2025年美国风险投资展望（英）2025

2026 US VentureCapital Outlook Institutional Research Group Kyle Stanford, CAIADirector of Research, US Venturekyle.stanford@pitchbook.com Our analysts’ outlook on the venture market in 2026 Emily ZhengSenior Research Analyst,Venture Capital PitchBook is a Morningstar company providing the most comprehensive, mostaccurate, and hard-to-find data for professionals doing business in the private markets. Kaidi GaoSenior Research Analyst,Venture Capital 2026 outlooks Susan HuQuantitative Research Analystsusan.hu@pitchbook.com 4The early stages of the market will see a surge in deal activity. 9Later-stage deal activity will remain strong. pbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.com 13Liquidity will return, though recovery will remain uneven. Published on December 1, 2025 16Fundraising has bottomed out, and a gradual rebound awaits as distributions Introduction Optimism in the US venture market heading into 2026 may not differ much from thatat the start of 2025. Public markets had been trading at or near all-time highs, liquidityis still a major concern for venture capital, and further rate cuts are expected as the What is different is that the Trump administration has had nearly a year to implementits policies, reducing the chances of legislative surprises in 2026. Now, the likelihoodof rapid regulatory change in the market is low, contrasting sharply with last year when Liquidity will remain the primary challenge for the VC market in 2026. Despite arebound in exit value in 2025, the year’s total is projected to fall below $300 billion,trailing not only 2021 but also 2020 and 2019. Fourth place is not bad, except thatthe net asset value (NAV) of VC has doubled since 2020, with the prior three years We expect exit counts to continue to increase. Barring a major market event, publicmarket multiples will likely keep expanding. Although the Federal Trade Commissionhas not explicitly commented on lowering M&A barriers, none of the year’s large deals Despite these positive indicators, broad LP sentiment remains poor. Since 2022, netcash flows to LPs have been negative by $169 billion. The time to close new funds hasincreased sharply as LPs hesitate to commit more capital without any distributions. On the dealmaking side, AI continues to foster optimism. It was a key driver ofthe surge in billion-dollar funds, and the nature of the AI market has significantimplications for venture. AI startups have captured 65% of the total VC deal value inthe US YTD, and more than half of new unicorns are AI companies. The market value ofAI startups exceeds $1 trillion. AI is often seen as a single sector, such as climate tech, There is an endless stream of new AI tools being developed and adopted bycorporations worldwide. It has been challenging for large companies to develop theirown AI tools, so many have turned to tools created by startups. Through the firstthree quarters of 2025, first-time financings were nearing the all-time high set in 2021. We are more optimistic about early funding stages than we have been since 2021because of AI, its rapid development cycles, and its growing demand from globalcorporations. Still, continued improvement of liquidity markets is necessary. IPOs may Kyle Stanford, CAIADirector of Research, US Venturekyle.stanford@pitchbook.com The early stages of the market will see a surge in Rationale It is counterintuitive to expect increased activity in the early stages of venture duringa liquidity slowdown and a sluggish fundraising market, yet the early stages havealready begun to defy expectations. Through Q3 of this year, venture funds closedonly $45 billion in new commitments, the lowest total since 2017. Additionally, manysmall funds and emerging managers that raised capital in 2021 or even 2022 havelikely used most of their dry powder and are unable to be active investors, at least to Since the 2022 slowdown, the idea of VC investment refocusing on early stageshas manifested in a thriving early-stage market; however, the 2024 seed deal countwas still 27% lower than in 2021. Clashing with the narrative of a refocused investorbase was the hesitancy of investors to continue working through dry powder withoutmeaningful markups in order to avoid returning to LPs without leverage for a new fund. Macroeconomic shocks will also have a relatively lower impact on the early stagesof VC in 2026. Even in 2025, macro challenges such as tariffs were unable to swayactivity outside of select verticals that were directly impacted by them. More broadly, Two major trends directly point toward 2026 being a highly active year for the earlystages of the VC market. First, AI has driven investor focus and shrunk the cost ofbuilding a company. This is not novel, as hype and costs are two directly relatabletrends that can impact investment. Second, multistage investors with unlimited AI AI has become ubiquitous in VC, drawing 65% of capital invested through Q3. Thisfigure is skewed by the multibillion-d