August’s headlines reflected a shift from hype to execution as tech giants and leading startups moved aggressively to scale. Nvidia posted record revenues despite export headwinds, Anthropic secured a $13B round to extend its lead in safety and education, and OpenAI both expanded through the acquisition of Statsig and stumbled with a controversial GPT-5 rollout. Google committed $9B to new U.S. data centers, underscoring the escalating demand for compute capacity.
Financing activity remained elevated, with nearly $20B invested across just over 100 deals. Anthropic’s landmark raise dominated the month, joined by sizable rounds for Cognition, Cohere, Vercel, and FieldAI alongside targeted bets in healthcare, legal, and consumer AI. Although deal volume dipped from early summer peaks, the concentration of capital into a handful of leaders highlighted an industry settling into scaled operations, with investors prioritizing depth over breadth.
Stepmark Partners 