17 US AI startups raise pass $100M for Jan–Feb 2026; mega rounds show investors get big appetite

Seventeen US-based AI startups bin comot funding rounds wey reach $100 million or pass during January–February 2026, continuing the heavy investor interest wey show for 2025. Major disclosed deals include Anthropic’s $30 billion Series G (valuation $380 billion), xAI’s $20 billion Series E, ElevenLabs’ $500 million Series D (valuation $11 billion), Runway’s $315 million Series E (valuation $5.3 billion), Baseten’s $300 million infrastructure round (valuation $5 billion) and Fundamental’s $255 million (valuation $1.4 billion). Funding concentrate for AI infrastructure, enterprise/developer tools, generative media, robotics and healthcare AI. Trends wey dem note: more nine‑figure rounds for earlier stages (seed/Series A), more strategic corporate participation (Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures and other cloud/compute players), and geographic concentration for Silicon Valley with specialised pockets for the Northeast. The surge dey push valuations up and extend runway for compute‑heavy R&D but e raise questions about sustainability and exit-risk if product deployments or revenue no meet expectations. For crypto traders, the money flow signal continued institutional confidence for AI infrastructure and cloud-accelerated stacks — sectors fit support equities and compute/cloud‑adjacent crypto projects and tokens linked to decentralized compute, storage, or AI platforms. Short‑term effects fit include more M&A activity and upbeat risk sentiment for related assets; long-term, higher valuation multiples and talent competition fit create downside risk if monetization no happen.