Venture Capital Statistics: 50+ VC Funding Data Points for 2026

Venture capital deployed $425 billion into more than 24,000 private companies in 2025, making it the third-largest venture financing year on record behind only the peak years of 2021 and 2022. AI captured the majority of that capital, reshaping who gets funded, at what valuations, and at which stages.

This report compiles 50+ venture capital statistics across global funding, deal activity, AI investment, geographic distribution, fund dynamics, exits, and founder demographics. All figures are cited to their source.

Key Takeaways

1. Global VC investment reached $425 billion in 2025, up 30% year over year from $328 billion in 2024.
2. AI firms accounted for 61% of all global VC investment in 2025, or $258.7 billion.
3. The U.S. remains the dominant VC market, attracting 64% of global startup funding in 2025.
4. Global VC fundraising fell to $118.6 billion in 2025, the lowest level in a decade, even as deal value surged.
5. Female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, capturing 27.7% of total U.S. venture deal value.

Global VC Funding Overview

1. Global venture and growth investors deployed $425 billion into more than 24,000 private companies in 2025. Source: Crunchbase.
2. 2025 global funding grew 30% year over year, up from $328 billion in 2024. Source: Crunchbase.
3. 2025 was the third-highest venture financing year on record, trailing only 2021 and 2022. Source: Crunchbase.
4. Global VC investment reached $126.3 billion in Q1 2025 alone, the highest quarterly total in ten quarters. Source: Konvoy VC citing Alter Domus.
5. Global VC funding accelerated in Q4 2025, reaching approximately $141 billion, a 12% quarter-over-quarter increase. Source: Bain & Company.
6. Q4 2025 was up 14% year over year and 13% quarter over quarter, reaching over $113 billion. Source: Crunchbase.
7. The past five consecutive quarters have each posted higher funding totals than the prior quarter, driven by a surge in late-stage global funding. Source: Crunchbase.
8. More than a third of global 2025 funding went to 68 companies that raised rounds of $500 million or more, compared to 24% of funding in 2024. Source: Crunchbase.
9. The largest private funding round of all time was OpenAI's $40 billion raise in 2025. Source: Crunchbase.
10. The five largest funding recipients in 2025 (OpenAI, Scale AI, Anthropic, Project Prometheus, xAI) collectively raised $84 billion, representing 20% of all global VC in 2025. Source: Crunchbase.

U.S. Venture Capital

1. The U.S. attracted approximately $274 billion in startup capital in 2025, representing 64% of global startup funding. Source: Crunchbase.
2. The U.S. share of global VC rose from 56% in 2024 to 64% in 2025, up from roughly 47-48% between 2019 and 2023. Source: Crunchbase.
3. 2025 was the second-highest year on record for U.S. startup funding, with capital concentrated into the largest AI companies. Source: Crunchbase.
4. In 2024, U.S. VC firms closed 14,320 deals worth $215.4 billion, according to PitchBook-NVCA data. Source: NVCA 2025 Yearbook.
5. A total of 16,707 deals were completed in the U.S. in 2025, up 9.6% year over year. Source: PitchBook via SiliconANGLE.
6. The U.S. VC industry's total assets under management now sits at $1.25 trillion. Source: NVCA 2025 Yearbook.
7. U.S. VC firms had $307.8 billion in dry powder (capital raised but not yet deployed) as of 2024, with deployment slowing due to market uncertainty and valuation concerns. Source: NVCA 2025 Yearbook.
8. Median U.S. deal size in December 2025 was $5.0 million across all stages. Source: AlleyWatch.

AI and Sector Investment

1. AI firms accounted for 61% of global VC investment in 2025, or $258.7 billion out of a total $427.1 billion. Source: OECD.
2. Global annual VC investment in AI rose from approximately $8.3 billion in 2012 to $258.7 billion in 2025, a 31x increase over 13 years. Source: OECD.
3. AI's share of global VC more than doubled from 30% in 2022 to 61% in 2025. Source: OECD.
4. Roughly 50% of all global venture funding in 2025 went to companies in AI-related fields. Source: Crunchbase.
5. Venture funding to AI reached $211 billion in 2025, up 85% year over year from $114 billion in 2024. Source: Crunchbase.
6. AI/ML deals captured 65.6% of all U.S. VC deal value in 2025 ($222 billion out of $339 billion), up from 47.2% in 2024 and just 10% in 2015. Source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.
7. AI firms focused on IT infrastructure and hosting attracted $109.3 billion in VC in 2025 alone. Cumulative investment in this sector totaled $256.1 billion between 2012 and 2025. Source: OECD.
8. Mega deals exceeding $100 million accounted for approximately 73% of total AI investment value in 2025, with deals above $1 billion representing roughly half of total AI investment. Source: OECD.
9. The second-largest industry for VC investment in 2025 was healthcare and biotech at approximately $71.7 billion, followed by financial services at $52 billion. Source: Crunchbase.
10. Q1 2025 saw approximately $59.6 billion in AI VC investment alone, continuing its position as the leading area for global VC. Source: Konvoy VC citing KPMG.

Global VC AUM and Fundraising

1. Global venture capital assets under management (AUM) reached $3.1 trillion by Q1 2024, according to Preqin. Asia-Pacific accounted for $1.6 trillion, North America $1.1 trillion, and Europe $0.2 trillion. Source: Preqin 2025 Global Report.
2. Global VC fundraising fell to $118.6 billion in 2025, nearly $100 billion less than in 2024 and the lowest level in a decade. Source: PitchBook via SiliconANGLE.
3. The number of newly closed funds in 2025 dropped to a 10-year low of 537 funds raising $66.1 billion, compared to 1,777 new funds and $222.9 billion in commitments in 2022. Source: PitchBook via SiliconANGLE.
4. In 2024, U.S. VC firms raised $76.8 billion across 538 funds, compared to 800 funds raising $84.8 billion by Q3 2024. Source: NVCA 2025 Yearbook.
5. The median U.S. VC fund size is $21.3 million overall; the median fund size for firms outside California, New York, and Massachusetts was just $10 million. Source: NVCA 2025 Yearbook.

Deal Sizes and Stages

1. Median VC deal value increased across all stages in 2025. Seed stage median rose from $0.6 million to $0.9 million; Series A from $3.1 million to $3.6 million; Series B from $12.0 million to $13.7 million. Source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2025.
2. The share of sub-$5 million rounds fell to 50.3% of all VC deals in 2025, down from 57.0% in 2024, a decade-low that reflects increasing selectivity among investors. Source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q3 2025.
3. Late-stage funding in Q4 2025 totaled $66.5 billion, up slightly quarter over quarter and year over year. Source: Crunchbase.
4. Early-stage funding in Q4 2025 reached $37 billion, up 20% quarter over quarter. Source: Crunchbase.
5. Mean AI VC deal size increased from approximately $11.2 million in 2014 to $35.8 million in 2025. Source: OECD.

Geographic Distribution

1. The U.S. remains the most active VC investor globally, representing about 56% of the worldwide value of outgoing VC investments in AI in 2025, followed by the UK at 9% and China at 8%. Source: OECD.
2. U.S.-based firms attracted about 75% of global AI VC deal value in 2025, followed by the EU27 (6%), China (5%), and the United Kingdom (5%). Source: OECD.
3. Europe's VC deal value remained broadly flat year over year at €66.2 billion ($77.4 billion) in 2025, with fewer but larger later-stage rounds. Source: PitchBook via SiliconANGLE.
4. Asia deployed nearly 40% of its $76.3 billion annual deal value in Q4 2025 alone, showing late-year momentum driven by AI and autonomous vehicles. Source: PitchBook via SiliconANGLE.
5. Asia-Pacific accounted for $1.6 trillion of the $3.1 trillion in global VC AUM, representing the largest regional share. Source: Preqin 2025 Global Report.

Unicorns and Valuations

1. The Crunchbase Unicorn Board approached $7.5 trillion in total value at the close of 2025, a more than $2 trillion increase from the close of 2024. Source: Crunchbase.
2. SpaceX reached an $800 billion private valuation in 2025, the largest private company valuation ever recorded. Source: Crunchbase.
3. The four most valuable private companies as of end-2025 were SpaceX ($800 billion), OpenAI ($500 billion), ByteDance ($480 billion), and Anthropic ($183 billion). Source: Crunchbase.
4. Wiz's $32 billion acquisition by Google was the largest venture-backed acquisition on record in 2025. Source: Crunchbase.

VC Exits

1. U.S. exit value in 2025 nearly doubled from 2024, with 1,636 exits producing $297.8 billion in total exit value, up 92.7% year over year. Source: PitchBook via SiliconANGLE.
2. In 2024, U.S. exits totaled $98 billion across 1,147 deals, including just 42 IPOs raising $41.2 billion and $54.5 billion in M&A across 1,083 deals. Source: NVCA 2025 Yearbook.
3. By Q3 2024, global VC exits totaled 852 transactions with an aggregate value of $112 billion, down sharply from 1,969 exits valued at $270 billion in all of 2023. Source: Preqin 2025 Global Report.
4. Almost two-thirds (62%) of VC fund managers surveyed by Preqin expected exits to increase in the next 12 months, up from 40% in the prior year's survey. Source: Preqin 2025 Global Report.

Founder Demographics

1. U.S. VC-backed female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, capturing an unprecedented 27.7% of total U.S. venture deal value. Source: PitchBook 2025 All In Report.
2. Female-founded companies' share of U.S. VC rose from 19.9% in 2024 to 27.7% in 2025, up from approximately 15% a decade ago. Source: PitchBook via Fortune.
3. More than $30 billion of the $73.6 billion raised by female founders in 2025 came from Scale AI and Anthropic raises, highlighting how AI megadeals concentrated the gains. Source: PitchBook 2025 All In Report.
4. AI startups absorbed two-thirds of all VC dollars invested in female-founded companies in 2025. Source: PitchBook 2025 All In Report.
5. Of the $289 billion invested globally in 2024, 2.3% went to female-only founding teams ($6.7 billion), 83.6% to all-male founding teams ($241.9 billion), and 14.1% to mixed-gender founding teams. Source: Founders Forum Group.
6. Female founders' share of U.S. exit count increased to nearly 25% in 2025, and exit value more than doubled year over year. Source: PitchBook 2025 All In Report.

Conclusion

Venture capital in 2025 surged to its third-best year on record, driven almost entirely by AI concentration at the top.

The structural story is one of polarization: the five largest deals accounted for 20% of global funding, more than a third went to companies raising $500 million or more, and fundraising conditions for new funds hit a decade low.

For founders, the data underscores a consistent pattern: sector, stage, and geography matter far more than the overall market conditions in any given year.