Industry

AI startup funding smashes quarterly record as enterprise adoption accelerates

Investors poured a record sum into AI companies last quarter, with the sharpest growth in agents, robotics and AI infrastructure — and revenue finally following the hype.

By Tom Becker, Industry Reporter — NEW YORK

NEW YORK — Venture funding for artificial-intelligence companies set another quarterly record, according to industry data released Monday, with AI agents, robotics and inference infrastructure drawing the largest rounds.

Unlike earlier waves, investors say, the money is chasing revenue rather than demos: median annualised revenue for AI startups raising growth rounds has tripled year over year as enterprise deployments move from pilots into production.

Sceptics point to concentration risk — a handful of mega-rounds account for much of the total — and to margins still squeezed by compute costs. But even bears concede the demand is no longer speculative: it shows up in cancelled outsourcing contracts and re-organised workflows.

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