Top US Venture Capital Firms 2026

The US venture capital industry enters 2026 riding a powerful AI-driven surge that pushed annual investment to roughly $340 billion in 2025, the second-strongest year on record. After a bruising 2022–2023 downturn, capital has flooded back into startups, but with a sharp twist: dollars are concentrating in fewer, larger deals. Mega-rounds of $500 million or more accounted for nearly half of all deal activity in 2025, and approximately 50% of global venture funding flowed into artificial intelligence companies. The IPO window reopened with 342 US listings generating over $75 billion in proceeds, while landmark debuts from Figma, Klarna, and Rubrik rewarded patient investors. Regulatory tailwinds, including the INVEST Act, a more permissive SEC under Chair Paul Atkins, and the GENIUS Act for stablecoins are broadening the playing field heading into 2026. For founders and limited partners alike, understanding which firms command the most capital, deal flow, and influence has never been more critical.

Below is a detailed guide to ten of the most influential US venture capital firms active in 2026, covering their leadership, fund sizes, portfolio highlights, and recent exits.

Sequoia Capital

Sequoia was founded in 1972 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the firm manages approximately $56 billion in assets under management and invests across stages from seed to growth.

Don Valentine built the firm into the most storied name in venture capital, continues to reinvent itself. After a landmark 2021 restructuring that replaced traditional 10-year fund cycles with an open-ended evergreen structure (The Sequoia Fund, which grew to $19.6 billion by early 2025), the firm executed another major transition in November 2025: co-stewards Alfred Lin and Pat Grady took the helm from Roelof Botha, who distributed $50 billion to LPs during his tenure. In 2023, Sequoia split into three independent entities, Sequoia (US/Europe), HongShan (China), and Peak XV Partners (India/Southeast Asia) — completing the separation by March 2024 to navigate US-China geopolitical tensions.

Key partners: Alfred Lin (co-steward; Airbnb, DoorDash), Pat Grady (co-steward; Snowflake, Zoom, OpenAI), Andrew Reed (Figma), Luciana Lixandru (Europe), Jess Lee, Bogomil Balkansky, Shaun Maguire.

Most recent funds: In October 2025, Sequoia raised $950 million across two vehicles, a $750 million early-stage fund targeting Series A startups and a $200 million seed fund, nearly matching the sizes of similar funds from three years prior.

Notable portfolio companies: Apple, Google, Nvidia, Stripe, SpaceX, Airbnb, DoorDash, Snowflake, Zoom, HubSpot, Nubank, Harvey (legal AI), ElevenLabs, Klarna, Figma, and Vanta. The portfolio includes 132 unicorns and 121 IPOs.

Notable exits: Sequoia's 2025 exit harvest was exceptional. Klarna listed on the NYSE in September 2025 at a $17.4 billion valuation, with Sequoia holding a ~22% stake worth roughly $3.15 billion, Figma went public in July 2025 after Adobe's $20 billion acquisition collapsed, with Sequoia's stake approaching $3.8 billion. Chime raised $864 million in its June 2025 IPO.

Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz was founded in 2009 and based in Menlo Park, California, the firm manages more than $90 billion in assets under management and invests from seed through late-stage rounds.

Universally known as a16z has become the single most aggressive capital deployer in venture capital. In January 2026, the firm closed a staggering $15 billion across six funds, the largest single VC fundraise in history, completed in just three months. This brought total assets under management above $90 billion. The firm's Fund III, which included early bets on Coinbase, Databricks, and GitHub, has become one of the best-performing large VC funds ever.

Key partners: Marc Andreessen (co-founder), Ben Horowitz (co-founder), Chris Dixon (crypto/web3), Martin Casado, Andrew Chen, Katherine Boyle (American Dynamism), Jennifer Li (AI infrastructure), David Ulevitch, Raghu Raghuram (ex-VMware CEO, joined October 2025).

January 2026 fund breakdown: Growth Fund ($6.75B), Other Venture Strategies ($3.0B), AI Apps ($1.7B), AI Infrastructure ($1.7B), American Dynamism II ($1.176B), Bio + Health ($700M). Previously raised $7.2 billion in April 2024.

Notable portfolio companies: a16z is an investor in 10 of the 15 most valuable private companies, including OpenAI, SpaceX, xAI, Databricks, Stripe, Revolut, Waymo, Anduril, and Wiz. The firm holds 44% of all AI unicorn enterprise value and made 172 investments in 2025 alone. Other key positions include Coinbase, Roblox, Robinhood, Samsara, Substack, ElevenLabs, Harvey, and Cursor/Anysphere.

Notable exits: Coinbase generated $7 billion in gross distributions to LPs across multiple a16z funds. Navan went public in October 2025 at a $5.8 billion market cap. Figma IPO'd in July 2025. The aggregate portfolio value of a16z Funds 1–4 stands at $853 billion in total enterprise value.

Founders Fund

Founders Fund was founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the firm manages approximately $17 billion in assets under management and invests from seed through late-stage growth rounds.

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund has cemented its position as the go-to investor for defense technology and frontier science, with deep ties to the current political establishment. The firm closed its largest vehicle ever in April 2025, Founders Fund Growth III at $4.6 billion, oversubscribing against an initial $3 billion target. Partners indicated Growth III would invest approximately $460 million per company across roughly 10 highly concentrated positions.

Key partners: Peter Thiel (co-founder, managing partner), Napoleon Ta, Trae Stephens (co-founder of Anduril), Lauren Gross (COO), Scott Nolan, John Luttig, Delian Asparouhov (co-founder of Varda Space), Matias Van Thienen, Joey Krug, Amin Mirzadegan, Sean Liu. Former partner Keith Rabois departed in early 2024 to rejoin Khosla Ventures.

Notable portfolio companies: SpaceX (first institutional investor ~$350B valuation), Palantir (~$440B market cap in 2025), Anduril Industries ($2.5B Series G in June 2025 at $28B+ valuation, with Founders Fund writing its largest-ever check of ~$1B), Stripe, OpenAI, Ramp ($32B valuation), Neuralink, Cognition AI, Varda Space Industries, General Matter (nuclear fuel startup incubated at the firm), and Crusoe Energy Systems.

Notable exits: Figma IPO'd on NYSE in July 2025 at $33/share and surged above $100 on day one, valuing the company at $60B+. Palantir delivered an 18.5x return and $3.1 billion in distributions. BitGo listed on NYSE in January 2026. Historic exits include Facebook/Meta (first outside investor), Airbnb, and Spotify. Across the portfolio, 28 companies have gone public and 123 have been acquired.

Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The firm manages approximately $16 billion in assets under management and primarily invests at the seed and Series A stages, while also participating in growth rounds.

Vinod Khosla's eponymous firm occupies a unique position as the first venture capital investor in OpenAI, having committed $50 million in 2019 for an approximately 5% stake that is now worth an estimated $8 billion or more, a staggering 160x return on paper. In early 2025, Khosla Ventures began raising roughly $3.5–4 billion across three new vehicles: a ~$1.75 billion ninth flagship fund, a ~$650 million seed fund, and a ~$1.1 billion growth fund — 17% larger than its $3.1 billion 2023 raise.

Key partners: Vinod Khosla (founder; co-founder of Sun Microsystems), Keith Rabois (returned from Founders Fund in February 2024; early investor in DoorDash, Affirm, Stripe), Samir Kaul (co-founder), David Weiden (co-founder), Sven Strohband (AI lead), Peter Buckland (COO).

Notable portfolio companies: OpenAI, DoorDash, Stripe, Block/Square, Affirm, Replit, Speak ($1B valuation), Impossible Foods, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, QuantumScape, Ramp, Rubrik, Rocket Lab, GitLab, Sword Health, and Hermeus. The firm has backed 51 unicorns and made 101 investments in 2025 alone. In October 2024, Khosla raised a $405 million SPV specifically to participate in OpenAI's $6.6 billion round.

Notable exits: DoorDash (IPO 2020, $72B valuation), Instacart (IPO 2023), Block/Square (IPO 2015), Affirm (IPO 2021, $24B valuation), Okta (IPO 2017), GitLab (IPO 2021, $15B market cap), Guardant Health (IPO 2018), Rocket Lab (IPO 2021), and Upstart (IPO 2020). Across 32 IPOs and 151 acquisitions, the firm ranks among the top-performing early-stage investors in history.

Benchmark

Benchmark was founded in 1995 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the firm raises funds typically ranging from approximately $425 to $500 million and focuses primarily on early-stage investments at the Series A stage.

Benchmark has long been Silicon Valley's most disciplined firm, famous for its equal partnership structure (all GPs split fees and carry equally), deliberately small fund sizes, and refusal to chase growth-stage deals. But 2025 tested that model. After departures from Miles Grimshaw (2024), Sarah Tavel (April 2025), and Victor Lazarte (July 2025), the active partnership shrank to just three general partners. This is the smallest in the firm's 30-year history. They have recently added Jack Altman as a GP. Industry observers have questioned whether Benchmark's minimalist approach can survive the AI mega-deal era. Yet the firm's track record remains extraordinary.

Current general partners: Peter Fenton (Twitter, Elastic, New Relic), Eric Vishria (enterprise/infrastructure), Chetan Puttagunta (open source, developer tools). Jack altman (recently joined from Alt capital)

Recent funds: Benchmark Capital Partners XI at approximately $425 million (summer 2024), plus a $170 million Founders' Fund (October 2024), a vehicle composed primarily of current and former partners' personal capital, signaling high conviction.

Notable portfolio companies: Cerebras (AI chip company, Series H), Mercor, HeyGen, Decart AI, and Discord. Historic portfolio includes eBay, Uber, Snap, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, Zillow, MongoDB, Elastic, Zendesk, Asana, and Dropbox.

Notable exits: eBay ($6.7M in 1997 → one of VC's most legendary returns), Uber ($12M in 2011 for 11% → worth $9.4B by 2023), Snap/Snapchat IPO, Twitter IPO, plus public listings for Elastic, MongoDB, Asana, Confluent, Zillow, and Amplitude.

Lightspeed

Lightspeed was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The firm manages over $40 billion in assets under management and invests across stages from seed through opportunity and growth rounds

The firm closed the largest fundraise in its 25-year history in December 2025: over $9 billion across six vehicles. The firm has invested $5.5 billion or more in 165 AI-native companies and positions itself as an "AI investing pioneer" (first AI investment in 2012). With offices spanning 11 global locations, Lightspeed operates one of the broadest geographic footprints among top-tier US firms.

Key partners: Ravi Mhatre (founder), Bejul Somaia, Barry Eggers (co-founder), Arif Janmohamed (AI/enterprise), Gaurav Gupta (AI), Alex Taussig, Mercedes Bent, Anoushka Vaswani, and Bucky Moore.

December 2025 fund breakdown: Fund XV-A ($980M), Fund XV-B ($1.2B), Select VI ($1.8B), Opportunity Fund III ($3.3B), Co-Investment Fund I ($600M), and Single Investor Vehicles ($1.25B). Previous raise: $7.1 billion in 2022.

Notable portfolio companies: Anthropic (largest investor in $3.5B Series E), xAI, Databricks, Mistral (seed investor), Glean, Rubrik (Series A, largest shareholder), Snap (first investor, 2012), Wiz, Anduril, Castelion, Navan (seed investor), Affirm, Netskope, Vinted, and Neko Health.

Notable exits: Rubrik IPO'd in 2024 (Lightspeed is largest shareholder). Snap IPO'd in 2017 at $24B+ valuation, with Lightspeed as the first investor and fourth-largest shareholder. Affirm went public in 2021 at ~$30B market cap. Forty Seven was acquired by Gilead for $4.9 billion. Other IPOs include MuleSoft, Nutanix, and Guardant Health.

General Catalyst

General Catalyst was founded in 2000 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the firm manages approximately $32 billion in assets under management and invests from seed through growth stages, while also building and operating companies alongside its investment activities.

The firm has evolved into something unprecedented: a venture firm that also owns a hospital system, is acquiring a $484 billion asset manager, and operates a wealth management arm. CEO Hemant Taneja describes the firm as a "strategic conglomerate with venture capital at its core." In October 2024, GC raised roughly $8 billion (Fund XII), spanning core VC, a company-creation strategy, and separately managed accounts. Then in December 2025, GC and Trian Fund Management announced a $7.4 billion all-cash acquisition of Janus Henderson Group (NYSE: JHG), the global asset manager with $484 billion in AUM, expected to close mid-2026.

Key leadership: Hemant Taneja (CEO; net worth $3.6B), Joel Cutler (co-founder), Jeannette zu Fürstenberg (Europe, via La Famiglia merger), Neeraj Arora (India, via Venture Highway acquisition).

The health system play: In October 2025, GC's Health Assurance Transformation Company (HATCo) finalized the $515 million acquisition of Summa Health in Akron, Ohio, making General Catalyst the first venture capital firm to own a hospital system. The deal includes $350 million in capital commitments over five years and is funded off GC's balance sheet, outside typical fund return timelines.

Notable portfolio companies: Airbnb, Anduril, Anthropic, Applied Intuition, Canva, Stripe, Snap, Gusto, Ramp, Glean, HubSpot, Mistral AI, Grammarly (received $1B non-dilutive commitment in May 2025), Deliveroo, and CRED. The portfolio contains 90 unicorns.

Notable exits: Airbnb (IPO), Snap (IPO), Samsara (IPO), GitLab (IPO), and Livongo (merged with Teladoc). The firm made 179 investments in 2025, one of the most active deployment paces in the industry.

How 2026 shapes up for venture capital

The US venture capital landscape in 2026 is defined by a central paradox, record capital is flowing into the ecosystem, but it is concentrating in fewer hands and fewer deals. The top firms profiled here collectively manage well over $300 billion and are deploying at unprecedented scale, a16z's $15 billion raise and Lightspeed's $9 billion close arrived within weeks of each other. AI remains the gravitational center, absorbing roughly half of all venture dollars. But important shifts are underway beyond the headline numbers.

Sector diversification is accelerating despite AI dominance. Defense technology (Anduril, Castelion), climate tech ($40.5B invested globally in 2025), crypto ($34B+, double the prior year), and biotech continue to attract serious capital. Regulatory tailwinds from the INVEST Act and SEC reforms are expanding fund structures and easing the path to public markets. The IPO pipeline for 2026 looks robust, with potential blockbuster listings from SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Kraken, Deloitte forecasts $55–65 billion in IPO proceeds, potentially reaching $142 billion if mega-IPOs materialize.

The firms that will define 2026 share a common trait: they are evolving beyond traditional venture models. General Catalyst owns hospitals and is acquiring a global asset manager. Sequoia operates an evergreen fund structure. a16z runs an accelerator, crypto funds, and a defense practice. Tiger Global is returning to concentrated bets after learning the cost of spray-and-pray. Benchmark, continues to prove that discipline and small fund sizes can generate outsized returns. For founders seeking capital and LPs allocating to venture, the firms above represent the center of gravity in American innovation finance.