A Mercury survey of 1,500 US early-stage founders found that startups adopting AI are considerably more likely to raise venture capital than non-adopters. According to the respondents, 31% of AI adopters secured VC funding, compared with 7% among companies not using AI.
Not all funding is equal
That higher fundraising rate does not imply equal access to meaningful capital. Both the survey data and broader market observations indicate that most investment dollars are flowing to a small number of leading AI firms. Notable examples include OpenAI and Anthropic, alongside a handful of other top-tier companies that are raising very large rounds, building their own data centers, and hiring aggressively—effectively drawing talent and capital away from smaller startups.
Why this matters
Previous tech booms have also exhibited winner-takes-most dynamics, but the distribution varied: SaaS tended to spread capital across many companies, and the mobile wave supported dozens of successful players. In contrast, current AI investment appears to be compressing capital into far fewer firms. While the 1,500 founders surveyed represent real startups building real products, the venture market’s allocation of resources treats many of them as background noise compared with the handful of market leaders.
Practical consequences
The concentration of capital enables the largest AI companies to invest in their own infrastructure and secure top talent, creating barriers for smaller teams. Those long-tail startups may get early traction or small rounds, but they face a tougher environment for scaling when the majority of funding and recruiting power is concentrated at the top.
Conclusion
Mercury’s findings show that adopting AI increases a startup’s probability of raising venture capital, yet the overall funding landscape has become more concentrated. Rather than democratizing startup finance, current trends are concentrating capital in a few dominant AI companies, leaving much of the industry’s long tail with limited resources.
