What drove the record U.S. venture deal value this year?

Giant artificial intelligence rounds, particularly more than $200 billion raised by OpenAI Group PBC and Anthropic PBC in the first half. Without those rounds, PitchBook's analysts said, the dollar totals have held to much the same trend since late 2024.

Why are exits a concern if deal value is at a record?

PitchBook's Nizar Tarhuni says the real story sits on the exit side — the IPO pipeline keeps slipping further out, leaving sellers to lean on mergers and acquisitions. Third-quarter exit value came to $53 billion once the largest transaction is stripped out, which would be the lowest since late 2024.

What happened to company valuations when they do sell?

Companies that sell are often taking far less than their last private price. Bending Spoons SpA bought Airtable Inc. for $1.3 billion, down from an $11.7 billion valuation, and on Forge Global Holdings Inc.'s secondary marketplace, shares in companies that last raised money in 2021 trade at a median 59% discount.

AI Business & IndustrySiliconANGLE AI1m agoOct 8, 2026, 16:00 JST

US venture deal value hits record $515.8 billion

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3 Key Points

What happened
U.S. venture deal value reached a record $515.8 billion in the first nine months of the year, about 44% past the prior annual record, per the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Much of it went to OpenAI Group PBC and Anthropic PBC, which raised over $200 billion combined in the first half.
Why it matters
PitchBook's Nizar Tarhuni says the real story sits on the exit side, as the IPO pipeline keeps slipping further out and sellers lean on M&A to get anything done at all. That means the money flowing in is not yet flowing back out to investors, and Tarhuni warns the liquidity won't show up for most of the market going into 2027.

WHO IT HITSVenture investors and limited partners waiting on returns are affected most, since PitchBook's data shows exit value concentrated in a single deal and IPO listings described as "rather mundane." Founders of late-stage and unicorn startups, 992 of which are now valued at $1 billion or more, may face pressure to accept lower prices in sales, the report suggests.

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Context & Analysis

The PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor's headline figure caps a year in which a small number of AI developers absorbed an outsized share of U.S. venture dollars. According to PitchBook, AI accounted for a record 82.7% of the year's deal value, though its share of each quarter has been shrinking since January and fell to 65.9% in the third. Third-quarter deal value itself fell about 40%, to $98.4 billion, with most of the drop coming out of venture-growth rounds — even as startups closed an estimated 5,012 deals, a pace matched only by the start of 2022.

The report's concern is what happens after the money goes in. PitchBook's Nizar Tarhuni said the IPO pipeline keeps slipping further out and sellers are leaning on M&A "to get anything done at all." Neither of the two biggest AI developers has listed: OpenAI has reportedly ruled out going public this year, and Anthropic has pushed its offering back by a month to November. PitchBook's exit model gives Anthropic an 86% chance of an IPO within a year and OpenAI's odds 12%. Meanwhile, the count of startups valued at $1 billion or more hit a record 992 at the end of September, with a combined value of $5.7 trillion — a long line of private companies waiting their turn.

The fundraising side shows a similar split. U.S. venture firms have raised $108.5 billion across 699 funds so far this year, topping 2025's full-year haul by almost 39%, with megafunds of $500 million or more taking 78% of that capital while making up just 6% of new funds. Andreessen Horowitz alone closed funds worth $23.8 billion. At the other end, just 211 emerging firms have closed a fund this year, compared with 927 in 2022. Bobby Franklin of the National Venture Capital Association said the strength of AI innovation "can obscure growing challenges within the fundraising market," adding that firms like these are often among the first to spot new entrepreneurs and technologies.

FAQ

What drove the record U.S. venture deal value this year?: Giant artificial intelligence rounds, particularly more than $200 billion raised by OpenAI Group PBC and Anthropic PBC in the first half. Without those rounds, PitchBook's analysts said, the dollar totals have held to much the same trend since late 2024.
Why are exits a concern if deal value is at a record?: PitchBook's Nizar Tarhuni says the real story sits on the exit side — the IPO pipeline keeps slipping further out, leaving sellers to lean on mergers and acquisitions. Third-quarter exit value came to $53 billion once the largest transaction is stripped out, which would be the lowest since late 2024.
What happened to company valuations when they do sell?: Companies that sell are often taking far less than their last private price. Bending Spoons SpA bought Airtable Inc. for $1.3 billion, down from an $11.7 billion valuation, and on Forge Global Holdings Inc.'s secondary marketplace, shares in companies that last raised money in 2021 trade at a median 59% discount.

SiliconANGLE AIRead Original Article

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