27 AI labs founded since 2021 raised about $54.66B — the top five hold 77% of it

Asked:list all ai labs started in 5 years, include their funding amt, investors,

A best-effort global web scan of independent AI labs founded 2021–2026 (as of 2 Sep 2026) working on foundation, frontier, generative, embodied or AI-for-science models. 27 labs qualified, with roughly $54.66B in combined reported funding. Amounts mix reported cumulative funding and, where no total exists, the latest disclosed round — the chart flags which is which.

Every lab by reported funding, coloured by founding year

◆ marks a lab whose figure is the latest disclosed round only — cumulative funding unavailable. Hover any bar for exact amount, basis and investors.

Where the money landed, by founding year

Findings

The top five labs — xAI, Safe Superintelligence, Anthropic, Thinking Machines and Reflection AI — account for $42.25B, 77% of all reported funding. presenc.ai

2023 is the richest vintage: 8 labs and $24.84B, most of it xAI’s $20.0B. presenc.ai

Three figures are the latest disclosed round, not cumulative totals: Reflection AI ($2.5B), MiniMax ($2.05B) and Decart AI ($300M). forgeglobal.com

Sequoia Capital appears among named investors of 9 of the 27 labs, the most-repeated backer in the scan. aifundingtracker.com

The full shortlist

Lab	Founded	Reported funding	Basis	Named investors	Focus	Sources

Best-effort global web scan, 27 rows, as of 2026-09-02. One row per lab founded 2021–2026 whose core work includes foundation/frontier/generative, embodied/world models or AI-for-science; application wrappers and consultancies excluded. Figures are reported cumulative funding, or the latest disclosed round where no total was available — never valuation. Blank investor or focus fields mean unresolved in this scan, not necessarily undisclosed. Investor lists shortened in the table where long; full names in bar tooltips.

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