Best VCs Ranked by Performance in the AI Ecosystem

As markets prepare for a wave of large AI IPOs in 2026 and 2027, we assessed which venture capital firms are best positioned to capture value from AI exits. Major firms have pursued distinct strategies. Thrive Capital has concentrated on foundational infrastructure potential, Lightspeed and Andreessen Horowitz have pushed across both infrastructure and the application layer, while Sequoia Capital has prioritized leaders in the AI application layer.

One pattern clearly separates the top performers: conviction. Thrive invested aggressively across major OpenAI rounds at a time when many large VCs were skeptical of OpenAI’s valuation, nonprofit structure, and capital intensity. That early and sustained conviction has proven decisive.

A similar dynamic played out at Anthropic. Both Spark Capital and Menlo Ventures secured meaningful ownership before Anthropic had a leading product in the market, reflecting strong pre-product conviction rather than reactive positioning.

We also see a pronounced concentration of value accruing to leading foundation model providers, disproportionately amplifying both absolute and relative returns for VCs that led their early rounds.

In this ranking we prioritize:

• Involvement in high-value AI startups (ARR and valuation metrics)
• Value created per dollar invested
• Early conviction
• Ownership quality

Dynamic intelligence provides risk inference infrastructure to global financial institutions, and our proprietary capital markets risk data are accessible to partners, including large LPs in both the U.S. and Europe. This public ranking is intended to offer additional insight into private capital markets, complementing academic and industry works, including that of Ilya Strebulaev at Stanford University and Peter Walker at Carta.