In 2024, Crunchbase News interviewed AI startup investors who highlighted the significant growth in AI funding. Venture funding for AI companies reached $99.6 billion by mid-December, an 80% increase from the previous year. A large portion of this funding went to foundation model companies and sectors influenced by these models.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

Citi Ventures, an active corporate venture investor, has found AI to be the most disruptive technology in enterprise investing in the past 20 years. They are one of the investors focusing on AI startups, and this information is part of a series of interviews with AI investors in 2024.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

The Big 5 tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet, invested in 149 startup financings of $1 million or more in 2024, a slight increase from 2023 but still the second-lowest total in the past five years.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

This article highlights five noteworthy startup funding deals that may have been overlooked. The startups are working on diverse projects, including addressing climate change, space exploration, and artificial intelligence-powered beauty enhancements.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

California has seen the largest rise in total startup funding among the biggest states, with a significant increase in investment, while Massachusetts has seen a decline.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

The tech job market is expected to see significant changes in 2025, with a possible rebound in the M&A market and a potential increase in IPOs due to a change in the federal government's administration.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

According to Asymmetric Capital Partners, AI companies with real value will thrive in 2025, while hype-driven companies may fail. Vertical integration plays and buy-and-build strategies are expected to rise, particularly in markets requiring technology streamlining. Limited partners investing in technology are predicted to favor returns-oriented upstarts over asset gatherers. The shift towards capacity-constrained firms marks the beginning of the end for fee-optimized companies.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/

AI cloud infrastructure startup Vultr raises $333 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, led by AMD Ventures and LuminArx Capital Management. The funds will be used to acquire more GPUs to meet the demand for large language models.

Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/sections/ai/