DealLawyers.com Blog

Aumni and Fenwick recently released their latest “Venture Beacon,” a periodic report on the state of the venture capital market. This one covers the first half of 2025, and this excerpt highlights some of the survey’s key findings:

– Data through the first half of 2025 reinforces early-stage resilience amid late-stage decline. Seed through Series C rounds demonstrated strong performance in Q2 2025, with deal sizes growing 5 to 22% and valuations rising 3 to 60% quarter-over-quarter, while Series D+ rounds experienced sharp declines of 8.9% in capital raised and 48% in pre-money valuations, reflecting reduced mega-round activity at later stages.

– Seed rounds are evolving structurally, likely to bridge extended fundraising timelines. Seed deals continued to outperform later-stage financings in H1 2025, with companies raising larger Seed rounds. The data suggests traditional stage definitions are evolving as Seed rounds increasingly adopt characteristics historically associated with Series A financings. Further, the Seed to Series A graduation pipeline improved significantly, with 21% of Q2 2023 Seed raises in Aumni data successfully going on to raise a Series A within the following two years, from 12% the prior quarter.

– AI premiums persist despite shifting market share. Artificial Intelligence companies maintained strong valuation premiums across multiple sectors at Series A, though AI representation across funding stages has plateaued or declined in H1 2025. AI companies in the aggregate have taken a lower share of total funding allocation in the first half of 2025 compared to 2024, with the exception of Series D+ rounds.

– Secondary markets stabilized with improving sentiment. While secondary transaction volume remains at pre-pandemic levels, 28.9% of H1 2025 secondaries traded at premiums to recent equity rounds. The average secondary tranche size remains subdued at $1.2M to $1.4M, indicating that while sentiment has improved, it remains tempered by continued investor caution.

– Founder-friendly terms continue to accelerate in H1 2025. Founder preferred stock incidence accelerated to 11% in H1 2025, measured by inclusion as a stock provision tracked in equity financing closing set documents, from 9% in 2024 and 6% in 2023.

– John Jenkins