Global venture funding experienced a slowdown in April 2025, remaining flat year-over-year and showing a sharp decline compared to March, according to data from Crunchbase. April´s funding levels marked one of the slowest months in the past year, coming on the heels of March, which saw the highest monthly venture investment since 2022, largely fueled by a record-breaking private financing round for OpenAI.
Despite the overall dip, Artificial Intelligence continued to dominate the global funding landscape. The largest funding round in April went to Safe Superintelligence, an Artificial Intelligence research lab co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. This investment added considerable value to the startup within just seven months. Overall, companies in the Artificial Intelligence sector accounted for about 30% of global startup funding in April. Other leading sectors included healthcare and biotech, raising significant sums, while financial services, security, solar, transportation, energy, and space startups also attracted large rounds.
U.S.-based startups increased their share of global venture funding, raising approximately 62% of total funds in April compared to 56% in 2024. China remained the second-largest country for venture investments, while the UK and India were tied in third place. Prominent investors such as Insight Partners, Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, and Khosla Ventures were highly active in leading post-seed venture rounds. In terms of deal stages, 10% of funding went to seed-stage companies, 37% to early-stage, and 53% to late-stage startups. The slowdown is attributed to ongoing market uncertainty and broader economic tensions, including U.S. tariffs and trade dynamics. The report notes that, absent major blockbuster deals like OpenAI´s, the global venture market may continue to experience cautious investment in the coming months.
This analysis is based on Crunchbase data reported as of May 2, 2025, with funding values converted to U.S. dollars. Methodological notes indicate that data lags are most pronounced for early-stage deals, potentially altering the figures after further updates.
