87.5% of venture dollars went to AI. The rest fought over scraps

It’s an AI world and we’re all just living in it. PitchBook released its Q2 2026 U.S. VC Valuations data this week, and the report aligns with the skewed venture market we’ve come to know: Investors are willing to pay up for a few anointed AI companies, and (almost) everything else is a pass or rounding error. For the first half of this year, AI megadeals were where 87.5% of all U.S. venture dollars went. There are valuation step-ups outside AI—it’s just that the AI premium is undeniable. PitchBook says that non-AI companies at the median saw valuation step-ups of 1.6x, whereas for AI that was 2.2x. It’s Series D and later where the gulf gets vast, where for AI that number has become 6.6x. “The Series D+ step-up is clear evidence of how much AI is driving venture valuations,” said Emily Zh