Global VC markets emerge from tough 2024
2024 was supposed to be a year of recovery for VC, or at least there was hope of such market growth before the year began. Though it wasn’t all doom and gloom, 2024 didn’t produce the exits and returns that the market had hoped for, and the lack of distributions continues to hamper global fundraising as LPs remain wary of the industry.
The data shows that dealmaking didn’t have as tough of a year as expected, even making a slight turnaround in the US with our estimates putting the final year tally ahead of 2023 and staunchly ahead of pre-2021 years. In a year we saw down and flat valuations increase to nearly 30% of completed deals in the US, the high amount of dry powder accumulated in 2021 and 2022 flashes as the leading factor in the steady level of equity interest in VC. Of course, we can’t count out the interest in AI as leading to the slight bump in deal counts YoY. Nearly 30% of completed US investments were made into AI companies in 2024, a significant growth over previous years.
Though a recovery may not have materialized in 2024, the global outlook for 2025 is, for now, a bit healthier, in what may be a pivotal year for global VC markets.
Ahead of our full report next week, dive into data packs covering the global and European VC ecosystems, in addition to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor First Look at US data.