After three years of declining or stagnant venture capital investments, global startup funding increased year over year in 2025, according to data from Crunchbase. Last year was also marked by new startup records: the largest private funding round of all time ($40 billion at OpenAI), the largest private valuation ever recorded (EspaceX(valuation of $800 billion), and the largest venture-backed acquisition on record (Acethe purchase of 32 billion dollars by Google).
Venture and growth capitalists invested $425 billion in more than 24,000 private companies in 2025, according to data from Crunchbase. Funding increased 30% year over year, from $328 billion in 2024.
In total, 2025 was the third highest year of venture funding on record, according to Crunchbase data, behind only the peak years of 2021 And 2022.
Table of contents
Higher valuations, billion-dollar funding rounds
Year-over-year funding growth was concentrated in the largest rounds and in the AI sector, according to Crunchbase data. OpenAI, Evolving AI, Anthropic, Prometheus Project And xAI each raised more than $5 billion in 2025. These five companies alone raised $84 billion, or 20% of venture capital funding in 2025 – an unprecedented amount for the largest fundings in a given year.
Therefore, The Unicorn Crunchbase board value approached $7.5 trillion by the end of 2025, an increase of more than $2 trillion from the close of 2024. This rise was fueled largely by the most valuable private companies, including SpaceX (with a valuation of $800 billion), OpenAI ($500 billion), ByteDance ($480 billion) and Anthropic ($183 billion). This added value was much higher than that of 2024, with an increase of $400 billion at the end of the year.
Venture capital gains in the United States
Last year was the second highest year on record for startup funding in the United States, with capital concentrated in the largest AI companies.
The United States also gained market share last year. About $274 billion in startup capital was invested in U.S.-based companies in 2025, according to Crunchbase data, representing 64% of global startup funding. This is an increase from 56% of global venture capital investment in 2024. Compare this with the period 2019 to 2023, when the US market accounted for approximately 47-48% of global venture capital.
Industry Analysis
Around 50% of all global venture capital funding in 2025 went to companies active in AI-related fields, making artificial intelligence the largest area of funding, as has been the case for the past three years.
Venture capital funding for AI reached $211 billion, an 85% year-over-year increase from $114 billion in 2024, according to Crunchbase data. Funding for the AI sector in 2025 has exceeded every year over the past decade, including the peak global funding year of 2021.
The second largest industry in 2025 was healthcare and biotechnology, with approximately $71.7 billion in funding, up slightly from 2024 amounts. Financial services was the third largest sector in terms of venture capital investment, receiving $52 billion. This is up from $41 billion in 2024.
Other sectors where funding has gained ground year over year include aerospace, robotics, developer tools, cryptocurrency and defense.
Quarterly funding
Funding totals for the past five quarters have all been higher than previous quarters, driven by an increase in late-stage global funding. Funding in Q4 2025 increased 14% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter, reaching over $113 billion.
Late-stage financing in the fourth quarter totaled $66.5 billion, up slightly quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, according to Crunchbase data. The largest late-stage funding rounds went to automated coding, energy, semiconductor, prediction and image generation companies.
Seed funding reached $37 billion, up 20% quarter-over-quarter and 36% year-over-year. Large seed rounds have gone to companies in automated coding, security, robotics, autonomous driving and blockchain.
Seed funding reached $9.9 billion in the fourth quarter, flat quarter-over-quarter and up 12% year-over-year. Among these larger seed rounds, deals of $20 million and above accounted for just over a quarter of seed funding. (Seed fundings are often added to the Crunchbase dataset after the close of a quarter, and their numbers increase over time.)
Concentration and liquidity
The last year has been marked by the concentration of capital. Among the 10 most valuable private companies, seven raised new financing at significantly higher valuations in 2025.
Nearly 60% of the capital invested went to 629 companies that raised $100 million or more, according to Crunchbase data. More than a third of global funding went to 68 companies that raised $500 million or more in 2025, compared to 24% of funding in 2024.
Meanwhile, global mergers and acquisitions in 2025 were the second highest year on record. For the US M&A market, the number of deals closed in 2025 was the highest – even a notch above 2021 – with cybersecurity company Wiz acquired by Google in the largest M&A deal for a venture-backed company ever.
The IPO market also opened in 2025. While investors are betting more on the most valuable private companies, larger IPOs for venture-backed companies seem more likely in 2026 – another catalyst for venture financing to grow again this year.
Methodology
The data in this report comes directly from Crunchbase and is based on reported data. Data is from January 4, 2026.
It is worth noting that data lags are more pronounced in the early stages of VC activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.
Please note that all financing values are quoted in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the spot rate in effect from the date financing rounds, acquisitions, IPOs, and other financial events are reported. Even though these events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, currency transactions are converted at the historical spot price.
Glossary of financing terms
Seeds and Angels consist of seeds, pre-seeds and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes seed rounds, equity crowdfunding, and convertible notes in amounts of $3 million (USD or converted USD equivalent) or less.
The early stage includes Series A and B rounds, as well as other types of rounds. Crunchbase includes seed rounds, venture projects and other rounds over $3 million, as well as those under $15 million.
Advanced phases include Series C, D, E and subsequent venture capital series of letters following the naming convention “Series (Letter)”. Also included are unknown series rounds, corporate projects and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate funding rounds are only included if a company has raised early-stage equity funding through a venture capital series funding round.
Tech Growth is a private equity round raised by a company that has already raised a venture round. (So basically any round of the previously defined steps.)
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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