Warriors Tickets and Fat Checks: VCs Pony Up to Woo AI Startups

Raising venture capital money has been a breeze for Decagon AI Inc., a two-year-old startup developing artificial intelligence tools for customer service.

All four of Decagon’s funding rounds, totaling more than $230 million, were preempted, meaning firms like Andreessen Horowitz offered to invest before the company started fundraising. Now, just three months after a round that valued it at $1.5 billion, Decagon is fielding unsolicited offers at valuations as high as $5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

For Decagon and a few dozen other top AI startups, the fundraising script has flipped: Instead of pitching venture ...