Key themes for Monday, August 10, 2026:
- Record $510 billion for the half-year — the venture market is rewriting historical highs, but capital is concentrating in a narrow circle of mega-deals.
- Energy for AI — a new megatrend — billion-dollar rounds for Valar Atomics and Base Power demonstrate that "electricity for data centers" has become a stand-alone investment class.
- IPO parade continues — this week, the listing of Robinhood Ventures is expected, and Moonshot AI is preparing for a public offering in Hong Kong for approximately $3 billion.
- Record exits — in the second quarter, 32 companies went public with valuations above $1 billion, and another 24 were acquired for a total of $113 billion.
- Investor selectivity is growing — money is flowing into projects with technological barriers and clear economics, rather than into "wrappers" over other models.
- Russia and CIS — the local market is aiming for a growth rate of 10–15% by the end of the year, and on August 13, the "Venture Landscape" forum will be held in Moscow.
Record half-year: $510 billion and unprecedented capital concentration
The first half of 2026 has become the best in the history of the venture industry. According to analysts, startups around the world raised $510 billion: $305 billion in the first quarter and an additional $205 billion in the second — the second largest quarter on record. AI companies accounted for over 70% of global funding in the second quarter, compared to roughly 50% a year earlier.
At the same time, the market demonstrates extreme concentration: OpenAI and Anthropic accounted for a combined $217 billion, or 43% of all venture dollars for the half-year, and after a massive second-quarter round, Anthropic surpassed SpaceX in the ranking of the most valuable private companies globally. July confirmed the trend, with around $65 billion in global investments, double that of a year earlier. For venture funds, this signifies a dual reality: while overall figures are record-breaking, the number of deals is growing much slower, and competition for quality projects outside the "magnetic field" of mega-rounds is intensifying.
Energy for AI: nuclear reactors and batteries attract billions
The main investment theme in recent days has been energy infrastructure for artificial intelligence. The electricity shortage for data centers has transformed from an engineering problem into a self-contained venture sector with billion-dollar checks.
- Valar Atomics — a small nuclear reactor startup raised $1 billion in a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital, complemented by a $200 million credit line from a syndicate led by JPMorgan. The company has already demonstrated a reactor powering an NVIDIA AI supercomputer and is building a "waterless" power plant with a capacity of 30 MW for computations.
- Base Power — a Texas-based developer of home energy storage closed a Series D round at $1 billion with a valuation of $13 billion, featuring Ribbit Capital, Valor Equity, and a strategic division of JPMorgan.
- Joulent — a Houston-based company raised $1.75 billion in strategic funding for energy infrastructure aimed at compute-intensive industries.
It is noteworthy that these deals involve not only traditional venture funds but also banks, sovereign funds, and corporations. For investors, the "picks and shovels" of the AI era — chips, cooling, electricity generation, and storage — are becoming a way to bet on industry growth without overpaying for the valuations of the AI labs themselves.
AI infrastructure and agent platforms: where large checks are going
Aside from energy, capital continues to flow into the infrastructure layer of artificial intelligence. Fireworks AI, which helps corporations transform general models into specialized systems, raised $1.5 billion in a Series D round. Together AI closed a Series C round at $800 million led by Aramco Ventures with participation from Nvidia and General Catalyst. Safe Superintelligence, founded by Ilya Sutskever, received about $5 billion supported by Nvidia, while Travis Kalanick's startup Atoms in the field of "physical AI" raised $1.7 billion from Andreessen Horowitz.
The second notable cluster consists of agent platforms and their security. HappyRobot is attracting tens of millions for automating multi-step business processes, Convex closed a Series B round at $57 million for databases for "AI-written" code, and Zenity secured $125 million for protecting corporate AI agents. London-based OLIX Computing, which specializes in photonic chips for inference, raised $312 million at a valuation of $3.3 billion, confirming that Europe can cultivate deep tech champions.
The IPO pipeline: from Robinhood Fund to Moonshot AI
The primary market for public offerings is experiencing its best period in years. Since the beginning of the year, more than a hundred IPOs have been conducted, and the amount raised exceeded $34 billion by the end of May — a 164% increase compared to the previous year. In the second quarter, 32 companies went public with valuations above $1 billion — a historical record.
The coming week promises several significant events:
- Robinhood Ventures — a fund giving retail investors access to private companies, including a portfolio connected to Y Combinator, will list on the NYSE on August 13 under the ticker RVII, supported by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JPMorgan.
- Moonshot AI — the Chinese developer of the Kimi models is preparing a confidential IPO filing in Hong Kong to raise approximately $3 billion.
- Anthropic — the company is reported to have confidentially filed for a listing after achieving a valuation of $965 billion.
- SpaceX — a possible listing is under discussion for the second half of 2026 with a potential valuation of up to $1.5 trillion as approximately 70% of its revenue is already generated by Starlink.
For venture funds, the open exit window is a critical signal: in the second quarter, 24 portfolio companies were sold to strategics for prices starting at $1 billion, totaling $113 billion. The return of capital to partners is igniting a new fundraising cycle.
Selectivity as the new norm: what investors require
Beneath the facade of record figures lies a tightening selection process. Rounds exceeding $100 million account for nearly four-fifths of all AI funding, while early-stage companies are facing more demanding investors. Funds are increasingly requiring:
- verified revenue and paid pilots instead of product demonstrations;
- technological barriers — proprietary data, hardware solutions, regulatory approvals;
- clear unit economics considering the actual cost of computing;
- protected distribution channels that competitors cannot purchase.
Universal chatbots and thin overlays on others' models have almost lost access to capital. Vertical solutions for healthcare, logistics, finance, and industry are winning — where AI addresses the costly and measurable problems of clients.
Industry diversification: not just artificial intelligence
Although AI dominates the statistics, venture capital is broadening its scope. Function Health raised $450 million for preventive medicine, strengthening the healthtech sector’s position. Defense technologies remain on the rise: Anduril is preparing for one of the most anticipated IPOs of the year amidst record defense budgets. Quantum computing gained a public benchmark following the June listing of Quantinuum, which attracted $1.68 billion. In Europe, long-cycle energy storage, semiconductors, and industrial software consistently raise rounds in the tens of millions of dollars, confirming that deep technologies have become a full alternative to purely software bets.
Russia and CIS: betting on recovery in the second half of the year
The Russian venture market is at the low point of the cycle and is hoping for a turnaround. After a 40% drop in the number of deals in 2025 — down to 102 transactions totalling around $159 million — market participants forecast a growth of 10–15% by the end of 2026, reaching approximately 17 billion rubles. Ongoing factors include high key interest rates and the current situation on the currency market; however, anticipated easing of monetary conditions towards the end of the year could revive deals.
Driving the recovery are both private and government funds, while the activity of business angels and corporate venture remains limited. An important event this week will be the fifth "Venture Landscape" forum, which will take place on August 13 in Moscow's Lomonosov cluster: investors, development institutions, and tech entrepreneurs will discuss the state of the market, approaches to company valuation, and requirements for projects seeking funding.
Outlook for investors: how to operate in an overheated market
On Monday, August 10, 2026, the venture market greets a phase of record, yet uneven growth. For funds and private investors, the agenda for the coming months appears as follows. Firstly, energy infrastructure for AI is becoming a distinct investment class where venture capital, bank lending, and government interest converge — this segment is just beginning to form valuations. Secondly, the open IPO window requires managers to actively work with their portfolios: companies ready for publicity receive a premium, while funds gain the long-awaited liquidity. Thirdly, capital concentration in mega-rounds creates opportunities at early stages, where competition for deals is lower, and founder discipline is higher than at the peak of previous cycles.
The main risk remains the same — overheating of valuations in the upper segment of AI. However, record exits, actual corporate revenues of AI companies, and the influx of institutional money distinguish the current rise from speculative bubbles of the past. The market rewards those who combine a risk appetite with strict selection — and this formula will define the winners of the 2026 venture cycle.
