The venture secondary market’s biggest names are leaving. Now what?

SpaceX went public. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing IPOs at valuations that could clear $1 trillion. For years, these three names have dominated venture secondary volumes, and now they are all leaving the secondary market at once. This analyst note breaks down what happens when a market this concentrated loses its biggest companies, and which startups are already positioned to become the next generation of trophy names.

Growth this fast does not come without friction. Anthropic’s crackdown on special purpose vehicles (SPVs) spooked secondary investors who feared their shares had been nullified overnight. A patent lawsuit between Nasdaq Private Market and Hiive could decide who controls the trading infrastructure for the entire industry. Fraud and inflated fees, already attaching a stigma to SPVs, are about to get worse as SpaceX’s lockups expire and years of opaque dealmaking finally become clear. READ MORE

Three Signals That Define This Year's Next Billion-Dollar Startups

Every year, thousands of venture-backed startups raise millions in capital, generate headlines and promise to reshape entire industries. Only a small fraction ultimately become enduring, category-defining businesses.

The 2026 Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list recognizes the companies that appear best positioned to make that leap. While this year's companies span industries from healthcare and cybersecurity to legal services and insurance, many share a remarkably consistent set of characteristics. READ MORE

Why Amending a Venture Capital Fund LPA Is More Complicated Than It Seems: The Hidden Complexity of Limited Partner Consents

Amending the limited partnership agreement (“LPA”) of a venture capital fund is rarely a simple exercise. While LPAs are designed to provide a degree of flexibility over the life of a fund, the process of obtaining the necessary limited partner (“LP”) consents can be time-consuming, technical, and, at times, unpredictable. As investor bases become more diverse and fund structures more layered, what might appear to be a straight forward amendment can quickly devolve into a complicated coordination effort. READ MORE

Corporate Venture Capital Enters a New Phase of Growth as Global Companies Turn to Venture Capital-as-a-Service

Pegasus Tech Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based global venture capital firm and leading provider of Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) solutions, today announced that it has surpassed $300 million in new corporate venture capital commitments across five funds established during the first half of 2026, underscoring the accelerating adoption of corporate venture capital among global enterprises.

As companies navigate rapid technological change driven by artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing, corporate venture capital has become an increasingly important strategy for accessing innovation, identifying emerging technologies and building long-term partnerships with startups. The continued growth of Pegasus’ Venture Capital-as-a-Service platform reflects this broader shift, as more corporations seek experienced partners to establish and manage dedicated venture capital funds. READ MORE

Defense Tech Investment Hits Record High as Arms Giants Ramp Up Startup Funding

Investment in defence tech start-ups has reached a record high this year as the world’s biggest arms companies step up spending on new military technology.

New figures from Dealroom show defence contractors including BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Airbus have participated in $4.1bn (£3bn) of venture capital funding rounds so far this year, the highest figure on record. READ MORE

I asked an early-stage investor for a startup compliance horror story. What I got instead was a warning sign

I asked an early-stage investor a simple question: Tell me about a startup that discovered, too late, that it wasn’t allowed to operate the way it had built itself to operate.

He gave me three companies. For each one, his answer was some version of the same thing: They haven’t gotten far enough yet for that to be an issue. Still testing. Hasn’t hit the government hurdles. Hasn’t reached the point where it would matter. READ MORE

Is CVC the “fun uncle” of startup investing?

This was one of the clearest explanations I have heard recently for why many corporate investors prefer to follow rather than lead funding rounds. It was not about confidence in due diligence, or even cheque size. It was about roles, as one experienced CVC investor told me. 

“The person who writes the biggest cheque is the one the founder or CEO calls when things are on fire. I want to be the fun uncle. You want to play around with some ideas? Let’s run experiments, launch rockets in the backyard together — that kind of vibe,” he said.  READ MORE

Two-thirds of all venture capital is now flowing to AI startups and non-AI founders are feeling it

If you're raising a seed round for a non-AI startup right now, you're not just competing with other startups. Look at who else is in the room. OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo together raised $188 billion in Q1 2026, according to Crunchbase. Four rounds. That was about 65% of all global venture investment for the quarter. The market did not simply get bigger. It split.

Crunchbase put Q1 global startup funding at about $300 billion, while TechCrunch, citing the same data set, reported $297 billion. Either way, the number is absurdly large. AI companies took roughly $242 billion, or about 80% of the total, according to Crunchbase's April 1 report. That is not a broad venture recovery. It is a handful of companies pulling the oxygen out of the room. READ MORE

Venture Capital Hit $412 Billion. Most Founders Won’t See a Dollar of It. Here’s the Playbook They Need

It’s been a record year so far for venture capital. And the latest data shows that in 2026, capital is more concentrated than ever — bigger checks to fewer companies. 

U.S. startups raised $412.7 billion in the first half of 2026 — up nearly 30 percent from last year, according to data released this month by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association.   READ MORE

The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Physical AI Startup Atoms Leads In Varied Week For Large Deals

Startup investors poured capital into a varied lineup of large rounds this week, targeting sectors including physical AI, biotech, cybersecurity, AI infrastructure and fintech. By far the largest financing of the week was a $1.7 billion round for Uber founder Travis Kalanick’s physical AI startup, Atoms, followed by sizable investments for 3D AI model developer Meshy AI and battery technology company Sila. READ MORE

The VC Math Ain’t Mathin’: This Health Investor Has a Fresh Playbook

Venture capital's traditional "fund-returner" model is facing scrutiny in health tech, despite a market recovery seeing $7.4 billion raised in H1 2026. This funding is highly concentrated, with mega-rounds absorbing nearly half the capital, creating a "tale of two markets." Liquidity remains challenging, with no IPOs in H1 2026 and many mature companies facing an "exit backlog paradox." Investors like Dan Galles of Allumia Ventures note healthcare's inherent difficulties, including few new institutional customers and slow adoption. While private practices offer an entry, they are financially constrained. Self-insured employers and consumer-facing platforms prove more viable for scaling, exemplified by Hinge Health and Hims & Hers. AI offers promise but also benefits incumbents. Galles advocates for a new VC playbook, still pursuing billion-dollar exits but also enabling attractive $150M-$250M outcomes by focusing on early commercial adoption, efficient capital, and profitability, matching investment strategy to realistic exit potential. READ MORE

If Venture Capital Believes Merger Control Stymies Growth, They Have the Resources To Prove It

When Figma priced its initial public offering at a valuation north of $19 billion in the summer of 2025—with shares briefly pushing the company’s market capitalization toward $68 billion on the first day of trading—it revived a fight that had lain dormant since Adobe abandoned its $20 billion bid for the company in December 2023. Lina Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission whose scrutiny during her tenure (alongside those from European and British regulators) helped kill that deal, took a victory lap, framing the offering as proof of the value of letting startups grow into independently successful businesses rather than folding them into incumbents. Vinod Khosla, the Sun Microsystems co-founder and a venture capitalist unaffiliated with Figma, was not persuaded. He shot back on X that Khan was in no position to override the judgment of founders, employees, and investors. He also accused her of falling into “retrospective predictability“: the claim of foresight for an outcome that was only obvious after the fact. READ MORE

A Clearer View of Private Equity

Recent headlines can paint a bleak picture for private equity: limited deal flow, fierce competition, stretched valuations, and scarce exits. AI disruption and geopolitical uncertainty have only heightened investor unease and confusion. Amid this noise, many investors are caught between competing narratives, unsure whether to commit capital or wait for clarity. But looking beyond the headlines reveals a more balanced and more constructive reality. READ MORE

Private equity fundraising rebounds; take-private deal activity cools

Private equity is on track to reverse two consecutive years of annual fundraising declines.

Investor commitments to global private equity funds totaled $306.78 billion this year through June 30, according to With Intelligence data. Annual fundraising by global private equity firms has exceeded $600 billion just once since 2020, though it is on track to do it again. READ MORE

U.S. Venture Capital Hits $412.7B in H1 2026, Led by AI Mega-Rounds

U.S. venture capital reached a record $412.7 billion in the first half of 2026, already exceeding the total raised during all of 2025. The increase was driven primarily by artificial intelligence companies and a small number of exceptionally large financings, not by a broad-based recovery across the startup market. The official PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor page describes the result as a record recovery with capital concentrated among relatively few companies and funds. READ MORE