vc Benchmark reports

The whole board.
In a single snapshot.

Our quarterly VC Benchmark reports offer analysis and insights gathered from the US, Europe, and LatAm. Get perspectives from experts who lead their industries, so you can challenge yours.

Q2 2026

Q2 2026 sent a mixed signal: deal count and value cooled from Q1's highs, fundraising had its strongest first half since 2021-22, and exit value appeared to explode, almost entirely on SpaceX's IPO. Strip that outlier out and the market looks as disciplined and concentrated as it's been all year. The same thread from Q1 held: capital keeps piling into a handful of massive AI bets, cybersecurity M&A is consolidating around AI-native defense, and across SaaS the real moat is shifting from features to the proprietary data a company owns. For early-stage investors, the message is unchanged: as AI commoditizes features, the winners will be the ones who can prove what they uniquely know, not just what they can ship.

Q1 2026

Q1 2026 shattered records, but not evenly. Global deal value exploded to $330.8B, concentrating an unprecedented 81% of capital in North America, while deal counts fell 27% YoY. Europe punched back with its own wave of billion-dollar rounds, bioscience staged a comeback, and agentic AI crossed from pilot to production. Capital is flowing faster than ever, but to fewer bets, in fewer places, and the rules for what makes a fundable company are being rewritten in real time.

Q4 2025

Q4 2025 closed the year with an investment surge, driven by a 20% spike in early-stage deals and North American dominance. As the market pivots from AI hype to 'Physical AI' and sovereign defense infrastructure, the narrative has shifted toward technical depth and real-world utility. From historic healthtech rounds in Europe to the rise of agentic workflows, Q4 confirms a market that now rewards revenue resilience and mission-critical innovation over speculation.

Q3 2025

Q3 2025 kept global venture capital moving, with high-value deals and shifting exits capturing attention. Fundraising remained selective across regions, while AI continued to dominate, expanding beyond foundational models into applied tech and enterprise software. M&A activity reached near-record levels, highlighting appetite for scale, cross-border growth, and strategic expansion.

Q2 2025

The venture capital world is witnessing a shift in how capital finds innovation. While global funding reached new heights, the number of deals plummeted dramatically, creating a divided market where AI-enabled companies capture the lion’s share of capital through mega-rounds, leaving traditional startups fighting for increasingly scarce early-stage dollars. This strategic evolution shows us not just where capital flows, but how the next generation of breakthrough companies will emerge...

Q4 2023

The venture capital funding landscape has transformed dramatically in the past year. We hold an optimistic view of the future, but we would be remiss without mentioning the sobering stats: 3,200 startups shut down, and 2,700+ funds went quiet in 2023...

Q3 2023

The VC community has many catchy terms to define the past two years relative to 2021: a regression to the mean, a return back down to earth, VC winter, and so on. In general, there is consensus that this “reality check” was a necessary market correction. But it’s not without pain, as many founders face long...

Q2 2023

The phrase “it’s always darkest before the dawn” has literal and psychological meaning. Penned by Thomas Fuller, an English theologian, in 1650, he meant that literally the darkest moment of the day is just before the sun peaks its head over the horizon and illuminates the sky. However, the phrase has gained popularity...

Q1 2023

We won’t sugarcoat it for you: financial markets could be in a better place. From a high level perspective, it seems like times are tough in the startup ecosystem. Founders have shifted all attention to lowering burn rate, focusing on only the highest value activities to scale, and retaining customers at all costs. However, for founders just starting out or in the early stages of building, there has rarely been a better time to build. Read why...

Q4 2022

Q4 2022 proved to be a quarter of transition. If you saw our last quarter’s Benchmark Report, you would have read about drops in funding volume across the board; no geography or stage was spared. One can draw many conclusions as to why this occurred: excessive quantitative easing, flood of capital in the market due to COVID, rising interest rates as a response to out of control inflation, geopolitical tensions, etc.

Q3 2022

The past quarter was characterized by market conditions that were less than stable. We could point to any number of factors that caused a drought in funding activity. We thought it prudent for this VC Benchmark Report to include a wide range of perspectives outside of our own.

Q2 2022

Q2 2022 was one of the most interesting and historic quarters for VC activity in recent memory. The public markets entered correction territory with the possibility of a recession on the horizon, and the private markets took notice. Despite a general market slowdown, we know from prior experience some of the biggest and most successful companies were built during challenging economic times. There is much to cover from last quarter’s activity that applies to founders and VCs alike.

Q1 2022

Q1 2022 saw the VC space finally come back down to earth. We will go through where we saw growth and contraction, the drivers and drawbacks, and everything in between after the record setting pace set in 2021.

Q4 2021

Venture capital in Q4 2021 did not disappoint. The VC space has been on fire the past year, and Q4 2021 was no exception. Q4 set new records in capital invested, with some of the most exciting companies on the planet receiving massive capital allocations.

Q3 2021

Eighteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the VC industry has continued to prove its resiliency while also directly supporting the economic recovery and strengthening public markets. Investment activity was healthy across seed, early, and late stages with deal size increasing for the latter two, continuing a long-term trend.

Q2 2021

Startups in Q2 are continuing to roll through previous year’s records, with 136 new unicorns rocketing to the top of the ecosystem. This record surge represents a 491% YoY increase compared to Q2’20! When measuring different regions compared to the same time last year, Venture funding in the USA was up 128%, in Europe it was up 239%, and in LatAm it was up a mind-boggling 454%!

Q1 2021

All-time record number of funding and unicorns minted - Covid is definitely not stopping the growth! Startups have started 2021 by smashing through previous years’ records, 98 new unicorns have been minted in Q1 alone compared to 61 in Q4’20, and it’s just getting started. Venture funding in the USA is up 74%, and in Europe is up 37% percent compared to Q4 2020. Deal value in Europe amounted to $19 billion. The USA topped $68 billion, which is over 2x above last year’s Q1 for both continents!

Q4 2020

2020 was a bumper year for VC with the highest record totals ever. Startups finished 2020 much stronger than how they started the year, with venture funding in the Americas and Europe up 25 percent year over year to $194 billion. Deal value in the USA topped $150 billion for the first time.

Q3 2020

Q3 in a nutshell: VC activity gets straight As, reflecting that the startup economy is alive and well during the pandemic. The VC industry continues to be very active against the pandemic headwinds. In Q3, we saw lots of deal activity and ample deal values, enough to top last year’s numbers. We’ll be particularly diving deeper into what’s driving the massive expansion of late-stage activity as well as the exit environment, both of which are booming.

Q2 2020

Q2 in a nutshell: The Impact Of COVID-19 To-Date - AS EXPECTED, VC INVESTMENTS HAVE NOT BEEN IMMUNE TO COVID-19. THE IMPACT WAS FELT MOSTLY IN TERMS OF DEAL COUNT AS TOTAL AMOUNT INVESTED HELD STRONG, PARTICULARLY IN THE US AND EUROPE.

Q1 2020

Before COVID-19 (Q1 ‘ 20) The market was in a post-WeWork saga, where investors were shifting from a ‘growth at all costs’ mentality to ‘growth with reasonable unit economics and a path to profitability’. Before COVID-19 hit, round sizes and valuations were getting bigger and more expensive while the number of deals was shrinking.

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