The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) released its annual yearbook looking at the past year and the future of the venture capital industry.
According to its NVCA 2026 Yearbook, this year’s report focuses on strong investment activity as well as mounting structural pressures around liquidity. U.S. venture capital firms closed 15,352 deals worth $320 billion, a 51 percent increase in deal value and the second-highest total on record.
“Venture capital is fundamentally a team sport,” NVCA President and CEO Bobby Franklin said. “An investor may compete for—or collaborate on—a deal with corporate investors, crossover funds, sovereign wealth funds, or even the federal government. These players may be pursuing financial returns, job creation, critical intellectual property, or strategic advantage. Regardless of their motivations, they are playing to win—and their presence has shifted from the margins to the mainstream of the innovation ecosystem.”
The association said more than half of the deal value was attributed to artificial intelligence. Roughly 30 percent of deals included nontraditional investors (NTIs) – hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, corporate strategics, and endowments. Those deals accounted for 83 percent of all investment value. NTIs are conservatively estimated at between $80 and $100 billion and rival the size of the entire European VC market.
Traditional VC fundraising totaled more than $67 billion across 585 funds, with the top ten funds capturing a combined $22 billion, or nearly a third (32.9 percent) of all VC capital. That leaves roughly $44.9 billion divided between the remaining 575 funds.
At the same time, the industry continued to contract with only 101 first-time funds, down 77.9 percent from the 457 launched in 2021. Additionally, the report said, liquidity has not kept pace with capital deployment. Venture-backed exits totaled more than $217 billion across 1,463 deals in 2025 – more than double the previous year. The report noted 859 unicorns valued at $4.34 trillion, but only 30-40 unicorns actually exiting last year, meaning the gap between investment and realization is widening.
“Taken together, the 2025 data signals an industry at an inflection point—strong investment on one hand, constrained liquidity on the other, with a recovery in exits critical to restoring balance,” Franklin said.