TL;DR
American startups absorbed $174 billion in February — 92% of global VC — with OpenAI mega-rounds skewing the numbers but not explaining them entirely.
MSM Perspective
Forbes calls 2026 'the value creation era' for venture capital, while TechBullion details how AI concentration has made US startup funding a near-monopoly.
X Perspective
AI venture accounts on X debate whether the 92% figure represents genuine American innovation dominance or a single company distorting the global denominator.
US-based startups raised $174 billion in venture capital in February 2026 alone — 92 percent of the global total, according to TechBullion's analysis of PitchBook and Crunchbase data. [1] The concentration is unprecedented. In 2020, the US share of global VC was approximately 50 percent. By 2024 it had climbed to 65 percent. Now it is functionally a monopoly.
The headline number deserves an asterisk the size of OpenAI. Sam Altman's company has raised multiple rounds exceeding $10 billion each since late 2025, and these mega-rounds alone account for a substantial fraction of the monthly total. Strip out OpenAI and the US share drops — but only to approximately 78 percent, still the highest non-distorted figure on record. [1]
AI dominates the funding landscape. Forbes reports that in the first half of 2025, 64 percent of US venture funding went to AI startups. [2] The 2026 figure is higher. Investors are not spreading bets across sectors; they are concentrating capital in a single thesis. The result is a venture market that looks less like a diversified portfolio and more like a leveraged bet on one technology.
For the rest of the world, the math is stark. Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa are splitting 8 percent of global venture capital. The talent follows the money, and the money is in San Francisco.
-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing
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