PitchBook published its Q2 US VC Valuations report on 10 August. Megadeals took 87.5% of the dollars deployed in the first half of 2026. PitchBook defines those as rounds of $100m or more. AI is the primary driver of that concentration, though the figure describes deal size rather than sector.

The AI premium is real and it shows up in two separate measures. AI companies posted a median valuation step-up of 2.2x this year against 1.6x for non-AI. Separately, AI pre-money valuations run roughly double non-AI at Series A. By Series D and later that comparison reaches 6.6x.

The velocity number is the one to keep

Emily Zheng, a senior research analyst at PitchBook, pointed Fortune at the late-stage figure. Median velocity of value creation at Series D and beyond was $108.9m in 2025. This year it reached $1,028m. That is close to a tenfold rise in twelve months.

“Top AI companies like Anthropic are driving this growth, as its valuation grew 5.3x in just eight months,” Zheng said. Our own reporting has tracked that climb. Median AI pre-money valuation at Series D and later now sits at $3.95bn.

The market is pricing the vintage, not the business

Here is the finding that deserved the headline. On the secondary platform Forge, companies whose last primary round was in 2026 trade at no discount at all. For 2025 the median discount is 4.7%.

Then it falls off a cliff. Companies that last raised in 2021 trade at a median discount of 59.1%. For 2022 it is 54.1%. Two businesses with the same revenue get different prices. The only difference is the year on their last term sheet.

PitchBook explains why. Stale primary rounds lack a fresh reference point, and buyers have limited information rights on most secondary trades. Without a recent price, there is nothing to argue against.

Brex is that discount made real

Now put two numbers from the same report side by side. Capital One bought Brex for $5.2bn. The fintech’s peak valuation was $12.3bn, set during the pandemic. That is a discount of roughly 58%.

PitchBook puts the secondary discount band for 2021 and 2022 vintages at 54% to 59%. The Brex sale landed inside it. What the secondaries market was quoting in theory, an acquirer paid in practice.

It is not all gloom, and the data says so

Flat and down rounds fell to 13.1% of deals, the lowest share since 2022. Median Series A pre-money valuation hit $64m in the second quarter, more than triple the $21m of 2020. Series C jumped 84.5% year on year to $546m.

Acquisitions look genuinely healthier. Deal value reached $375.4bn, a decade high, and the median step-up recovered to 1.9x from 1.2x. Median acquisition size doubled to $200m. ServiceNow paid $7.8bn for Armis, a step-up on its $6.1bn Series E, and Eli Lilly paid $7bn for Kelonia Therapeutics.

The exit market is one company, and it is underwater

SpaceX carried the first half almost single-handedly. It went public, bought xAI for $250bn and announced a $60bn all-stock acquisition of Cursor. Its valuation went from $180bn to $1.8trn in under two years.

The shares have not held. SpaceX priced at $135 and traded around $115 in late July, leaving it down 14.8% from its listing price. Of the ten most notable listings since 2025, only three trade above their IPO price: Cerebras, CoreWeave and Circle. Three of the rest are down more than 50%.

We covered that listings window when it opened. PitchBook’s verdict is blunt. A single record-setting listing is not enough to reopen the market. Venture has yet to receive the exit outcomes its pricing depends on.

945 unicorns and nowhere to go

The active unicorn count hit a record 945 in the second quarter, up 9.4% since the end of 2025. Their aggregate value reached $5.3 trillion. Almost none of it has been realised.

The money funding all this is increasingly not venture money. Nontraditional investors took part in 91.9% of US VC deal value this year. Corporate venture arms were involved in 82.6%. On the secondary platform Hiive, the top 20 startups accounted for 86% of second-quarter value. The top five alone took 50.3%.

Europe is running a different concentration

This is US data and Europe has another shape. UK and European defence-tech startups had raised $12.3bn by late June, almost double the previous year. Those PitchBook figures come via Tech Funding News. German startups took 90% of Europe’s defence tech funding in an earlier period we covered.

Europe also kept minting non-AI unicorns. London’s 9fin reached $1.3bn, Allica Bank $1.2bn and Moneybox about $1.1bn. Budapest’s Ominimo hit $1.6bn with backing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Index Ventures raised $2bn for AI and its co-founder Neil Rimer still warned of a coming redistribution of AI wealth. Accel raised $5bn for late-stage AI in April and another $3.5bn this week. The firms warning about concentration are the firms funding it. The test is simple enough: whether 87.5% holds, and whether the 2021 vintage discount narrows from 59.1%. Both land in PitchBook’s next report.

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