The Practical AI Showwith Olga Pearson and Chris Pearson
Week 49

Weekly AI Funding Report, Week 49

The Giant Is Gone. Europe Takes Almost A Third.

AI raised $3.41B this week, down from $19.62B, and Europe took 31.6% of it. Last week was one reported DeepSeek round. This week’s biggest is Fractile’s reported $771.2M, for a London chip maker.

Covered on Episode 64 of the Practical AI Show. Source: Crunchbase, AI companies only.

AI funding this week
$3.41B
Share of all venture $
40.9%
AI companies funded
66
Biggest AI round
$771.2MFractile (reported)
Tracked so far
$515.5Bacross 49 weeks

The week in brief

Of 185 funded companies this week, 66 (35.7%) were AI, taking $3.41B of the $8.33B total (40.9%). Against Week 48 ($19.62B, 85 companies), AI funding fell 82.6%, but last week was 80.9% one reported DeepSeek round. Without it, AI went from $3.74B to $3.41B, down 8.9%, while total venture fell 48.3% from $16.11B. AI’s share dropped from 61.3% to 40.9%, and 66 AI companies is the fewest since Week 34.

The money was spread wider. The top five took 46.4% of AI dollars, down from 89.4%, and eleven rounds of $100M or more took 68.4%. The typical AI round was $12.0M, down from $13.4M.

Where the money went

  • United States 45.5%
  • Europe 31.6%
  • China 12.8%
  • Rest of world 3.2%
  • Middle East & Africa 3.0%
  • Asia-Pacific (ex-China) 2.8%
  • Latin America 1.0%

  • United States$1.55B

    Down from $2.27B and 45 companies. Applied Compute ($350M) is 22.6% of it, then Serval and Sentra ($150M each), Dulo ($130M) and Traversal ($120M).

  • Europe$1.08B

    Up from $144.5M and 15 companies, and Europe’s largest share of AI dollars since Week 33. Fractile ($771.2M, London, reported) is 71.5% of it, then Laza Medical ($160M, Pfäffikon, Switzerland) and Veridas ($72.8M, Pamplona, Spain).

  • China$435.2M

    Down from $16.48B and seven companies, when DeepSeek’s reported $15.88B was 96.4% of it. Moffett AI ($150.0M, Shenzhen), Lingchuan Technology ($149.7M, Beijing) and Genrobot.ai ($100M, Beijing) are 91.8% of it.

  • Rest of world$108.0M

    Solink ($100M, Ottawa, Canada) is most of it. RWAi ($8.0M) has no location in Crunchbase or its own materials and stays here. Last week was $10.0M.

  • Middle East & Africa$103.5M

    42AI ($62.5M, Tel Aviv), ABA Life ($40.0M, Casablanca, Morocco) and ABR ADS ($1.0M, Istanbul). Up from $34.0M and two companies.

  • Asia-Pacific (ex-China)$96.9M

    Down from $676.4M and 11 companies, when FuriosaAI raised $610.5M. EloElo ($80.0M, Bengaluru) is 82.5% of it, then NanoForge AI ($10.9M, Seoul) and CoverGo ($6.0M, Singapore).

  • Latin America$34.5M

    Rivio ($32.9M) and Revi ($1.5M), both São Paulo. Up from $9.0M and three companies.

The top five AI rounds

  1. Fractile $771.2M

    Series C · London, United Kingdom · reported valuation of about $6.5B · Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint · reported

    Fractile designs chips built to run AI models faster and at lower cost in data centers. It is the largest AI round of the week, 22.6% of AI dollars, and most of Europe’s total.

    Reported, not confirmed by Fractile. Crunchbase’s GBP 577.4M matches share issues in UK filings; The Cap Table reported about $700M.

  2. Applied Compute $350M

    Series not stated · San Francisco · $3.25B valuation · Elad Gil

    Applied Compute builds custom AI models and agents for companies, trained on their own work. The company says it has passed $100M in annual revenue run rate. It is the largest US round of the week.

  3. Laza Medical $160M

    Series B · Pfäffikon, Switzerland · GE HealthCare

    Laza Medical builds an AI-powered robotic imaging system for the cardiac catheterization lab, where heart procedures are done. A device maker, GE HealthCare, led the round.

    The company says “up to $160 million” in structured financing.

  4. Moffett AI $150.0M

    Series C · Shenzhen, China

    Moffett AI designs AI chips for running models in the cloud and on devices. It is the largest AI round in China this week.

    The company says nearly 1 billion yuan; Crunchbase records CNY 1B.

  5. Serval $150M

    Series C · San Francisco · $3B valuation · Sequoia Capital

    Serval uses AI agents to handle a company’s internal IT and service requests, from access to device management. The company says it is its third round in 12 months.

    Tied with Sentra at $150M; Serval announced first.

Also notable: Sentra $150M (data security, New York, tied for fifth) · Lingchuan Technology $149.7M (video and AI chips, Beijing, reported) · Dulo $130M (seed round, AI models for hardware and engineering design, San Francisco, reported) · Traversal $120M (AI that diagnoses software outages, New York, reported) · Solink $100M (AI video intelligence for security cameras, Ottawa) · Genrobot.ai $100M (training data for robots, Beijing, reported).

  • Chip makers took the top of the week. Fractile, Moffett AI and Lingchuan Technology raised $1.07B, 31.4% of AI dollars. PowerLattice, which builds power delivery for AI chips, added $86.0M.
  • Software that runs company operations drew the next tier. Applied Compute, Serval, Sentra and Traversal raised $770M between them, 22.6% of AI dollars.
  • Robots and physical AI kept raising. Dulo ($130M seed), Genrobot.ai ($100M) and Tutor Intelligence ($75M) raised $305M.
  • Europe had its biggest slice since Week 33. $1.08B and 31.6% of AI dollars, up from 0.7% last week. One London chip round is 71.5% of it.
  • Early stage was most of the count. Seed and Series A were 47 of 66 AI rounds and $841.2M, 24.7% of AI dollars.