2025年二季度人工智能风险投资趋势（英）2025

EMERGING TECH RESEARCH AI VC Trends VC activity across the AI ecosystem REPORT PREVIEWThe full report is available through the PitchBook Platform. Contents AI landscape3 Institutional Research Group AI VC ecosystem market map Analysis 4 VC activity5 Dimitri ZabelinSenior Research Analyst,AI and Cybersecruitydimitri.zabelin@pitchbook.com Data This report was previously referred to as the “AI & ML VC Trends” report. pbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.com Publishing Report designed byMegan WoodardandDrew Sanders Published on August 8, 2025 AI VC ecosystem market map VC activity AI VC deal activity in Q2 2025 cooled from Q1 highs but remained elevated compared withprevious quarters, reflecting continued investor conviction in core infrastructure and applicationlayers. Horizontal platforms continued to lead in capital deployment, while vertical applicationsaccounted for most of the deal volume. This pattern suggests investors are simultaneouslybacking platform scalability through horizontal infrastructure and targeted innovation throughdomain-specific applications. Market participants should watch whether rising valuations,particularly at the venture-growth stage, are supported by stronger exit momentum in thequarters ahead. The mix of strategic capital and traditional venture funding will play a key role indetermining how durable this momentum proves to be heading into Q3. VC deals In Q2, AI-focused deal sizes and counts dipped lower relative to Q1. Deal sizes stood at $42.1 billionacross 957 deals, down from $72.5 billion raised across 1,619 deals. On a QoQ basis, deal activityby stage also held steady, with venture growth capturing the most deal value, while late-stagetransactions boasted the highest deal counts. On an annual basis, horizontal platforms once again led in deal value, raising $57.3 billion across676 transactions. Horizontal platforms are general-purpose tools, such as large language models,and infrastructures that support a wide range of industries. The concentration of capital inhorizontal platforms indicates that investors continue to prioritize infrastructure-layer bets withscalable, cross-sector utility, particularly in model training and deployment. Meanwhile, vertical applications saw a higher deal count with 1,617 transactions totaling $44.9billion YTD. These tools are tailored to specific sectors and built on top of horizontal platforms, which enable domain-specific performance and integration. The surge in deal volume reflectssustained interest in specialized AI solutions, where investors are backing targeted applicationsbuilt on general-purpose models. For the semiconductors and autonomous machines segments, capital distribution from thedifferent VC lifecycle stages was more symmetrical. However, late-stage VC deals championed thehighest deal count figures among all segments. The capital-deal count divergence between horizontal platforms and vertical applicationsbecomes even more pronounced on a trailing 12-month (TTM) basis. Horizontal platforms secured$101 billion across 1,507 deals, compared with vertical applications raising $71.5 billion across3,570 deals. Valuations Median VC pre-money valuations saw their highest YoY growth rate at 63.3%, rising from $24.5million in 2024 to $40 million in 2025. This growth rate is well above the 17.7% average recordedsince 2014. In line with deal sizes, venture growth recorded the highest pre-money valuation bystage at $622 million, surpassing early-stage VC at $61.4 million, late-stage VC at $57 million, andpre-seed/seed at $14.1 million. Between 2024 and 2025, venture growth saw the largest medianVC pre-money valuation growth at 228.5%. The sharp increase in venture-growth valuationshighlights sustained investor appetite for mature AI companies with scalable infrastructure orcommercialization potential. While early-stage valuations also rose, the outsized growth at thelater stages suggests capital is concentrating around perceived market leaders. Both deal size and counts in autonomous machines and semiconductors were relatively smaller.The autonomous machines segment raised $7.6 billion across 165 transactions YTD, whilesemiconductors generated $4.6 billion across 118 deals YTD. Venture growth has captured most of the capital deployment across the VC lifecycle to date,accounting for 62% of total funding. This concentration is even sharper in the horizontal platformssegment, where venture growth comprised 80% of all capital raised. Horizontal platforms requiresubstantial late-stage investment due to the high costs associated with training large-scalemodels, scaling infrastructure, and attracting top-tier AI talent. Median VC pre-money valuation step-ups rose modestly across all stages in 2025, with the overallmultiple increasing from 1.5x in 2024 to 1.7x. Pre-seed/seed stage step-ups reached 1.6x, slightlybelow the 12-year average of 1.66x. Early-stage valuations stood at 2.2x, coming in just above the2.15x his