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Global venture funding rose to $126 billion in the third quarter of 2025, marking the fourth consecutive quarter above $100 billion. Sustained demand for AI has kept investor appetite up.
US venture capital momentum strengthened in the third quarter. AI fueled growth with megadeals across infrastructure, model training, and chip design, reflecting capital’s tilt toward model ownership and chip adjacency. Beyond AI, quantum computing and robotics gained traction.
In Europe, funding held steady, excluding TenneT’s $11.2 billion outlier. AI, cleantech, and quantum led the activity. Investors placed fewer, but larger, bets in scalable climate and compute tech, while extending diligence.
China’s venture funding rose 30% quarter over quarter, thanks to automobile, aerospace, robotics, and AI. Even so, investment levels remain below 2022–2023 highs.
Globally, early-stage and late-stage average deal size increased sharply, boosted by multiple megadeals. Average seed deal size declined, largely due to the absence of a major mega-round in the third quarter. That said, generative AI, biotech, robotics, and Web3 posted above-average seed deal sizes.
Corporate- and corporate venture capital (CVC)-backed activity accelerated. These investors’ participation in large AI and infrastructure rounds signals a long-term strategic bet.
Within AI, generative AI funding re-centered on foundation model building in the third quarter. Foundational and large language models remained the most heavily funded category and delivered the strongest quarter-over-quarter growth. Capital also flowed into horizontal enterprise applications, which recorded the highest deal count of the quarter.
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First published in agosto 2025