After three years of declining or flat venture investment, global startup funding grew year over year in 2025, Crunchbase data shows. Last year was also defined by new startup records: the largest private funding round of all time ($40 billion to OpenAI), the largest private valuation ever recorded (SpaceX’s $800 billion valuation), and the largest venture-backed acquisition on record (Wiz’s $32 billion purchase by Google).

Venture and growth investors poured $425 billion into more than 24,000 private companies in 2025, per Crunchbase data. Funding gained 30% year over year, up from $328 billion in 2024.

All told, 2025 was the third-highest venture financing year on record, Crunchbase data shows, trailing only the peak years of 2021 and 2022.

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Higher valuations, billion-dollar rounds

Year-over-year funding growth concentrated in the largest rounds and in the AI sector, Crunchbase data shows. OpenAI, Scale AI, Anthropic, Project Prometheus 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 any given year.

As a result, The Crunchbase Unicorn Board approached $7.5 trillion in value at the close of 2025, showing a more than $2 trillion increase in value compared to the close of 2024. That surge was driven in large part by the most valuable private companies including SpaceX (now with an $800 billion valuation), OpenAI ($500 billion), ByteDance ($480 billion) and Anthropic ($183 billion). This gain in value was well above 2024 with a $400 billion rise by year end.

US venture gains

Last year was the second-highest year on record for U.S. startup funding as capital concentrated into the largest AI companies.

The U.S. also gained market share last year. Around $274 billion in startup capital was invested in U.S.-based companies in 2025, per Crunchbase data, representing 64% of global startup funding. That’s up from 56% of global venture investment in 2024. Contrast that with 2019 through 2023, when the U.S. market represented around 47% to 48% of global venture capital.

Industry analysis

Roughly 50% of all global venture funding in 2025 went to companies in AI-related fields, making artificial intelligence the leading sector for funding, as it was for the past three years.

Venture funding to AI reached $211 billion — up 85% year over year from $114 billion in 2024 — Crunchbase data shows. Funding to the AI sector in 2025 surpassed every year in the past decade, including the peak global funding year of 2021.

The second-largest industry in 2025 was healthcare and biotech with around $71.7 billion in funding, up slightly from 2024 amounts. Financial services was the third-largest sector for venture investment, receiving $52 billion. That’s up from $41 billion in 2024.

Other industries where funding gained ground year over year include aerospace, robotics, developer tools, cryptocurrency and defense.

Quarterly funding

The past five quarters’ funding totals have all been higher than previous quarters, driven by a surge in late-stage global funding. Funding in Q4 2025 was up 14% year over year and 13% quarter over quarter, reaching over $113 billion.

Late-stage funding in the fourth quarter totaled $66.5 billion, up slightly quarter over quarter and year over year, Crunchbase data shows. The largest late-stage rounds went to automated coding, energy, semiconductors, prediction markets and image-generation companies.

Early-stage funding reached $37 billion, up 20% quarter over quarter and up 36% year over year. Large early-stage rounds went to automated coding, security, robotics, self-driving and blockchain companies.

Seed funding reached $9.9 billion in Q4, flat quarter over quarter and up 12% year over year. Of those larger seed rounds, deals $20 million and larger accounted for just over a quarter of seed funding. (Seed fundings are often added to the Crunchbase dataset after the close of a quarter, with counts increasing over time.)

Concentration and liquidity

Last year was marked by capital concentration. Of the 10 most highly valued private companies, seven raised new funding at significantly higher valuations in 2025.

Close to 60% of invested capital went to 629 companies that raised rounds of $100 million or more, Crunchbase data shows. More than a third of global funding went to 68 companies that raised rounds of $500 million or more in 2025, compared to 24% of funding in 2024.

Meanwhile, global M&A in 2025 was the second-highest year on record. For the U.S. M&A market, 2025 dealmaking was the highest — even a notch higher than 2021 — with cybersecurity company Wiz acquired by Google in the largest M&A deal for a venture-backed company over all time.

The IPO market also opened up in 2025. With investors placing bigger bets on the most highly valued private companies, larger IPOs for venture-backed companies appear more likely in 2026 — another catalyst for venture funding to grow again this year.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Jan. 4, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Related Crunchbase queries:

Global Funding In 2025
Global Funding To AI Companies In 2025

Illustration: Dom Guzman


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