For decades, a $1 billion round was an event. Today it’s a mid-sized check for the leading AI companies. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, global venture investment reached $297 billion according to Crunchbase — an all-time record — and four companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo) raised $188 billion between them, roughly 65% of the quarter’s total.
For investors, family offices, and finance professionals, understanding how these mega-rounds are built means understanding where private capital is heading. These are the ten largest venture capital deals in history, from OpenAI’s current record to the landmark rounds that defined the previous cycle, like Ant Group and Uber.
Methodology note: the ranking orders companies by the largest amount raised in a single private transaction. We exclude investment funds (like the SoftBank Vision Fund, which we cover separately), IPOs, private placements by mature companies, and pure debt financing. Some transactions, such as Uber’s and Scale AI’s, have hybrid structures and are flagged as such. Figures are in US dollars, current as of September 2026, and drawn from Crunchbase, PitchBook, and company announcements.
The Ranking at a Glance
| # | Company | Amount | Year | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OpenAI | $122B | 2026 | Artificial intelligence |
| 2 | Anthropic | $65B | 2026 | Artificial intelligence |
| 3 | xAI | $20B | 2026 | Artificial intelligence |
| 4 | Waymo | $16B | 2026 | Autonomous driving |
| 5 | Scale AI (Meta) | $14.3B | 2025 | AI data infrastructure |
| 6 | Ant Financial | $14B | 2018 | Fintech |
| 7 | Databricks | $10B | 2024-25 | Data & AI |
| 8 | Uber | ~$9B | 2018 | Mobility |
| 9 | Stripe | $6.5B | 2023 | Payments / fintech |
| 10 | Anduril | $5B | 2026 | Defense technology |
1. OpenAI — $122 Billion (2026)
Key investors: SoftBank (co-lead), Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price, with Amazon ($50B), NVIDIA ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B) as the main anchors · Post-money valuation: $852B
The largest private funding round in history. Closed in March 2026 after opening at $110 billion in February, it was upsized to $122 billion and included more than $3 billion from individual investors through bank distribution channels. It arrived just fourteen months after the $40 billion round of 2025, which had itself shattered every prior record. The capital is directed mainly at infrastructure: custom silicon, data centers, and energy agreements tied to the Stargate program.
Key lesson: when capital funds physical infrastructure — chips, data centers, energy — rounds stop being compared with other startups and start being compared with national infrastructure projects.
2. Anthropic — $65 Billion (2026)
Key investors: Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital · Post-money valuation: $965B
Its Series H, closed in May 2026, is the second-largest round in history and took the company to the highest valuation ever assigned to a private AI company. The climb was dizzying: $380 billion at the February Series G, roughly $800 billion in April offers, and $965 billion at the May close — nearly triple in under four months. According to Reuters, its annualized revenue run rate topped $65 billion in July, versus roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025.
Key lesson: a valuation that triples in four months is only sustainable if revenue keeps pace — and it raises the bar considerably for an eventual public listing.
3. xAI — $20 Billion (2026)
Key investors: Valor Equity Partners, StepStone, Fidelity, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital, with participation from NVIDIA and Cisco · Post-money valuation: $230B
The January 2026 Series E exceeded its initial $15 billion target and funded the expansion of the Colossus supercomputer and the development of Grok. Less than a month later, xAI merged with SpaceX into an entity valued at $1.25 trillion, making it the largest private company ever created at that point.
Key lesson: in tightly integrated corporate ecosystems, a mega-round can be just a stepping stone to an even larger corporate restructuring.
4. Waymo — $16 Billion (2026)
Key investors: Alphabet (majority), Dragoneer, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital · Post-money valuation: $126B
The largest round in autonomous driving history, closed in February 2026, more than doubled the $45 billion valuation of October 2024. In 2025, Waymo surpassed 15 million rides and 400,000 weekly trips across six US cities, and it’s now deploying the capital to open more than twenty new markets, including Tokyo and London.
Key lesson: markets pay for validated physical deployment — real rides, operating cities — not for technology demos.
5. Scale AI (Meta) — $14.3 Billion (2025)
Investor: Meta · Post-money valuation: $29B
This was not a conventional round. Meta acquired a 49% non-voting stake in Scale AI, and most of the money went to existing shareholders rather than the company itself. The real objective was to bring in its founder, Alexandr Wang, in one of Silicon Valley’s largest acqui-hires. The structure preserved Scale’s formal independence, but the reaction was immediate: according to press reports, OpenAI began winding down work with the company, while Google and xAI paused contracts.
Key lesson: the AI talent war has turned acqui-hires into multi-billion-dollar transactions, but a large stake held by a major competitor can destroy the neutrality the business was built on.
6. Ant Financial — $14 Billion (2018)
Key investors: Chinese institutional investors, including the National Social Security Fund, plus an international tranche estimated above $10B · Valuation: around $150B
Until the arrival of generative AI, this June 2018 Series C was the largest venture round in history and the biggest of the entire decade. Ant, spun out of Alibaba in 2014 and operator of Alipay, mobilized capital from domestic and international investors to accelerate its global expansion. Its IPO, planned for 2020, was suspended by Chinese regulators.
Key lesson: at this scale, regulatory and geopolitical risk can outweigh business fundamentals.
7. Databricks — $10 Billion (2024–2025)
Key investors: Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, GIC, Insight Partners, and Meta · Post-money valuation: $62B
Its Series J, announced in December 2024 and closed in January 2025, was the largest round of the year and came alongside a $5.25 billion debt facility. It arrived with more than $3 billion in annualized revenue, growth above 60%, and, for the first time, positive free cash flow. A year later, following a $5 billion Series L in December 2025, the company was valued at $134 billion.
Key lesson: it’s one of the few mega-rounds backed by real recurring revenue and positive cash flow — a rare profile on this list.
8. Uber — About $9 Billion (2018)
Key investors: consortium led by SoftBank, with Dragoneer, Sequoia, and Didi Chuxing
Announced in late 2017 and closed in early 2018, it was one of the largest transactions of the first wave of “unicorns.” It was a hybrid structure: roughly $7.7 billion went toward buying shares from existing investors and employees at a $48 billion valuation — a 30% discount to the prior $68 billion — and about $1.25 billion was new investment at the earlier valuation. SoftBank became the largest shareholder, and the deal accelerated corporate governance changes, including an expanded board and reduced founder control. Uber went public in 2019.
Key lesson: an investor with enough weight can shape a company’s governance, and a mostly secondary transaction can be as consequential as a primary round.
9. Stripe — $6.5 Billion (2023)
Key investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Thrive Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset & Wealth Management, GIC, Temasek, General Catalyst, Baillie Gifford, and MSD Partners · Post-money valuation: $50B
Its Series I was more a financial management move than a growth round: it was raised mainly to provide liquidity to employees and cover tax obligations on equity awards. Stripe accepted a $50 billion valuation, 47% below its peak, reached profitability in 2024 without raising more capital, and, according to CNBC, secondary sales in 2026 pushed its implied valuation above $159 billion.
Key lesson: the strongest negotiating position is not needing the money.
10. Anduril — $5 Billion (2026)
Key investors: Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz · Post-money valuation: $61B
Its May 2026 Series H caps one of the fastest valuation climbs in the defense sector: from $14 billion in 2024 to $61 billion less than two years later, with $2.2 billion in 2025 revenue. The capital funds Arsenal-1, its large-scale production facility, and the development of its Lattice software platform, alongside new contracts with the US Department of Defense.
Key lesson: defense technology is establishing itself as the next major mega-round sector, with capital tied to industrial capacity and visible contracts.
Honorable Mentions: The Megadeals That Defined an Era
SoftBank Vision Fund (2017): $100 billion. Not a round but a fund — which is why it sits outside the ranking — yet it permanently changed the scale of venture capital. Backed by sovereign funds such as Saudi Arabia’s PIF ($45B) and Mubadala ($15B), it bet on Uber, WeWork, ByteDance, Alibaba, DoorDash, and Grab. The pressure to deploy capital quickly led to inflated bets and cumulative losses that exceeded $50 billion across fiscal 2022 and 2023, according to CNBC.
WeWork (2017): $4.4 billion. Its SoftBank-led Series G was the largest venture round of 2017 and the biggest in the company’s history. In 2019 it reached a $47 billion valuation before its IPO collapsed, its founder stepped down, and SoftBank took control. It filed for bankruptcy in 2023. It remains the definitive case study in how narrative and unchecked governance can destroy value even in the presence of abundant capital.
ByteDance (2018): about $3 billion. TikTok’s parent raised around $3 billion at a valuation above $75 billion, with SoftBank and KKR among the investors. It remains one of the most-cited examples of a global company of Chinese origin that scaled under private capital before any public listing.
What the Largest Venture Capital Rounds Have in Common
Artificial Intelligence Dominates the Ranking
Eight of the ten deals in the ranking, and three of the four largest rounds of 2026, are tied to AI or adjacent technologies. According to Crunchbase, AI captured close to 80% of all venture investment in the first quarter of 2026, and according to PitchBook-NVCA, 86% of the $412.7 billion invested in the US in the first half.
Capital Is Increasingly Infrastructure-Intensive
The largest rounds no longer fund only commercial growth: they fund chips, data centers, vehicle fleets, and factories. That tie to physical assets makes them more comparable to infrastructure projects than to traditional venture investments.
Traditional Investors Can No Longer Lead These Rounds
No venture fund has the balance sheet to write $10 billion or $30 billion checks. Mega-rounds are funded by strategic capital (Amazon, NVIDIA, Google, Meta, Alphabet), sovereign wealth funds (PIF, MGX, QIA, Mubadala), and large asset managers, which is redefining who sets the terms of the market.
Revenue vs. Narrative
Databricks and Stripe show the opposite model to WeWork: companies with real revenue and, in Stripe’s case, profitability ahead of their largest round. The difference between the two often becomes visible only when markets stop rewarding narrative.
Concentration and Correction Risk
When more than 80% of a market’s capital flows into a single sector, any shift in sentiment hits nearly the entire portfolio at once. The debate over whether AI is a bubble remains open, with critics warning about concentration and growing reliance on debt financing, and defenders pointing to the real revenues of infrastructure providers.
Why This Matters for Investors and Financial Professionals
Mega-rounds set the reference prices of the private market and shape valuations across the entire ecosystem. For an institutional investor, a family office, or a professional assessing venture capital exposure, these ten deals raise practical questions: at what valuation are you entering? What liquidity route exists — an IPO, a secondary market, tender offers? How much of the return depends on a single sector narrative?
Some of these companies have already gone public or have begun the process of doing so, which will subject their private valuations to a different kind of scrutiny: that of open markets.
At Gala Capital, we follow these transactions closely because they show where capital is flowing and how private markets are being reshaped.
Final Thoughts
The ten largest venture capital rounds in history tell two stories at once. The first is about a technology — artificial intelligence — capable of attracting an unprecedented volume of capital. The second is about an increasingly concentrated market, where the sheer size of the checks has displaced traditional funds.
Cases like Ant, Uber, and WeWork are reminders that in venture capital, the size of a round does not guarantee the outcome. Understanding what separated winners from losers matters as much as knowing the amounts.