VCs predict enterprises will spend more on AI in 2026 — through fewer vendors

Enterprises have been piloting and testing different AI tools for the past few years to figure out what their adoption strategy will look like. Investors think that period of experimentation is coming to an end.

TechCrunch recently surveyed 24 enterprise-focused VCs and an overwhelming majority predicted enterprises will increase their budgets for AI in 2026 — but not for everything. Most investors said this budget increase will be concentrated and that many enterprises will spend more funds on fewer contracts. READ MORE

Venture Capitalists Likely to Continue Pivoting Away From Climate in 2026

Investors in climate technology have butted up against changing regulations, a loss in support for environmental policies and the growth of artificial intelligence this year. In 2026, they are expecting more of the same, but there is some hope for the sector if it can adapt. 

“It’s been hard to be in an environment where climate has become a dirty word,” said Amy Duffuor, co-founder and general partner of Azolla Ventures, a Cambridge, Mass.-based early-stage investor. READ MORE

The Era of “Illiquid for Longer” in Private Equity

Private equity runs on exits. When exits slow down, everything else starts to feel tighter: fund timelines, liquidity planning, and even conversations with investors.

That’s where many sponsors are today. Exits are taking longer, buyers are tougher on price, and financing isn’t as easy as it used to be, so more companies are staying in portfolios past the “normal” timeline. That means slower distributions, more pressure from limited partners (LPs), and more questions about when liquidity will arrive, not just how well the assets are performing. READ MORE

The Art Of Board Membering: Lessons From The Board Room

Along my journey as an early stage investor, I have seen all kinds of boards and I like to believe I have learned something from each of them. Reflecting on the most effective boards that I feel privileged to have served on, I do think there are some lessons absolutely worth sharing.

First and foremost, I really believe that “board member” should be a verb. The two nouns together “board’ and “member” are actually - when done well - a verb. Something akin to “board membering.” READ MORE

The Silicon Renaissance: US Fabs Go Online as CHIPS Act Shifts to Venture-Style Equity

As of December 18, 2025, the landscape of American semiconductor manufacturing has transitioned from a series of ambitious legislative promises into a tangible, operational reality. The CHIPS and Science Act, once a theoretical framework for industrial policy, has reached a critical inflection point where the first "made-in-USA" advanced logic wafers are finally rolling off production lines in Arizona and Texas. This milestone marks the most significant shift in global hardware production in three decades, as the United States attempts to claw back its share of the leading-edge foundry market from Asian giants.

The final quarter of 2025 has seen a dramatic evolution in how these domestic projects are managed. Following the establishment of the U.S. Investment Accelerator earlier this year, the federal government has pivoted from a traditional grant-based system to a "venture-capital style" model. This includes the high-profile finalization of a 9.9% equity stake in Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), funded through a combination of remaining CHIPS grants and the "Secure Enclave" program. By becoming a shareholder in its national champion, the U.S. government has signaled that domestic AI sovereignty is no longer just a matter of policy, but a direct national investment. READ MORE

Inside the VC Roll-up Craze That Has Taken Silicon Valley by Storm

Venture capitalists borrowed liberally from the private equity playbook this year, and nowhere was that more evident than in roll-up strategies built on the idea that AI tools can make old-school small businesses far more efficient.

We wrote back in June that the “AI roll-up had officially gone mainstream.” Since then, major firms including General Catalyst, Lightspeed, Thrive Capital, and 8VC have doubled down on the strategy, which generally involves acquiring multiple companies in a service sector like accounting, IT services, insurance, or law, and then remaking them with AI tools. READ MORE

6 Charts That Show The Big AI Funding Trends Of 2025

AI was the leading sector for startup funding globally from 2023 through 2025. In each year, funding amounts to this sector have gone up dramatically and proportions have increased.

At the close of 2025, OpenAI is the most valuable private company of all time, valued at $500 billion. Not far down the list is rival Anthropic, the fourth-most valuable at $183 billion. Together, those two companies alone make up close to 10% of the value on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board. READ MORE

SpaceX to Pursue 2026 IPO Raising Far Above $30 Billion

SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that would seek to raise significantly more than $30 billion, people familiar with the matter said, in a transaction that would make it the biggest listing of all time.

The Elon Musk-led company is targeting a valuation of about $1.5 trillion for the entire company, which would leave SpaceX near the market value that Saudi Aramco established during its record 2019 listing. The oil major raised $29 billion at the time. READ MORE

Nuclear Fission Shows Continuing Popularity (With VCs, At Least)

At first glance, nuclear fission power doesn’t seem like the most obvious area for U.S. venture capital to cluster.

After all, the last big boom for building American nuclear power plants was in the 1970s. Not long after that, environmental and safety concerns, project cost and broader availability of other affordable power options, among other factors, effectively brought new installations to a halt. READ MORE

4 signs your startup is fundable, according to top investors

Every beautiful garden begins with a humble seed planted in the ground. That's where the startup world got the term "seed funding": some of the earliest money a new company receives to grow. "For startups, seed investing is what is needed for you to see those beautiful tulips one day," says Michael Duda, cofounder and managing partner of Bullish Inc., a venture capital firm that has invested in companies like Warby Parker, Peloton, Harry's, Bubble Beauty, and Bandit Running. READ MORE

Private Equity Fundraising Remains Glum, Four Years On

As 2025 nears its end, private equity firms are facing the fourth year of a slide in fundraising. During the first nine months these funds have raised $906.9 billion, down from more than $1.7 trillion in 2022, the year fundraising first began to decline, according to new data from PitchBook.

Hilary Wiek, senior strategist at PitchBook, noted that both the number of funds closing and the amount of capital raised remain weak. READ MORE

Private equity’s hot ‘continuation’ trade leaves some feeling singed

A recurring theme in 2025 in the world of private equity is “keeping the wolf from the door”. For companies on the brink of running out of money, that manifests through the increasing popularity of so-called liability management exercises, where zombie companies are temporarily kept upright by tapping bountiful debt markets and strong-arming investors. For companies in private equity portfolios that are not quite hobbled but not exactly thriving either, there are continuation vehicles. These are new funds created by the same private equity sponsor that can purchase a business when the original fund is at its contractual end. A way, in effect, of keeping a promising company in the fold. READ MORE

Billionaires Are Ditching Private Equity Funds -- And Betting Billions on Direct Deals Instead

Billionaires are quietly rewriting the private-equity playbook, and UBS (NYSE:UBS) says the shift could be one of the most consequential capital-allocation pivots of the coming year. In its latest Billionaire Ambitions Report, UBS found that almost a third of the 87 surveyed individuals controlling 10-figure fortunes plan to scale back commitments to private equity funds over the next 12 months, the biggest expected decline across more than a dozen investment categories. With higher borrowing costs squeezing deal profits and shrinking payouts to limited partners, the traditional fund model is facing the kind of pressure that could be reshaping how the ultra-rich think about private markets. READ MORE

Lawsuit highlights private equity's CV conflict

A Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund last month sued to stop a Houston-based private equity firm from selling a portfolio company to a continuation vehicle, with both sides yesterday agreeing to enter arbitration.

Why it matters: This dispute gets at the fundamental conflict between LPs and GPs when it comes to CVs, which may have just peaked, if you boil away all goodwill and assumption of positive intent.

On the docket: Abu Dhabi Investment Council is a limited partner in PE funds raised in 2011 and 2014 by Energy & Minerals Group. They both hold stakes in Ascent Resources, a large natural gas company that also counts First Reserve among its investors. READ MORE

Startup Funding Continued On A Tear In November As Megarounds Hit 3-Year High

November was another outsized month for venture funding as investors poured $39.6 billion into startups globally.  The funding total was on par with October and up 28% year over year from $31 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

Capital continued to concentrate into the largest companies. A stunning 43% of venture funding last month went to just 14 companies that raised rounds of $500 million or more each. That marked the largest number of such megarounds raised in a single month in the past three years. READ MORE