Familiar Names Top Active US Investor Ranks In Q2

It seems like everyone is talking about hot AI startups these days. But when it comes to funding them, a handful of well-established venture investors are still doing the largest share of check-writing.

Per Crunchbase data, General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz stood out among the most active U.S. venture and lead venture investors in the second quarter. The highest-spending investors, meanwhile, appear to be those who co-led Anthropic’s massive financing.

To get a more expanded sense of how busy startup backers spent their quarter, we put together several rankings for active investors. These include active venture backers, lead investors, highest spenders and prolific seed dealmakers.

Active venture investors

We’ll start with the most active post-seed investors. By this metric 1, the standouts for Q2 were General Catalyst, Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz, with 39, 34 and 28 deals, respectively. Of those, more than two-thirds were for AI-focused startups, per Crunchbase data.

All are names that repeatedly show up high in active investor rankings. Y Combinator in particular regularly comes up near the top as it habitually makes nonlead follow-on investments in startups that participated in its accelerator program.

Below, we ranked the 19 most active investors for Q2:

Most active lead investors

When we narrow the ranks to only lead investors in venture rounds, the lineup changes some, but not dramatically.

By this metric, Andreessen Horowitz comes in first with 17 deals. Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst are tied for second, with 13 led or co-led rounds each.

Overall, at least 12 investors led or co-led six or more venture rounds in Q2. We rank them below.

Highest-spending post-seed investors

Of course, the investors with the largest number of lead deals aren’t necessarily the ones who put the most capital to work.

To get a sense of the highest-spending startup investors for Q2, we look at who led or co-led rounds with the largest aggregate value. It’s not an exact tally, as investors rarely disclose their share of a particular round syndicate. However, it does give a sense of who has been writing seriously large checks.

For Q2, the top slots in this spendy investor ranking were dominated by Anthropic backers. This included 10 co-lead investors in Anthropic’s $50 billion May Series H, as well as Google, which led a $10 billion separate tranche, and Amazon, which led a $5 billion tranche.

Overall, there were 23 investors who led or co-led U.S. venture rounds valued at $2 billion or more in Q2. We rank them below.

Active seed investors

Among seed investors, the usual front-runner, Y Combinator, retained the top slot in Q2. The famed accelerator backed at least 225 seed, pre-seed or convertible note rounds for newly formed startups during the quarter.

Antler was a distant second in the ranks, followed by LvlUp Ventures. Below, we rank the 20 most active seed-stage investors in Q2:

No slowdown

Overall, the active investor ranks paint an image of a startup funding scene still in high gear. All the elements are there: big deals, high round counts and vibrant activity across stages.

We’ll see if it keeps up in Q3.

Illustration: Dom Guzman