What are investors looking for in AI startups today?

Aizhan Alisheva, city — Bishkek, Head of Acceleration Programs

Imagine this: if the dot-com revolution of the 90s seemed like a breakthrough, and the marketplaces of the early 2000s represented a new horizon, then the current wave of artificial intelligence is sweeping everything in its path. The investment world has never seen such scale.

According to research by Dealroom, a company that has been analyzing the high-tech market for decades, AI has become the center of gravity for capital, ideas, and expectations. “This is the largest wave in history in terms of absolute investment amounts. Nothing like this has ever existed,” notes Dealroom founder Yoram Wijnngaarde.

According to Dealroom data, in 2024, the total volume of investments in AI exceeded $114 billion.

The leader among countries is, of course, the USA. This result was largely ensured by record funding for the popular ChatGPT application, owned by OpenAI.

In numbers, this looks like this: the total volume of investments in AI in the USA amounted to $80.7 billion.

This is almost half of all venture capital invested in the country in 2024.

An interesting fact: the largest recipient of investments in the AI sector was Databricks — $10 billion. This is significantly more than OpenAI, which many consider to be the leader in the field of artificial intelligence. Last year, $6.6 billion was invested in OpenAI.

If we look at the question of where exactly VCs are investing, a niche analysis was also conducted: the largest share is held by companies engaged in generative AI, which attracted $47.4 billion.

Why such interest? The fact is that AI is not limited to one direction — it affects the entire ecosystem: from hardware and infrastructure to applications and foundational models. And the list of the largest rounds in 2024 confirms this.

The top ten leaders include:

Anthropic — generative AI and large language models.
Waymo — autonomous vehicles.
Anduril — defense technologies.
xAI — applied solutions.
Databricks — data management and processing, especially AI data.
Vantage — data centers and infrastructure.

Each of these cases shows where the gaze of venture funds and strategic investors is directed today: towards companies that are shaping the architecture of the future.

And the same trend is observed in our Central Asian market, as confirmed by the speeches of venture investors from our region at forums held this year:

in Almaty — Central Eurasian Venture Forum, in Bishkek — Central Asian Startup Cup and KIT forums.

What investors are looking for in AI startups

Investment interest in artificial intelligence is currently at a historical peak. But what exactly are investors looking for when considering AI startups?

Having interviewed representatives of venture capital and funds, I identified several key factors:

1. How AI changes the future
Investors look wider than just at the product itself: they want to understand what long-term transformation a startup is capable of launching. It is about how technology affects markets, the economy, and new behavioral models.

2. How AI changes our habits
Previously, this was relevant mainly for B2B, but today B2C projects are gaining weight in the AI ecosystem. Startups that help us communicate, learn, get treated, be entertained, or manage finances using AI are attracting increasing interest.

3. Efficiency and productivity
Technologies that increase labor efficiency and reduce costs receive special attention. Here, startups in the fields of workflow automation, data analysis, and creative industries win out.

4. Customer willingness to pay
The key question for any investor: will people and companies pay for this product? Even the most breakthrough technologies lose value if they do not solve a real user problem.

Which AI directions are particularly attractive

The list of the largest deals in 2024 confirms this shift. New players are appearing on the horizon:

Perplexity AI — a next-generation search engine that is changing the habit of information search.
Runway — generative video, revolutionizing the media and entertainment sector.
Character.AI — a B2C project offering virtual characters for communication and learning.
Higgsfield — a startup simplifying the creation of videos with AI generation.

Trends that investors are watching

— mass application. The wider the circle of users — the greater the interest
— integration into everyday life. From AI assistants to smart applications for health and education.

This is why B2C startups are attracting increasing interest, when just a couple of years ago B2B projects were in favor with investors.

Thus, investors in AI startups are looking not just for a technology, but for an answer to the question: how will this change the world and create value for millions of users?