PE investment globally hits $1.5 trillion in first three quarters of 2025 despite slowdown in deal activity

At the end of Q3’25, global PE deal volume was $1.5 trillion — on pace to reach a four-year high should investment remain steady through Q4’25. The buoyant investment is notable given the significant decline in deal volume — from 15,083 deals in the first three quarters of 2024 to 13,574 in the first three quarters of 2025.

After some pullback in PE investment in Q2’25 — driven largely by geopolitical tensions and uncertainties related to US tariffs — Q3’25 saw global PE investment reach $537.1 billion according to KPMG’s Q3’25 Pulse of Private Equity. The buoyant deal value was helped significantly by three very large public-to-private transactions in the US: Electronic Arts ($54.6 billion), Air Lease ($28.2 billion), and Dayforce ($12.4 billion). READ MORE

There Are Lots of Ways to Raise Capital. Here’s How 3 Inc. 5000 Founders Did It

Looking to scale your business? You’re going to need money to do it—and unless you’re planning on bootstrapping indefinitely, that’ll probably involve some outside capital.

But with lots of different ways to secure third-party investment, from venture capital and private equity to grant programs and the public markets, how’s an entrepreneur to choose? READ MORE

Here's the pitch deck that Pacaso, a luxury vacation home startup, used to crowdfund $72 million from 17,500 investors

Have you heard of Reg A? Neither had Austin Allison — until he used it to fund Pacaso, a real estate startup for luxury vacation homes.

Allison, Pacaso's cofounder and CEO, started the company with Spencer Rascoff. They were both veterans of the real estate and consumer technology industries when they launched Pacaso in 2020. READ MORE

This top VC has bet close to 20% of his fund on teenagers — here’s why

Kevin Hartz tends to be first through the door. In 2001, he co-founded Xoom, back when sending money across borders meant standing in line at Western Union. In 2013, it went public, and in 2015, PayPal paid $1.1 billion for it. Four years after launching Xoom, he co-founded Eventbrite, which went public in 2018 and turned buying event tickets into something you could do without wanting to throw your laptop in the ocean.

After a stint at Founders Fund, Hartz co-founded his own venture firm, A* Capital (a nod to a computer science algorithm), then in 2020, he spotted another trend before the masses: the SPAC boom. His blank-check company, “one,” swallowed up 3D printing outfit Markforged in a $2.1 billion reverse merger in 2021, right as every other financier in Silicon Valley suddenly decided SPACs were the future. READ MORE

Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet

“We have incurred operating losses in the past, may incur operating losses in the future, and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.”

Yes, that’s singling out boilerplate corporate language in the “Risk Factors” section of docs filed by The Los Angeles Times as it seeks investors ahead of an initial public offering that may take place in 2027 on the New York Stock Exchange under the LAT symbol. But, with a net loss before income taxes of $48 million on the books for 2024, the line also speaks to the urgency of billionaire owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong‘s bid to transform the business of the 144-year-old paper, which now employs 615 full-time staffers and says it has about 500,000 paying customers combined across its print and digital offerings. READ MORE

Private equity’s comeback is missing one key ingredient

In the world of private equity, the mood is decidedly more upbeat. Despite tariff uncertainty and rising equity valuations, sponsors have managed to reel in some big fish, with the whale being the $55bn buyout of Electronic Arts. And with the listings window cracking open, even in stagnant Europe, there is hope that the sector may finally sell down part of the $3tn asset pile it has amassed. The latest data suggests an uptick is already under way. In Europe, sponsors sold some €90bn of assets in the third quarter says PitchBook. Globally, industry exits have grown to $871bn so far this year, which is already higher than the total achieved in 2022 and 2023, and, at the current rate, on track to beat 2024. READ MORE

A VC firm says it fired all its analysts and is using AI to help run deals for its new $75 million fund

As investors scramble to find the next big AI startup to fund, one VC firm got rid of its analysts and is instead using AI to help run deals.

Four-year-old Davidovs Venture Collective (DVC) — cofounded by married duo and general partners Marina Davidova and Nick Davidov — has launched a $75 million fund for Series A and B AI startups. READ MORE

VC secondaries continue to grow, but GP-led deals are lagging

Annual GP-led VC secondaries have reached around $14.6 billion and are projected to grow by $1.5 billion in the next two years, according to a new PitchBook analyst note. Direct secondaries, meanwhile, are hovering around $60 billion in annual transactions, up from $50 billion last year.

“The biggest takeaway is that the GP-led secondaries market has grown in recent years because of the exits stalemate—but because the market has inherent limitations, both on the buyer side and the seller side, its growth is limited to a small universe of potential venture firms that can spin out continuation funds and strip sales,” said Emily Zheng, a senior VC research analyst at PitchBook. READ MORE

3 Reasons to Care About Private Markets Even if You’re Not Investing in Them

Bringing private markets to the masses is the talk of the investment world these days. As more capital formation takes place beyond public exchanges, efforts are underway to give retail investors access to private equity and private credit. Semiliquid funds offer one route. Private assets may even be coming to 401(k) plans.

Skeptics suspect a cash grab. As much as phrases like “democratizing access” sound altruistic, private market investment managers see retail assets as a means of growing their businesses. Private market funds are known for high fees, illiquidity, and opacity. Their diversification and performance benefits can be oversold. READ MORE

A sophisticated VC strategy that’s not worth as much to LPs as you’d think

LPs like to think that selecting top fund managers means a greater likelihood of blockbuster returns. And that conventional wisdom is especially prevalent in venture capital, where a few well-timed bets can yield truly incredible returns.

But new research from PitchBook suggests that in most cases, the ability to pick superior GPs may not generate any more alpha in venture capital than in buyouts, an asset class where the gap between the best and worst managers is narrower. READ MORE

Private Equity’s Profit Charade

In my previous post, I explained why investments in private equity firms that buy and manage companies with the intent of changing them so they can be sold for a profit are especially risky. Those risks are ultimately being borne by a large segment of the population because public pension management institutions that hold the pension funds of public schoolteachers and other state workers are often large investors in private equity. 

Yet, as I also pointed out, those high risks might be justified if the returns from investments in private equity were especially large. But are they? READ MORE

'Shark Tank' Judge And Canadian Businessman Kevin O’Leary Breaks Down How To Win Over Investors

Every entrepreneur has a defining moment. For Canadian businessman and investor Kevin O’Leary, it occurred in the 11th grade.

O’Leary, nicknamed “Mr. Wonderful,” shared with AFROTECH™ that he was fired from an ice cream shop after working only a few hours as a scooper. The shop’s owner instructed him to scrape the tile floors, which he refused to do since it was not in his job description. READ MORE

Why women are quitting VC for coveted operator roles

In venture capital, they call it “pattern matching” — identifying similarities in successful investments — but Claire Bristow and Adele Moynihan spotted a different pattern: the escape route their female colleagues were taking.

Both women recently left roles in Australian venture capital for chief of staff positions at high-growth startups. READ MORE

Why Private Equity Is Making Small-Cap Investing Harder

It’s getting tough out there for the little guys.

Small-cap stocks have started to lose some of their performance zing compared with large caps. The reason: Private equity and venture capital firms have been snapping up many promising small companies that otherwise would likely have gone public, wresting those potentially lucrative opportunities away from public investors. Over the past two years there has been a widening gap in quality between large-cap and small-cap stocks, according to a recent Morningstar analysis. That includes returns on assets, returns on equity, net margin and debt-to-capital ratios showing that overall, small-cap stocks have increasingly weaker fundamentals compared with large caps, Morningstar passive strategies analyst Zachary Evens said. READ MORE

Why Venture Capital Needs To Eliminate This Blind Spot

You’ve likely heard the grim statistic that women receive less than two percent of venture capital (VC) funding. Within that low number, women over 50 are nearly invisible in the funding landscape. Silicon Valley touts the skills of the youth and eagerly invests in these founders, but I’d like to challenge the myth that innovation only belongs to the young talent out there.

Women over 50 are a group of innovators who largely get ignored and passed over, but this is a missed opportunity. If investors are looking for the next successful business, they might not want to overlook the women who don’t fit the Silicon Valley mold. It’s a well-known fact that the best portfolios thrive off diversity and investing in founders is no different. READ MORE

A Guide to Raising Venture Capital in 2025

Getting off the ground is less about ideas and more about capital for many small business owners and startup founders. Great ideas, dedicated teams and solutions that herald breakthroughs are most often left unattended due to the one resource needed to propel any stage of growth: money.

While the media spotlights billion-dollar valuations and massive fundraising rounds, the truth is that most founders are navigating a financial system that wasn’t built for them. Access to venture capital is often reserved for the well-networked or already established, leaving early-stage entrepreneurs on the outside looking in. READ MORE

Here’s what Andreessen Horowitz’s leaked decks mean for the future of venture capital

Last week, two Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) LP decks leaked to Newcomer. As far as I (and Google and ChatGPT) can tell, this is only the second time ever that internal Andreessen Horowitz documents have leaked. The firm is notoriously secretive.

I am much too humble and my fund is much too insignificant to seriously believe that my Substack from September 3—“Andreessen Horowitz is not a Venture Capital Fund”—and its subsequent republishing on Fast Company could possibly have annoyed the Sand Hill Road behemoth so much that it decided to leak its own LP deck for the first time in history.  READ MORE

Venture's Returns On Capital Not Reflecting Well On The Business

What underlying fundamental trends can indicate that a company might be in decline? More often than not, we'll see a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) and a declining amount of capital employed. Trends like this ultimately mean the business is reducing its investments and also earning less on what it has invested. In light of that, from a first glance at Venture (SGX:V03), we've spotted some signs that it could be struggling, so let's investigate. READ MORE

More than half of all venture capital money will flow into AI start-ups in 2025

Major players like Anthropic and xAI have secured multi-billion dollar rounds, while smaller startups outside the AI sector are finding it harder to raise money. Kyle Sanford at PitchBook describes the result as a split market - it's either AI or not.

In the US, 62.7 percent of VC funding went to AI companies, compared to 53.2 percent worldwide. In total, global VC investment for 2025 stands at $366.8 billion, with $250.2 billion coming from the US. READ MORE

Q3 Venture Funding Jumps 38% As More Massive Rounds Go To AI Giants And Exits Gain Steam

Global venture funding gained significantly in Q3 2025, closing up 38% year over year, Crunchbase data shows, as massive funding deals, particularly for giants in the AI sector, continued to lead.

All told, Q3 venture investment reached $97 billion, up from $70 billion in Q3 2024, per Crunchbase data. Quarter-over-quarter  funding was up slightly from $92 billion in Q2.  READ MORE