"Global Venture Investment Hits 750 Trillion Won, Nearly Half Concentrated in AI"

Last year, the global venture capital market, driven by explosive demand for the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, recorded the third-largest investment volume in history.

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According to the report "Global Venture Investment Trends and Outlook for the Fourth Quarter of 2025" published by Samjong KPMG on the 5th, last year's global venture investment volume totaled 512.1 billion dollars (748.53657 trillion won), a 30.7% surge from the previous year's 391.9 billion dollars. This is the third-highest level in the history of venture investment.

In contrast, the total number of deals came to 37,746, down 11.5% from 42,366 in the previous year, which Samjong KPMG explained as evidence that the trend of "selection and concentration," in which large amounts of capital are funneled into high-quality companies, has become even more pronounced.

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The clear core driver of this growth was the AI sector. About 240 billion dollars was invested in the software sector last year, and a substantial portion of that flowed into AI, accounting for 46.8% of total global venture investment. This is the highest level since related statistics have been compiled. In particular, investments that had previously focused on large language models (LLMs) have recently expanded into businesses combined with industries such as data centers, small language models (SLMs), robotics, and vertical AI, leading to a rapid diversification of the AI ecosystem.

Amid national policies to strengthen defense capabilities, interest has expanded in "defense tech" areas such as drones, satellites, and cybersecurity, while the energy and transportation sectors showed relatively sluggish performance.

AI companies also led the way in mega-deals. In March last year, OpenAI raised a record 40 billion dollars through an investment round that included SoftBank. Anthropic raised a total of 16.5 billion dollars in two rounds in March and September, reaching a valuation of 183 billion dollars, and was reportedly in talks at the end of the year for an additional 15 billion dollars in strategic investment from Microsoft and Nvidia. In addition, companies such as Scale AI (14.3 billion dollars), xAI (10 billion dollars), and Databricks (4 billion dollars) also succeeded in securing large-scale investments.

By region, the dominance of the Americas was striking. Venture investment in the Americas reached 342.6 billion dollars, up 60.6% from the previous year, with its share of global investment climbing to a record 66.9%. Europe (85.67 billion dollars) and other regions (3.99 billion dollars) posted modest growth, while the Asia-Pacific region remained weak at 79.73 billion dollars, down 14.9% from the previous year.

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The exit market emerged from a prolonged slump and turned to a recovery phase. In 2025, global exit volume reached 777 billion dollars, an increase of 28.5% from the previous year. As initial public offerings (IPOs) resumed in major markets such as the United States, Hong Kong, and China, exit volume through IPOs surged 97.7% year-on-year to 278 billion dollars. In addition, as large corporations increasingly preferred acquiring technologically capable startups over internal development, exit activity through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) also became more active.

Doyoung Jung, Executive Director of the Startup Support Center at Samjong KPMG, said, "In the first quarter of this year as well, AI will remain the top priority area for global venture investment as a key means of driving operational innovation and productivity improvement across companies and industries," adding, "Investment capital is gradually concentrating on proven companies, while the share of small funds and newly formed venture funds is declining, and market restructuring is accelerating around large, experienced asset managers."

He went on to say, "As regulatory improvements and tax incentives related to venture investment are pursued, including the extension of the life of the Korea Fund of Funds into 2026, domestic venture investment is expected to grow with the AI sector as its axis, and there is a strong possibility that IPO activity will also become more active on the back of a rising stock market."

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