As global venture funding in 2025 ratcheted up to the third-highest total on record after the peak years of 2021 and 2022, capital also concentrated further, with the number of companies raising rounds of $50 million or more drastically shrinking roughly by half to a cohort of just 1,440.
The investors backing the hottest companies in this highly competitive venture capital market have also changed drastically since 2021, Crunchbase data shows. While private equity investors dominated during the pandemic boom, Silicon Valley’s traditional VC firms have reclaimed ground in leading rounds of $50 million and over, our analysis indicates.
A review of Crunchbase data shows the extent to which peak-year investors such as Tiger Global Management and Insight Partners, both headquartered in New York, have ceded ground back to the big names of Silicon Valley.
The firms that dominated in those larger financings in 2021 — when over $500 billion in capital went toward deals of $50 million or more — were private equity and alternative investors. At that time, the two firms topping the list were 4x more active by counts when compared to those at the top two slots in 2025.
In 2025, by contrast, venture capital firms dominated the list of most-active leads in those larger financings with eight of the 10 most active being VCs. Last year, roughly $300 billion went to $50 million-plus deals.
In 2021, the top 20 firms leading rounds north of $5 billion were predominantly private equity. But in 2025 a smaller cohort of investors, 10 in total, each led or co-led rounds totaling $5 billion. That included five private equity or alternative investors; three venture capital firms, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Accel; and more active corporate strategic investors with Meta and SpaceX joining the top 10, each with a single outsized investment.
Private equity was also still active in leading by dollar volume in 2025, though less dominant.
PE leaned in
One year into COVID, as digital services took off, global venture funding doubled to $702 billion. And the most-active investors in the largest rounds invested at an unprecedented pace.
The top five most-active investors in $50 million-plus rounds were all private equity firms, including Insight Partners, which operates as both venture capital and private equity.
But the majority of these active investors have scaled back counts significantly at this size in 2025.
Leading the list, Tiger Global Management and the SoftBank Vision Fund have cut back more than 95% by count. Insight Partners, Coatue, Temasek Holdings and General Atlantic, while still active in 2025, led or co-led fewer deals last year, by as much as 75%.
Of the seven venture capital firms that make this list, two firms — Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures — noticeably cut back deal counts by 35% and 60%, respectively, in 2025.
Venture capital more active in 2025
In 2025, by contrast, the most active in $50 million-plus deal counts were largely venture capital firms. However, counts by the leading firms were far lower than in 2021 with 30 at the top of the list compared to 182.
General Catalyst has the highest count at 30, followed by a16z at 24, and Lightspeed and Accel matching at 22. Each of these firms was slightly more active in leading deals in 2021 compared to 2025, while Lightspeed Venture Partners counts match 2021.
A host of venture capital firms have increased counts by more than 100% at this size including Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Eclipse Ventures and Balderton. The firms also were all up by more than 100% in led or co-led counts when compared to 2021 for deals at this size, along with one private equity firm Forbion Capital Partners, which invests largely in biotech.
Dollar volume in 2021
Of the 21 most-active firms in 2021 by led or co-led deal amounts north of $4.8 billion, 18 were private equity firms and three were venture capital firms. However, the largest funding deal that year — a $3.6 billion funding to Flipkart led by SoftBank Vision Fund, GIC, CPP Investments and Walmart — was much smaller than the largest deal in 2025.
Not surprisingly, the firms that led or co-led the largest rounds in 2021 were SoftBank Vision Fund and Tiger Global Management. Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Temasek round out the top five, all down by more than 75% when compared to 2025.
Three venture firms make the list of investors leading the largest rounds. The most-active venture firm, Sequoia Capital, cut back on amounts led or co-led by more than 50%, while Ribbit Capital cut back by more than 75%. The other venture firm to make this list, Andreessen Horowitz, led or co-led more by dollar amounts in 2025 compared to 2021.
New guard in 2025
In 2025, the largest deals were much larger, in the tens of billions of dollars rather than the single-digit billions seen in 2021, with the five leading investors propelled to the top of the list due to a single deal at $10 billion and above.
SoftBank topped the list in 2025, leading the $40 billion funding to OpenAI. It was followed by Meta, which led the $14.3 billion funding to Scale AI.
Lightspeed, Fidelity and Iconiq Capital co-led the $13 billion funding to Anthropic. The top five firms leading by amount in 2025 all led individual deals north of $10 billion.
Of the 27 firms most active by deal amounts led in 2025, four were strategic investors, nine were venture capital firms, and 14 were either private equity or alternative investors.
Looking forward
An analysis of Crunchbase data makes it clear: Venture capital has reclaimed its lead in this AI wave, as private equity, overindexed in private companies, has scaled back significantly since 2021. In 2025, large rounds and valuations picked up once again, setting the stage for a very active funding environment in 2026.
Despite the shift from private equity to multistage venture actively leading the largest deals, the question remains: Will this new cohort of highly valued companies deliver outsized returns in the coming years?
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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