AI investments surged 62% to $110B in 2024 while startup funding overall declined 12%
Venture capitalists are gobbling up term sheets for startups peddling artificial intelligence, but they’re remaining picky when it comes to funding the wider spectrum of technology.
According to new figures from analytics firm Dealroom, AI startups raised $110 billion last year, 62% more than the year before. At the same time, privately-backed companies (startups and scale-ups) across the technology spectrum raised $227 billion in 2024, down 12% from 2023.
Yoram Wijngaarde, the founder of Dealroom, has been analyzing and advising in the tech industry for decades. Although marketplaces had a barnstorming moment in the late 1990s and early 2000s in terms of investor attention, nothing has come close to the impact AI has had on investing in terms of activity and value. “This is the biggest wave ever by absolute amounts invested,” he said. “There’s never been anything like it.”
Part of the reason for that, it seems, is the fact that there is a wider ecosystem being touched by AI, covering hardware and infrastructure, applications, foundational models and more.