Global venture funding is setting records, but AI is taking most of the money. OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo together raised $188 billion in Q1 2026, according to Crunchbase, which was about 65% of all global venture investment for the quarter. Crunchbase put Q1 global startup funding at about $300 billion, while TechCrunch reported $297 billion. AI companies took roughly $242 billion, or about 80% of the total, according to Crunchbase's April 1 report. OpenAI announced on March 31 that it had closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation. Crunchbase reported Anthropic's $30 billion Series G at a $380 billion post-money valuation in February. xAI and Waymo added $20 billion and $16 billion rounds in the same quarter. Strip out those mega-rounds and activity outside the frontier AI cluster looked much closer to 2024 and 2025 levels. Around $60 billion still went to non-AI deals in Q1 globally, and TechCrunch reported fintech captured $12 billion across roughly 750 deals while digital health secured $7.4 billion. For non-AI founders, the pressure is specific: a generalist partner now has limited partners asking about AI exposure, which decides which meeting gets booked.