Andreessen Horowitz tops the Strebulaev-Jackson AI venture ranking

Venture capital has a new scoreboard, and Andreessen Horowitz is sitting comfortably at the top of it. The 2026 Strebulaev-Jackson AI Venture Ranking puts a16z in first place among US venture firms investing in artificial intelligence, with a score of 22,509 points. Second place is not especially close. The leaderboard The ranking comes from Stanford GSB professor Ilya Strebulaev and co-author Blake Jackson. It looks only at US-based AI investments, which makes it a narrower lens than the usual “who’s the best VC” debate. Lightspeed Venture Partners took second with 14,422 points. Menlo Ventures landed third at 13,464 points. Do the subtraction and a16z leads Lightspeed by 8,087 points. Lightspeed’s lead over Menlo, meanwhile, is just 958 points. The AI ranking was published on Strebulaev’s Substack on October 17 and formally announced on X on October 20, 2026. It draws on data running through August 31, 2026. How the scoring works The model weighs the value created by a firm’s investments after adjusting for costs and influence. It also factors in investment dilution and the strategic role a firm played inside its portfolio companies. The underlying dataset is large. The rankings ...