Localogy relays CB Insights' State of Venture Q2 2024 finding that AI startups captured 28% of all VC funding in the quarter, a record high, pulling in $18.3 billion, a 32% jump quarter over quarter, driven by major deals into Elon Musk's xAI, along with Scale and CoreWeave. The average deal size across all of venture rose 17% in 2024 to $14.4 million compared to the 2023 average, signaling investors concentrating capital into fewer, larger bets even as the overall investment climate stayed cautious, a pattern CB Insights summarized by saying AI startups continue to steal the show while the rest of the venture ecosystem stumbles. Exit activity showed the US and Europe each accounting for 39% of global exits, mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs combined, in Q2 2024, with the US share up four percentage points quarter over quarter, indicating exit markets outside the AI funding story were also showing modest signs of life.

Non-AI founders trying to raise capital get a sobering, quantified benchmark for exactly how skewed the funding environment had become by mid-2024, since a record 28% share for AI, up 32% quarter over quarter, makes explicit just how much harder every non-AI pitch had to compete for the remaining capital in the same quarter. The rising average deal size, up 17% even as overall funding stayed cautious, is a useful signal for investors trying to understand market structure rather than just headline totals, since it shows the market was not simply recovering broadly but consolidating around fewer, larger, higher conviction bets. The specific exit market data, US and Europe both at 39% of global exits, gives LPs and GPs a concrete, comparable benchmark for tracking whether liquidity was actually returning to the broader venture ecosystem in mid-2024, separate from and independent of the AI funding story dominating the same quarter's headlines.