agreement, it’s so much harder to invest a stake in a good position.”

And another downstream effect of the capital concentration is a more competitive landscape where investors find themselves furiously trying to still back winners in the AI horse race.

“FOMO is a terrible way to invest,” said Jane Alexander, partner at CapitalG. “You don’t want people to be throwing term sheets after two weeks, that’s bad for the company and bad for investors who may really not understand the business they’re backing.”

And with capital getting increasingly concentrated, some say it suggests a changing attitude within the VC landscape.

“I think if you’re in venture and you wake up every morning saying I want to pile into the same 10 companies as everyone else, I just think that’s fundamentally unambitious,” Gleklen said. “It feels like venture has changed to consensus ideas and who has access. That just doesn’t excite me.”