nCa Report
Venture capital in the first quarter of 2026 delivered one of the most striking — and somewhat paradoxical — periods in the industry’s history. On the surface, it was a boom. Underneath, it was far more uneven.
A record-breaking quarter
Global VC investment more than doubled from $128.6 billion in Q4 2025 to a record $330.9 billion in Q1 2026, fueled by an extraordinary concentration of capital in large megadeals.
Depending on the dataset, total figures range from $297 billion (Crunchbase) to $330.9 billion (KPMG). Either way, a single quarter in 2026 delivered funding volumes that rival or exceed many full-year totals from the past decade.
AI dominates the landscape
The headline numbers were driven overwhelmingly by artificial intelligence. AI shattered records, with $242 billion — 80% of total global venture funding in Q1 — going to companies in the sector. The previous record was set in Q1 2025, when AI accounted for 55% of global venture funding.
Four of the five largest venture rounds ever recorded were closed in Q1 2026, with OpenAI ($122 billion), Anthropic ($30 billion), xAI ($20 billion), and Waymo ($16 billion) collectively raising $188 billion, or nearly 65% of global venture investment in the quarter. This concentration marks a structural shift: instead of broad-based growth, capital is clustering around a handful of frontier technologies and dominant players.
Fewer deals, larger checks
Despite the record funding totals, the number of deals actually declined. Global VC investment rose from 10,097 deals in Q4 2025 to just 8,464 deals in Q1 2026. What changed is ticket size: investors are writing far larger checks, especially at late stages, while becoming more selective overall. In fintech, for instance, funding rose 5% year-over-year but deal counts fell by more than 31% — a microcosm of the broader trend.
Geographic concentration
The boom was also geographically skewed. US-based companies raised $250 billion, or 83% of global venture capital in Q1 — up significantly from 71% in Q1 2025, which was already well above historical averages.
China came in a distant second at $16.1 billion, and the UK at $7.4 billion. In Europe, VC investment rose to a 14-quarter high of $25.7 billion, while Asia climbed to a 12-quarter high of $31.8 billion — healthy by historical standards, but dwarfed by the American AI mega-rounds.
Meanwhile, in Central Asia
While Silicon Valley captured the headlines, a quieter story was unfolding on the other side of the world. Central Asia’s venture capital ecosystem reached a record $320 million in funding in 2025, driven largely by two landmark deals — Higgsfield’s $130 million Series A and Uzum’s $65.5 million round — which together accounted for 61% of total funding.
Strip out those two deals and the picture is more modest, but still encouraging: the adjusted market volume stood at $124.5 million, reflecting steady organic growth of 31% compared to 2024’s $95 million. Kazakhstan led with $71 million and Uzbekistan with $99 million, while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remained nascent at $3 million and $5 million respectively.
The concentration problem familiar from global markets is even more pronounced here. Around 80% of deals in 2025 were under $200,000 — a market still operating overwhelmingly at pre-seed and seed stages. Investor views remain divided on the core bottleneck: some point to a severe shortage of Series A capital, with few funds able to write the $5–10 million checks needed for scaling; others argue capital is available but the pipeline of high-quality founders is lacking.
AI is beginning to make its presence felt even at this scale. In Kazakhstan, venture funding for AI grew from around $14 million to $73 million between 2023 and 2025, representing more than half of total venture investment in the country. Uzbekistan’s venture funding rose to $33.8 million — an 11.3-fold increase from 2022 — with seven new venture funds launched in 2025 alone.
The structural challenge is real. Sustaining growth will require closing an annual capital gap of $0.5 to $1.1 billion and expanding the pipeline of investable startups. Proposed solutions include allowing pension funds to allocate a portion of assets to VC, introducing angel tax incentives, and harmonizing regulations across borders to create a unified market of 80 million-plus people — a region that today remains fragmented by different languages, legal codes, and payment infrastructure.
The takeaway
Q1 2026 was not a typical recovery — globally or regionally. At the top of the market, it was a winner-takes-most surge into AI, with capital flowing disproportionately into late-stage rounds and a small circle of US-based frontier labs. For early-stage startups almost everywhere, the environment remained tough.
Central Asia sits at an interesting inflection point within this global picture. The macro numbers are tiny by comparison — the entire region’s 2025 record roughly equals what one mid-sized US AI startup raised in a single round — but the trajectory is real, the government ambitions are significant, and the organic growth beneath the mega-deals is accelerating. Whether it can close its capital gap and build the founder pipeline to match its ambitions is the question that will define the next few years.
In short: venture capital is back in force globally — but not for everyone, and not everywhere equally. /// nCa, 6 May 2026