{"id":11503,"date":"2026-07-10T09:28:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=11503"},"modified":"2026-07-10T09:28:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:28:39","slug":"in-2026-so-far-u-s-vcs-have-deployed-a-412-7-billion-almost-none-of-it-is-trickling-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=11503","title":{"rendered":"In 2026 so far, U.S. VCs have deployed a $412.7 billion. Almost none of it is trickling down."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Venture capital is bigger than it\u2019s ever been\u2014but that doesn\u2019t mean the industry is better than it\u2019s ever been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019ve often written in this newsletter about how venture capital is becoming a hyper-concentrated, seesaw-skewed sector of finance. And no matter how much harping on this I do, the numbers continue to surprise me, as was the case this week when PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association released their 2026 midyear report. Unequivocally, we\u2019ve never seen capital flow like this: In the first half of 2026, U.S. VCs deployed $412.7 billion, a record that surpasses the full<\/em> year of 2025 by 30%.<\/p>\n

If you believe bigger is always better, you probably reckon that sounds dandy. But the under-the-hood numbers are eyebrow-raising (if unsurprising): AI deals constituted 86% of all those venture dollars, and a jarring 91% of capital went to deals of $100 million or more. In short, there\u2019s the bucket filled with the most sought-after companies and the VCs with the most capital to deploy\u2014and then there\u2019s everyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis market is split into two very distinct areas,\u201d said PitchBook director of U.S. venture capital research Kyle Stanford. \u201cThe trends we\u2019re seeing now are going to continue for a long time, because the capital is there for the top companies. The top-line figures show a very strong, but also very concentrated market.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you get closer to the bottom line\u2014for VCs, that\u2019s exits\u2014things look dicier. The overwhelmingly dominant source of exit value and liquidity in 2026 so far has been SpaceX, SpaceX, and more SpaceX. It\u2019s curious because, at the top, the exit value number, $2.2 trillion, does<\/em> look great.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSpaceX accounts for all of the exit value, pretty much,\u201d Stanford said. \u201c$1.7 trillion of that\u2019s the SpaceX IPO. $250 billion of that is xAI, and next quarter, we\u2019ll have another $60 billion going to Cursor, which is also SpaceX. My first sentence of our\u00a0 report was \u2018SpaceX is the center of the universe for VC.\u2019 It\u2019s where everything has gone through.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stanford and I happen to agree: Venture has changed for good. The long timelines and lines to IPOs that may not come for decades are just a feature now, not a temporary state. In this new paradigm, I\u2019m increasingly interested in the plight of the mid-tier success: The decidedly successful, low-level unicorn that 20 years ago would have been catnip to the public markets (think: unicorns that haven\u2019t raised an equity round since 2024 or off-trend stalwarts with IPO ambitions like Strava). Those companies are now in a tough spot, built for a market that doesn\u2019t entirely exist anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are mid-tier companies sitting there, saying \u2018theoretically we could go public in a good year,\u201d said Stanford. \u201cBut right now, you have to fight, narratively and practically. You have to fight for the B-squad of all the investment banks to underwrite your IPO, because everyone\u2019s A-squad is on SpaceX, Anthropic or OpenAI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the two other biggest prospective IPOs of the year (and maybe, well, ever) are still in the pipeline: OpenAI and Anthropic. And there\u2019s a theoretical world where those successful debuts boost the market overall. But with rumors swirling that OpenAI will push to 2027, much is flux. Stanford says that the market, sooner rather than later, demands OpenAI or Anthropic list.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadly, the market needs one of them to go public this year to see what everyone is investing in,\u201d he said. \u201cYou hear tidbits, but I think everyone\u2019s really looking for someone to say: \u2018Here are my books, this is the cost of AI, this is what everyone needs to know.\u2019 Then, you can start to see a recalibration of the market. People will be able to say that it\u2019s too expensive, that things are moving along as expected, or even \u2018wow, this is going to be better business than we even thought.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, if both push back, questions will start to get loud, not just for OpenAI and Anthropic, but for the VCs who\u2019ve funneled capital at historic highs into these companies that, frankly, still have a lot to prove beyond Silicon Valley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

See you Monday,<\/p>\n

Allie Garfinkle
X:<\/strong> @agarfinks
Email:<\/strong> alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com<\/p>\n

Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.<\/p>\n

Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter<\/em>.<\/em> Subscribe here.<\/p>\n

VENTURE CAPITAL<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Ollama<\/b>, an open-source platform for running large language models locally, raised $65 million in Series B funding. <\/span>Theory<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Benchmark<\/b>, <\/span>8VC<\/b>, and others.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>QIZ<\/b> Security<\/b>, a Lewes, Del.- and Ra’anana, Israel-based post-quantum cryptography and quantum-readiness security platform, raised $17 million in seed funding. <\/span>Bessemer<\/b> Venture<\/b> Partners<\/b> and <\/span>Merlin<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and were joined by<\/span> Evolution<\/b> Equity<\/b> Partners<\/b>, <\/span>Qbeat<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Singtel<\/b> Innov8<\/b>, and <\/span>Qino<\/b> Cyber<\/b> Capital<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Aria<\/b>, a Paris, France-based embedded invoice financing platform, raised \u20ac7 million ($8 million) in a Series A extension. <\/span>115K<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>13books<\/b> Capital<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

PRIVATE EQUITY<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>DecisionHR<\/b>, a portfolio company of Coalesce Capital, acquired <\/span>Paymasters<\/b>, a Detroit Lakes, Mich.-based provider of Professional Employer Organization (PEO) and human resources outsourcing solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>PSG Equity <\/b>acquired a majority stake in <\/span>BrightAnalytics<\/b>, a Hooglede, Belgium-based provider of CPM software for CFOs. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

EXITS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>EQT<\/b> agreed to acquire <\/span>Copia<\/b> Power<\/b>, a Dana Point, Calif.-based energy and digital infrastructure company, from <\/span>Carlyle<\/b>. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Serent<\/b> Capital<\/b>, an Austin, Texas-based private equity firm, raised $1.3 billion for its sixth fund focused on software and tech-enabled services companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

PEOPLE<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Greycroft<\/b>, a New York City-based venture capital firm, promoted <\/span>Carley<\/b> Phillips<\/b> to partner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#U.S #VCs #deployed #billion #trickling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venture capital is bigger than it\u2019s ever been\u2014but that doesn\u2019t mean the industry is better than it\u2019s ever been.\u00a0 I\u2019ve often written in this newsletter about how venture capital is… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1056,13028,960,963,13029,599,9169,568],"class_list":["post-11503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-billion","tag-deployed","tag-private-equity","tag-term-sheet","tag-trickling","tag-u-s","tag-vcs","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}