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SpaceX's launchpad: Is a $1.5 trillion valuation justified? Our initiation report and bottom-up financial model offer a granular, independent look at the company's financials as it prepares for what could be the largest IPO in history. Dive in here.
Ranking AI giants: We built a new framework to measure the true business quality of the five leading private AI companies. Our central finding: Companies commanding the highest premiums demonstrated the weakest business fundamentals. Read more.
Iran war: Conflict erupted this week in the Middle East after the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran. Our analyst note breaks down the energy implications of the war and identifies key developments to watch for. Download it here.
Top performers: Our interactive Global League Tables rank investors, advisers and more across the full spectrum of private market activity. Explore them here. |
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| The question sophisticated fund managers ask their fund administrator |
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Technology is now table stakes in fund administration. Nearly every firm claims to be modern, tech-enabled, or AI-powered, making it harder for fund managers to separate substance from marketing. At Formidium, we work closely with alternative investment managers navigating scale, regulatory and operational complexity. As technology claims have multiplied, the real difference isn’t whether an administrator uses technology, but whether they understand what building durable, explainable, technology-led fund accounting actually requires.
This perspective reframes how administrators should be evaluated, focusing on ownership versus dependency, controls before automation, and how technology should reshape workflows and cost structures over time.
For fund managers, these questions provide a clearer lens into long-term risk, scalability, and operational resilience.
Download 2025 Alternative Funds Report |
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| Back to the Bay: VC returns justify push back to the coasts |
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US VC fundraising has faced challenges in recent years, unsurprisingly. Only $66.1 billion was raised across fewer than 550 funds, marking the lowest figures in a decade.
Along with this decline, the market is concentrating again around the Bay Area and New York. These two regions accounted for 65% of the closed commitments and represented 62.3% of total deal value for the year, according to new PitchBook research.
The pullback in fundraising from smaller markets contrasts with trends from five years ago, when COVID drove dealmaking and fundraising beyond tech hubs into second- and third-tier VC cities like Austin, Phoenix and Miami.
However, those markets have yet to generate investor returns from that shift. To be fair, no markets have delivered the strongest returns in recent years. When comparing historical VC returns across markets, it’s clear why the Bay Area and New York continue to attract new capital and talent for startups. Returns in those markets, especially at the seed and Series A stages, are significantly higher than elsewhere in the US.
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| Source: PitchBook • Geography: US • As of Dec. 31, 2025 |
Over the past decade, 26 of the 50 largest exits have come from companies headquartered in the Bay Area. Bay Area seed investments have an annualized return of 31.2%, while the rest of the West Coast—mainly Los Angeles, Seattle and San Diego—return just 14.4% at the seed stage. The Mid-Atlantic exhibits comparable patterns, with New York returning at about double the rate of seed investments from the rest of the region.
At least a small part of the overall higher return in these markets is due to the large amount of capital available. Companies in these regions can raise bigger rounds more easily, which significantly lowers company failure rates.
If other markets want to become the next Silicon Valley or simply continue to grow their venture industry, they need to find ways to compete with tech hubs in total return.
Download the report to read more about how regional dynamics impact returns expectations. |
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| Fundraising signs of hope are not universal |
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When I joined the research team at PitchBook in early 2020, all of the private market fundraising data had been plotting up and to the right for many years and across most strategies. Even in 2020, when LPs had to rework their policies around on-site due diligence before making commitments, the numbers rose. 2021 was the peak, though, and the figures have fallen each year since.
We have written extensively about the reasons for this: Inflated valuations in 2021 made it difficult for GPs to agree with potential buyers about what things were worth, so exits came to a halt. Without exits, LPs had to adjust their commitment pacing, as their allocations were staying persistently high without distributions. And some pockets of the market were just not deemed attractive enough to commit to when uncertainties were rife—such as in real estate, where the power struggle between companies and their employees about in-person work has led to a long period of adjustment and uncertainty around the future needs of office space.
There have been some indications of deal activity and exit activity picking up in PE and VC, but thus far this has not yet translated to a rising trajectory in LP commitments to these funds.
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| Private capital raised ($B) by strategy |
That said, there have been some bright spots. The amount of assets accumulating in aging funds has led to an accumulation of potential deal flow for secondaries purchasers, which has excited LPs into committing record amounts to secondaries funds. Also reaching new highs have been infrastructure fund commitments, with investors hoping to capitalize on opportunities in energy transition and digital infrastructure assets.
Infrastructure is not the staid asset class of roads, bridges and airports anymore, however, so hopefully investors are factoring in that past risks and returns may not be appropriate proxies for the new opportunistic build-outs of infrastructure assets.
For comprehensive data and further insights, we refer you to our 2025 Annual Global Private Market Fundraising Report. |
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All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem
US VC-backed female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, capturing an unprecedented 27.7% of total US venture deal value, even as overall deal count declined. More than $30 billion came from Scale AI and Anthropic raises, highlighting how AI-driven mega-deals and later-stage financings are concentrating capital into fewer, larger rounds. |
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Outside of AI, biotech & pharma stood out as one of the few sectors in which female founders saw measured growth in both investment value and count in the US.
Across the pond, European female-founded startups faced another tough year for new VC raises. The absence of mega-deals was a driving factor, creating a greater gap in total value for female-founded companies compared with the all-Europe cohort.
Operational and exit metrics were more encouraging, however. More than two-thirds of female-founded startups raised a follow-on round or exited after their initial VC financing, slightly outperforming the total European figure.
Download the US report
Download the Europe report |
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Emerging Tech Indicator
PitchBook's Emerging Tech Indicator tracks seed and early-stage investment from the top 15 venture firms.
This subset of the broader VC ecosystem grew to a record size in 2025, as leading firms concentrated bets into a select number of outsized transactions.
Mega-rounds for frontier AI labs like Reflection AI (earning a $2 billion Series B), humans& (drawing a $480 million seed round), and Unconventional AI (fetching a $475 million seed round), signal a new era of high-conviction, high-capital early-stage investing.
Download the report |
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