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2024 Wrapped

9 VC firms collected half of all money raised by US funds in 2024

Andreessen Horowitz took in more than a tenth of all capital raised by US VC funds this year

In 2024, 30 firms raised 75% of all capital raised by VC funds in the US, a powerful signal of how the tech pullback is concentrating influence among the venture industry’s heavyweights.

Just nine of them took in $35 billion—half of the total raised, according to PitchBook data.

And just one firm, Andreessen Horowitz, brought in over 11% of all capital raised.

VC isn’t what it used to be. The days of boutique firms elbowing each other aside for the best deals have been replaced by an elite cohort of GPs dictating rules and valuations.

Even as LPs backed off the asset class, they continued to increase commitments to names like Thrive Capital, General Catalyst and TCV.

Over the last decade, established VCs have expanded the expectations of a venture firm, which not only invests in startups but also provides them with in-house marketing and recruiting firepower. Firms began raising larger funds to accommodate this expansion. In 2019, the titans of VC in the US raised 10 funds over $1 billion. By 2022, that figure had swelled to 35 funds, according to a PitchBook analyst note.

The AI wave has further motivated VCs to rack up LP capital commitments, in order to keep up with the near-constant capital demands of large language models.

It’s not unusual for venture mega-funds to scoop up huge LP commitments in any given year. In 2017, SoftBank announced a major close of its Vision Fund 1 on $93 billion—in the same year, US VC funds collectively raised $46.8 billion. What’s unusual about 2024 is that mega-funds have raked in capital while emerging managers have struggled to secure meetings with institutional investors.

In particular, large firms have been increasingly tapping into deeper-pocketed sources of capital, like sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds. Thrive Capital added Calpers to its LP base for its Growth Fund VIII last year. Sanabil Investments, the venture arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has invested in a16z, Coatue and Insight Partners funds.

Emerging managers have been especially hard hit by the latest fundraising cycle. Emerging firms outside of the top 30 closed on $9.1 billion, or 14% of all US VC commitments in 2024.

Many institutional LPs have cut commitments to first-time funds while the IPO window stayed shut, leaving many emerging GPs with no option but to sell secondary fund stakes to distribute liquidity.

That retreat by institutional investors is opening the doors for high-net-worth individuals and wealth managers to expand their venture allocations.

Correction: Due to a data error, a previous version of this article contained the wrong fundraising total for General Catalyst. The firm raised $6 billion for its VC funds. This change increased the total raised by the top nine funds and the share of capital raised by the top 30 funds. (Dec. 12, 2024)

Featured image of Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen by Paul Chinn/Getty Images

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    Rosie Bradbury is a senior reporter covering startups and venture capital for PitchBook News. Based in New York, she previously reported for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Business Insider and Wired. Rosie studied history and politics at the University of Cambridge.
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