AI mega-rounds swallow 81% of Q1 VC as small funds stall

There is a version of the AI funding story where every startup wins, and there is the version Bloomberg reported this week, which is that a handful of very large deals are eating almost everything else. In the first quarter of 2026, global venture deployment hit a record $297 billion, and AI startups captured roughly 81% of that, about $242 billion. As recently as 2022 the AI share sat around 30%.

The most striking single number is OpenAI. Its $122 billion round in Q1 alone accounted for more than 40% of the entire quarter's global venture deployment, which is not a stat you usually get to write about one company. That kind of check is only writable by firms with the balance sheet and LP mandate to put $100 million or more into a single position, and by definition that excludes most of the venture industry.

Which is where the second half of the story lives. Felix Capital, the firm whose earlier bets included Peloton and Deliveroo, set out to raise $600 million for its next fund and is still $150 million short, per the same reporting as picked up by Crypto Briefing. Limited partners want proof of returns from older bets and exposure to top-tier AI names before committing new capital, and a smaller sector-focused fund can credibly offer neither.

The honest caveat is that this is a snapshot of a very unusual quarter, distorted by one enormous transaction, and the reporting does not spell out how much of the OpenAI round is primary capital versus secondary, or which other mid-sized funds have quietly missed target beyond Felix. Take the specifics as reported rather than as settled market structure.

Still, the direction is the part worth watching. If your fund cannot write into an OpenAI-scale round, the LP conversation in 2026 is materially harder than it was two years ago, and founders outside AI are competing for a pool of capital that the reporting describes as shrinking, under tighter terms and with extended fundraising timelines. The near-term winners are the multi-stage megafunds that can play in these rounds; the smaller emerging managers and specialist consumer funds suddenly look like the wrong shape for the moment.