The Practical AI Showwith Olga Pechnenko and Chris Pearson
Week 32

Weekly AI Funding Report, Week 32

The Biggest Check Wasn't AI

AI funding just went quiet.

Covered on Episode 48 of the Practical AI Show. Source: Crunchbase, AI companies only.

AI funding this week
$2.37B
Share of all venture $
17%
AI companies funded
62
Biggest AI round
$1BSambaNova
Tracked so far
$392.7Bacross 32 weeks

The week in brief

AI raised $2.37B across 62 companies, about 17% of all venture dollars, roughly a third of last week. And SambaNova's $1B is nearly half of that, so outside one AI-chip round the market was still. The twist: the single biggest check of the week, $1.2B, went to Quantum Systems, a German defense-drone company, not AI at all, so it isn't in these numbers. The week belonged to the US: 65% of AI dollars stayed home.

Of 183 funded companies this week, 62 (34%) were AI, taking $2.37B of the $13.8B total raised (17%). Against last week's $6.67B, AI funding fell ~64%. Strip both weeks' mega-rounds and it still slid, $3.87B down to $1.37B. A genuinely quiet AI week, with one AI-chip round doing most of the lifting.

Where the money went

  • United States$1.55B

    Ran the table this week, two of every three AI dollars, led by SambaNova's $1B.

  • China$370M

    A quieter week after leading the dollars last week.

  • Asia-Pacific (ex$China) — $210M

    Lots of small rounds.

  • Europe$160M

    Small checks. (Quantum Systems' $1.2B is NOT counted, defense, not AI.)

  • Rest of world$40M

    · Middle East & Africa: $20M · Latin America: $20M.

The top five AI rounds

  1. SambaNova $1B

    Series F · Palo Alto · $11B valuation · AI chips

    Builds AI chips and systems that run big models fast and on-premise, a direct challenger to Nvidia. JPMorgan just signed on. The week's anchor and 42% of all AI dollars.

  2. Mochi Intelligence $147M

    Seed · United States · embodied AI

    Embodied-AI and humanoid robotics. Remarkable because it's a seed round at $147M, a sign of how hot physical AI is right now.

  3. Prime Intellect $130M

    Series A · United States · $1B valuation · AI agents

    An open, decentralized platform for training AI agents, so companies can build their own instead of renting one. Right on the show's "build your own agent" theme.

  4. dConstruct Robotics $125M

    Series A · United States · robotics

    AI-powered autonomous robots. More physical-AI money landing in the same week.

  5. Norm AI $120M

    Series C · United States · compliance AI

    AI agents that embed legal and compliance reasoning, so companies can automate regulatory checks. The "AI that reads the rules for you" play.

Also notable: TJM Labs $75M (AI innovation studio), LeXiang Intelligence $73.6M (robotics).

  • A cooling week. AI funding was about a third of last week's, one soft week after one inflated one.
  • Physical AI everywhere. Mochi's $147M seed, dConstruct, LeXiang. Robots keep raising.
  • US dominance. 65% of AI dollars stayed home, led by one big chip round.
  • The biggest check wasn't AI. Quantum Systems ($1.2B, defense drones) topped the whole week. Always check what's actually under the "AI" label.
  • Build-your-own-agent is fundable. Prime Intellect and Norm AI both raised to help companies run their own agents.