Does that still happen today? Anecdotally there has appeared to have been a massive funding crunch for pretty much anything that isn't virtual healthcare or AI since COVID passed, though I'll be the first to admit I'm not in the know on a lot of these things.
My anecdata is the opposite. I know people getting funding for non-AI projects. The most "nontraditional" one I can think of is Nautilus [0].
[0]: https://www.nautilus.quest/