Venture capital is bigger than it’s ever been—but that doesn’t mean the industry is better than it’s ever been.
I’ve 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’ve 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 year of 2025 by 30%.
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’s the bucket filled with the most sought-after companies and the VCs with the most capital to deploy—and then there’s everyone else.
“This market is split into two very distinct areas,” said PitchBook director of U.S. venture capital research Kyle Stanford. “The trends we’re 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.”
