So almost all of our analyses of venture data for the past 18+ months have said the same thing: dollars into venture are way up in the Age of AI. You can see it all over X and TechCrunch and The Information.
But VC deals aren’t up. It’s a massive concentration of capital in the top AI names.
The latest data from Carta is in, covering 11,041 primary rounds raised by US startups from Q1 2023 through Q4 2025. And it slices a lot of data and comes to a very similar conclusiojn:
- Dollars invested ’23-’25: Up 130% (from $12.8B to $29.5B)
- Number of deals ’23-’25: Up just 3% (from 802 to 823)
Venture is back with a vengence. But mostly just for the proven, massive winners.
VC Rounds Are Much Bigger
VCs aren’t doing more deals. They’re doing bigger deals. A lot bigger.
In Q1 2023, the average primary round on Carta was about $16M. By Q4 2025, that average had nearly doubled to $36M. Same number of checks being written. Each check is just way, way larger.
This is the bifurcation we’ve been talking about for two years now playing out in real numbers.
The Winners Are Winning Bigger
Look at the quarterly progression. After bottoming out at just 734 deals in Q1 2024 (the nuclear winter quarter), deal count has been hovering in the 800-1,000 range. Nothing dramatic. No flood of new deals.
But dollars? They’ve been on a tear:
- Q1 2024: $24.0B
- Q2 2024: $24.2B
- Q3 2024: $23.4B
- Q4 2024: $22.7B
- Q1 2025: $23.5B
- Q2 2025: $23.7B
- Q4 2025: $29.5B
That Q4 2025 number is the highest in the entire dataset. More money deployed in a single quarter than at any point since the 2021 peak.
What This Means If You’re Fundraising
Here’s the practical takeaway for founders:
- If you’re a top-tier company, there’s never been more capital available for you. VCs are sitting on record amounts of dry powder and they’re deploying it aggressively into their highest-conviction bets. The best Series A and B rounds are getting done at great terms with multiple term sheets.
- If you’re everyone else, the market hasn’t really improved. The number of companies getting funded is basically flat. All that additional capital is flowing to a relatively small number of winners.
This is why some founders are telling me “fundraising has never been easier” while others are telling me it’s impossible. They’re both right. They’re just in different buckets.
The AI Effect
You can’t look at this data without acknowledging that AI is driving a huge portion of those bigger checks. When a single AI infrastructure company can raise $500M-$1B in a round, it skews the averages significantly.
But it’s not just the mega-rounds. Even at Series A, AI-native companies are commanding 2-3x the valuations and round sizes of their non-AI peers. The capital is following the opportunity.
Not A Venture Recovery. A Venture Concentration.
We’re not in a venture recovery. We’re in a venture concentration.
The same number of startups are getting funded as two years ago. But the ones that do get funded are getting dramatically more capital. The gap between the funded and unfunded has never been wider.
If you’re building something truly differentiated—especially in AI—this is a great market. If you’re building an incremental improvement to an existing category, it’s still 2023 out there for you.
The data doesn’t lie. More money, same number of deals. That’s not a rising tide lifting all boats. That’s a few boats getting yachts while everyone else stays in the harbor.
Data: Carta, Q1 2023-Q4 2025
