Investment monitoring
The global venture capital market grew by 6.4% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 and amounted to $126.3 billion, according to KPMG data. This figure reached its maximum value in the last ten quarters. While the volumes are growing, the number of deals is decreasing — in the first three months of this year, there were about 7.6 thousand, 14.2% less than in the previous quarter (8.8 thousand).
As KPMG analysts note, the growth in startup funding occurred against the backdrop of ongoing geopolitical conflicts, as well as concerns around global trade and the new US tariff policy. The increase in investment was largely due to a series of mega-deals in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, OpenAI raised a record $40 billion in the first quarter. Among other large deals, American companies Anthropic (an AI system developer and one of OpenAI’s main competitors) and Infinite Reality (a developer of augmented reality technologies) raised $3.5 billion and $3 billion, respectively. There were also deals with AI startups in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Almost three quarters of global funding came from the US — $91.5 billion. Despite the growth in investment (plus 18.5% compared to the previous quarter), the number of deals (3.3 thousand) in this country decreased for the fourth quarter in a row — investors remain cautious, analysts explain. In Europe, the volume of funding has hardly changed — startups raised $18 billion with almost 1.9 thousand deals (a six-year minimum in terms of quantity). The venture market in Asia continued to fall significantly both in terms of the number of deals and the volume of funds raised. With 2.1 thousand deals, companies received $12.9 billion in investments (minus 31.7%) — these are the lowest figures in the last ten years.
KPMG expects investors to remain cautious in the second quarter of 2025 amid concerns about widening trade wars and geopolitical uncertainty. Many investors are taking a wait-and-see approach until there is greater clarity on the global economic situation. However, analysts predict that the AI field will likely continue to be of interest to venture investors. They will also focus on advanced robotics and assistive technologies that improve the efficiency of autonomous systems (solutions that operate without human intervention). In addition, areas such as defense technologies and cybersecurity may be of increasing interest in light of geopolitical tensions, KPMG notes.