AI startup M&A hits 195 deals this year, OpenAI the most active buyer
AI summary
Per Crunchbase data, VC-backed AI companies had made 195 acquisitions of AI startups as of Sept 29, 14% more than all of 2025, though only 12 of the deals disclosed a price. OpenAI is the most active buyer of the past three years with 20 AI-related acquisitions, 10 of them this year, followed by Anthropic and legal-AI startup Legora with five each. The largest disclosed deal was Nscale's $1.65B purchase of Anyscale, ahead of Cyera's $1B deal for Oasis Security and Anthropic's $400M acquisition of Coefficient Bio.
In-depth insight
The wave shows leading AI firms using acquisitions rather than in-house buildout to quickly fill gaps in data, tooling, talent and geography.