It's got all the hype, but does it have all the money? So far this year, no.
As hype continues to swirl around generative AI, the big money--at least in the first quarter of 2024--went not to AI but to healthcare and biotech.

In the first three months of the year, healthcare and biotech accrued $15.7 billion, narrowly beating out AI, according to new data from Crunchbase.

Global funding reached $66 billion in Q1, with healthcare and biotech companies picking up 24 percent of the total. By contrast, AI companies raised $11.4 billion, or 17 percent of the global expenditure. Year-over-year, funding slumped overall in Q1: In the first quarter of 2023, global funding reached $82.1 billion, which is a decline of 20 percent, Crunchbase notes.

Among the notable startups in biotech is San Diego-based Mirador Therapeutics, which raised $400 million in a Series A round in March. The company focuses on developing medicines for people with immune deficiencies. Major deals have continued into the early days of April, according to Fierce Biotech, an industry publication. Diagonal Therapeutics, a developer of antibody therapies, and Alterome Therapeutics, which treats oncological diseases, raised $128 million and $132 million this week, respectively.

Of course, AI is still surging, but largely on the corporate consolidation front: Microsoft "acqui-hired" two co-founders and the majority of staffers at Inflection AI, the developer of a smart assistant chatbot. Amazon, meanwhile, closed its $4 billion funding round in Anthropic, the San Francisco-based developer of large language models and a chatbot named Claude. Meanwhile, the humanoid robot developer Figure, which announced a partnership with OpenAI in February, welcomed $675 million in fresh funding, Crunchbase notes.

There has also been a renewed push to reinvigorate crypto startups, even as former industry kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried reports to prison to serve a 25-year sentence for multiple federal fraud convictions. Paradigm, a crypto venture fund, is raising between $750 million and $850 million for a new fund, Bloomberg reported this week, and investment is up 70 percent from a year ago, according to CrytpoRank, which tracks investments in crypto companies.

The Biggest Venture Funding Category in Q1 Wasn't AI

In Q1 2024, healthcare and biotech surpassed AI in venture funding, with $15.7 billion raised globally compared to AI's $11.4 billion. Funding decreased by 20% year-over-year. Mirador Therapeutics, a biotech startup, secured $400 million in a Series A round. Diagonal Therapeutics and Alterome Therapeutics raised $128 million and $132 million, respectively. Corporate activities included Microsoft 'acqui-hiring' Inflection AI's team, Amazon's $4 billion funding in Anthropic, and Figure's $675 million funding. Crypto startups are gaining traction despite Sam Bankman-Fried's legal issues, with Paradigm raising $750-850 million for a new fund.