If 2024 was the year the world discovered generative AI, 2025 was the year capital markets decided to bet the house on it. Across our portfolio and the broader ecosystem, every conversation, every diligence memo, and every board meeting circled back to one question: where does AI create durable value? This report is our answer — a concise look at what actually happened in 2025, what it means for portfolios, and where the smart money should be looking next
2025 in Review: The Numbers That Mattered
Global private AI funding $225.8B (nearly 2x 2024)
North American startup funding in AI categories $168B (~60% of all deals)
Top 5 AI companies’ combined raise $84B (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Scale AI, Project Prometheus)
New AI unicorns 75 (61% of all new unicorns)
Enterprise AI adoption rate 88% (up from 55% in 2023)
AI hardware cost decline 30% year-over-year
Global quantum technology investment $55B+
Clean energy investment $2.2T+
AI: The Only Game in Town
Artificial intelligence consumed the venture landscape in 2025 with a gravitational pull that left few sectors untouched. AI captured close to half of all global funding, up from 34 percent in 2024, with year-over-year investment growth exceeding 75 percent. The capital was concentrated at the top: OpenAI’s $40 billion SoftBank-led round and Anthropic’s $13 billion Series F alone accounted for a significant share of total deal value. Mega-rounds of $100 million or more represented 79 percent of all AI funding, signaling that investors are making fewer, bigger bets on perceived winners.
The shift from experimentation to deployment was unmistakable. Agentic AI — systems that operate autonomously to complete multi-step tasks — emerged as the defining product category, topping Gartner’s Hype Cycle. Meanwhile, open-weight models closed the performance gap with proprietary systems to just 1.7 percent on key benchmarks, democratizing access and creating new opportunities for startups building on top of foundation models.
“If AI just consumes scarce energy to generate tokens without improving health, education, and industrial outcomes, society will quickly lose the willingness to tolerate this resource consumption.”
Beyond AI: Where Else Capital Flowed
Quantum computing hit an inflection point, with $1.25 billion invested in the first three quarters alone and global quantum technology investment surpassing $55 billion. The sector began its transition from lab curiosity to commercial reality, with trapped-ion and photonics hardware attracting the most funding. Defense and dual-use technologies reached their highest venture investment levels in over a decade, driven by geopolitical instability and government demand. Clean energy investment surpassed $2.2 trillion globally, and notable IPOs — including Coreweave, Figma, and Beta Technologies — signaled that the exit window was finally reopening after two lean years.
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