UK AI Funding Reaches Record £4.56BN in “Landmark” Quarter

Elizabeth Greenberg

17 July 2026, 11.25am

“Q2 was a landmark quarter for UK AI investment,” managing director of Beauhurst Insights, Henry Whorwood, said.

AI firms in the UK raised a record £4.56 billion in equity funding in the second quarter fo 2026, accounting for 57% of all equity investment in the country, according to new data from Beauhurst.

Acorss the 1,070 equity deals in all UK sectors, AI fundraising rounds accounted for 269. Quarter 2 saw UK businesses raising £8.01 billion in equity funding overall.

The record £4.56 billion for AI was a 4.1% increase on the previous quarter (£4.38bn), and represents 186.8% increase year on year.

2026’s Q2 therefore represents the strongest quarter yet for UK AI investment.

Looking closer at the data, it appears that a small number of large fundraising amounts accounted for the majority of the money invested in UK AI firms. It took eight rounds of over £100 million each to make up nearly 80% of the total AI investment of the second quarter. These large funding rounds invovled Isomorphic Labs, NScale, Fractile, Ineffable Intelligence, and PhysicsX.

Within AI, life sciences and health attracted the most invesmtent, raising £1.52bn over 36 deals.

Infrastructure, chips, and compute – the bedrock of AI – garnered £986 million in Q2, followed by enterprise software, data, and automation with £834m.

Financial servies, payments, and regulation tech had the most deals in the second quarter, with 64.

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“Q2 was a landmark quarter for UK AI investment. What stands out is not just the scale of capital going into AI, but the breadth of the companies raising,” managing director of Beauhurst Insights, Henry Whorwood, said.

“The UK is attracting major investment across life sciences, AI infrastructure, financial services, advanced engineering and enterprise software. AI is now a major driver of the UK private-company market.

“The headline figure is already a record, but it is unlikely to be the final number. Unannounced fundraising deals often come to light in the weeks and months after a quarter closes, so we expect the Q2 picture to continue developing.”