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With 2025 behind us, and some time for the data to stabilize, we can look back at VC activity and try to understand what it means for TBED efforts going forward. The VC storyline of 2025 should be familiar to anyone who has been following investment news. Record funding rounds, huge amounts of capital deployed, questions of an AI bubble. Where amongst the big flashy lights of AI mega-deals do we find the subtlety and nuance that informs TBED investor activity and policy?

Long concentrated geographically, venture capital also is growing more concentrated in a small number of larger deals, as SSTI has reported in recent Digest issues. In fact, deals under $100 million—not a small figure in itself—have fallen by 71% according to SSTI’s analysis of PitchBook data. Even more troubling is evidence showing deals under $100 million are moving to later-stage investment and away from early-stage companies.

The Q3 2025 investment data is in, and trends of fewer deals and more dollars continue.

As attention-grabbing as AI might be for the media and large investors (see previous SSTI analysis of AI investment), economic growth through innovation in life sciences and biotechnology is a priority for many state and regional TBED initiatives.  The venture capital market recognizes that as well.

Fewer of the youngest and later stage innovation-driven companies are receiving private venture capital at a time when the country needs more of both to retain our global economic leadership, according to data released in the latest report from PitchBook and NVCA. Across 2024, United States VC has seen an increase in overall deal value (+$47 billion) despite a decrease in deal count (-936) since the prior year, reveals the Q4 2024 Venture Monitor report.

The Fearless Fund and Fearless Foundation, which made awards restricted to Black female entrepreneurs, announced a settlement on September 10 with the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) and will end its Fearless Strivers Grant Contest that was targeted in a racial discrimination lawsuit by AAER. The settlement means that states within the U.S.

While the growth of female-founded and co-founded companies has increased at a faster rate than those of male-founded and co-founded and mixed gender founded companies, it is still a smaller amount than the other two. Additionally, these companies are more likely to receive a higher proportion of deals occurring earlier in the VC pipeline.

The measurements for success of female-founded and female-co-founded companies, while improving, remain lower than male-founded companies in number, deal count, and capital invested, according to PitchBook’s 2023 Annual US VC Valuations Report. PitchBook found that female-only-founded startups received just 2% of all venture capital (VC) dollars in 2023, while those female-co-founded reached 21% that year—a record high.

In a recent ruling, a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals panel upheld the preliminary injunction against the Fearless Fund, preventing the organization from resuming operations of its Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, which awards winners with a cash prize and access to mentorship and business support services. Following on the heels of the U.S.

United States venture capital activity not unexpectedly slowed down in 2023, cooling off after multiple years of record-high deals and values during 2021 and 2022, according to the PitchBook-NVCS Venture Monitor Q4 2023. Pitchbook-NVCS estimates a total deal count of 15,766 (13,608 actual + 2,158 estimated) for 2023– exceeding the values of 2020 and prior years but falling several thousand short of the last two years.

The third quarter of 2023 continues the venture capital market’s recent two-year decline in investments, investors, and initial public offerings. This puts a squeeze on startups.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is implementing a final rule, effective Aug. 17, that adds a category of Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) that will make the program a better-fit for early-stage investment strategies. The most significant change in this direction is the creation of an accrual funding mechanism that enables licensed SBICs to receive a loan from SBA that is repaid only upon distribution events or at the end of a 10-year term.

Earlier today, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced the 2023 notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for the Build to Scale program. State and local governments, nonprofits, higher education institutions, National Labs, and others can compete for $50 million to support new and expanded initiatives supporting regional commercialization, entrepreneurship, and capital formation efforts.

Two competitions comprise the FY 2023 Build to Scale program:

A working paper by a team of Harvard-affiliated researchers presents challenging findings for growth equity impact investors. Given the potential alignment between this sector of the market and publicly funded capital access programs (including many venture development organizations and the State Small Business Credit Initiative), this research may find its way into public policy debates. The paper, which has not yet been published in an academic journal, also contains several shortcomings in its approach that should caution any stakeholders from acting on its findings alone.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted a final rule last night, by a 3-2 vote that would require prospective special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to disclose their sponsors, compensation, target companies, and conflicts of interest and to require SPAC targets to register with the SEC.

Total deal counts across angel, seed and VC deals for Q4 2022 were the lowest of the year at 2,935 deals, a decrease of 670 deals as compared to Q3 2022, according to Q4 data from PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q4 2022. Despite low deal counts for Q4, 2022 is still on track to come in close behind 2021, which marked the highest deal count since the data began being collected in 2012.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the approval of seven additional states’ programs for State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding, totaling over $1.6 billion: Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Virginia. A short summary of these states’ plans, all of which include investment capital, are available below:

Between federal interest rates over 3% and post-pandemic economic impacts that affect macroeconomic trends, many have predicted a continued decline in venture capital outcomes, only some of which has held true through Q3. 

The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) — a nonprofit working to grow Georgia’s economy through supporting research at state universities — recently announced that its portfolio of companies had raised more than over $2 billion in venture capital. These startups also had a high survival rate — 88% were still in business four years after launch, outpacing the national average of 44%. Along with this announcement, GRA released 2021 data on their economic impact on the state, demonstrating growth from the previous year.

The PitchBook-NVA Venture Monitor Q1 2022 reports that overall venture capital (VC) investment activity was down in Q1 2022, a change from the unprecedented growth seen quarterly through 2021. However, angel and seed stage financing remained strong. Additionally, deal activity for early-stage deals had a strong start in Q1 2022, with a total of 1,499 reported deals as of March 31.

A team of researchers recently assessed the relationship between angel investing and venture capital (VC) for startups. Although they found some variation in the performance of companies based on their share of angel and VC financing, there was no clear indication that angel investing provides any unique value for a startup.

SSTI has released a new data tool that defines investment activity, one indicator of the vibrancy of a region’s innovation economy, in each of 18 technology areas.

A group of associations representing private investment funds, including the National Venture Capital Association, jointly filed a lawsuit in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Loyalty to alma maters matters financially beyond March Madness™ and college sports betting, it turns out — to such a degree that policy makers, venture development organizations and university seed funds hoping to attract equity investments for local innovation startups should pay considerable attention to the educational attainment section of founders’ LinkedIn profiles or resumes.

Forthcoming research suggests venture development organizations, that is, those publicly-supported nonprofits that combine risk financing with expert technical assistance to grow local innovation-based startups, should give careful consideration to the exit histories of the venture capitalists they partner with to move the VDO’s portfolio firms through seed and series A investment rounds.