人工智能、巨额交易和集中风险市场的形成（英）2025

AI, Megadeals, and theMaking of a ConcentratedVenture Market Institutional Research Group Kyle Stanford, CAIADirector of Research, US Venturekyle.stanford@pitchbook.com pbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.com Deal activity and LP allocation have concentrated amongfewer deals and GPs Published on December 23, 2025 PitchBook is a Morningstar company providing the most comprehensive, mostaccurate, and hard-to-find data for professionals doing business in the private markets. Contents Key takeaways1The market is becoming more concentrated2VC market concentration across dimensions2Outlook10 Key takeaways •Despite ongoing liquidity challenges, deal value for the US venture market surgedin 2025, reaching $250 billion through Q3. However, this total has been much moreconcentrated than in previous years. The 10 largest deals accounted for 38.9% ofthe total capital invested, with just four deals totaling $77.5 billion. •AI has been a significant driver of this deal value concentration. The sector itselfcontributed 65% of deal value in the US, yet leading LLM providers such as OpenAI,Anthropic, and xAI continued to raise billion-dollar deals. Although AI should notbe seen as a single sector, this capital concentration highlights the opportunitiesinvestors perceive. •New commitments have also become increasingly concentrated in recent years.As VC firms move earlier and grow larger, dry powder has become concentratedin megafunds. Funds of $500 million or more now account for nearly 58.7% of drypowder in the market, up from 39.9% a decade ago. Conversely, small funds, whichmake up the largest group by fund size, have seen their share of dry powder fall tojust 16% of the total available. •This concentration of deal value and investor commitments has shifted dealactivity toward major hubs like the Bay Area and New York. The Bay Area was hometo 22% of the deals closed in 2025 through Q3—the second-highest share in thepast decade. As fundraising remains tough, smaller markets lacking local capitalface more challenges in retaining top companies, while the Bay Area has secured50% of the total commitments to the US venture market over the past decade. The market is becoming more concentrated The US venture market has become increasingly concentrated. Fewer companies nowaccount for a larger portion of the total deal value, while fewer funds represent a largerportion of closed commitments. The power law is fundamental to venture capital,but recent market shifts have obscured the state of venture in the US and created aproblematic structure for the industry moving forward. The trend extends beyond VC. The S&P 500 has also become highly concentrated. Asof November 28, 2025, the 10 largest companies in the S&P 500 accounted for 39.7%of the market value.1The index’s concentration risk has never been higher. NVIDIA’s Q3earnings, which we watched with bated breath, showed that a miss could potentiallytrigger a major market selloff. AI has contributed to the concentration issues faced byboth public and private markets. Venture investors frame the asset class as a diversifier, providing acce ss to the nextwave of innovation through illiquid fund structures and proprietary deal sourcing frommanagers. However, as dealmaking centers on fewer companies and industries, thequestion of the true nature of that diversification should be questioned. As fewer firmsare able to raise capital, access points to the market close and ideas consolidatearound fewer decision-makers. This analysis of concentration is based on several measurements, including dealactivity, investor fundraising, and capital commitments as well as the geographicdispersion of companies and deals. Metrics include aggregated top market-sharefigures to illustrate the level of concentration. The aim of this research is to present themarket concentration and analyze the main factors driving change. VC market concentration across dimensions The venture market follows a power law distribution, where a small number ofinvestments generate the vast majority of a fund’s (or the market’s) return. It is akey metric used by investors, and the pattern is evident in the data. Around 80% ofinvestments return between 0x and 1x, whileless than 5% return 20x or more.Thisanalysis is based on a rather diversified market. In a concentrated market, thesefigures would likely shift. Not all concentration is a negative. The rumored $1.5 trillion IPO of SpaceX wouldgenerate nearly as much exit value for the US market as the past five years combined,including the record $862 billion worth of exits in 2021. However, those returns wouldbe generated by a relatively small portion of the market no matter how active thesecondary trading of the company has been. Where concentration creates challenges or asymmetries in the market is in currentdealmaking, where AI has captured a majority of investments and centered activityin high-quantity markets with local capital availability. If AI creates the