Private equity’s $2 trillion pile of cash is set to fuel M&A opportunities in 2025

Private equity firms are sitting on an unprecedented war chest: roughly $2 trillion in uncalled capital. Often referred to as “dry powder,” this cash pile has been accumulating since the last big global mergers-and-acquisitions blowout, in 2021, when volume reached a whopping $5.9 trillion, according to Dealogic. The following year, activity plummeted 38.8%, and it’s been relatively quiet ever since.

“We had a general slowdown in private equity exits in 2023 and 2024,” says Alain Dermarkar, US co-head of Private Equity at global law firm A&O Shearman. High interest rates were an issue; steep borrowing costs and lower returns created valuation mismatches, ultimately reducing the size, scope, and appeal of private equity deals. READ MORE

CVC’s most active investors in 2024 – and how they invested

The landscape of corporate venture capital keeps evolving, with the telecoms companies and chipmakers of the 90’s giving way to the internet boom of the following decade and ultimately the Web3 operators of recent years.

In 2024 it was investors focused on AI — such as Alphabet’s many venture funds, as well as Microsoft and Nvidia — that were the most prolific backers of startups. Web3 investors, particularly OKX Ventures, are also still very active, while Aramco Ventures, the investment arm of the Saudi oil company, is increasingly becoming a force in the startup ecosystem.

Here are the ten leading investors of the year: READ MORE

Private Markets May See a Brighter 2025

Hopes for a more business-friendly White House to spur mergers and acquisitions activity and bring needed liquidity to private markets has several institutional asset managers looking forward to 2025.

Falling interest rates may also bring some relief to certain private markets as global central bankers, including the Federal Reserve, loosen monetary policy. Yet there is still plenty of uncertainty to leave investors cautious, such as if the U.S. economy sputters. READ MORE

Venture Capitalists Are Not The Startup Team’s Friend

To be successful in their job, by necessity, VCs are friendly and personable. So friendly that it is easy to be lulled into thinking you are forging a real friendship and that they can step outside their fiduciary selves and provide good unbiased advice to a startup founder who needs good unbiased advice a lot. But it is vital the startup founder keep in mind that the VC has a job to do and they are driven first and foremost by that job even in the advice they provide. READ MORE

Number of US venture capital firms falls as cash flows to tech’s top investors

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/7a787423-9466-4e55-8c0e-8811cfe44dd3

The number of active venture capital investors has dropped more than a quarter from a peak in 2021, as risk-averse financial institutions focus their money on the biggest firms in Silicon Valley. The tally of VCs investing in US-headquartered companies dropped to 6,175 in 2024 — meaning more than 2,000 have fallen dormant since a peak of 8,315 in 2021, according to data provider PitchBook. READ MORE

How Investing In Startups Keeps Corporations At The Cutting Edge Of Technology

Corporations are always looking for cutting-edge technology to keep them more competitive. It’s a challenge because many corporations use traditional technology, yet they need to break out of it to accelerate business growth.

While becoming innovative is possible internally, corporations often struggle with it. They know innovation is critical to getting ahead of the competition, but they also know it is hard to develop innovation in a corporate environment. Let’s learn more about how investing in startups can help corporations find cutting-edge technology and how they can find innovative companies to invest in. READ MORE

Leveraging Social Media in Venture Capital

Social media, believe it or not, can have an effective role in the world of venture capital. At the Houston Smart Business Dealmakers Conference, Carrie Colbert of Curate Capital, Aquila Mendez-Valdez of Haute in Texas and Darek Woodward of ROI Ventures talked with Smart Business’s Dustin Klein about how to craft a captivating online brand that attracts investors, builds a thriving community of future deal flow, and uses influencers to skyrocket the value of your investments. READ MORE

Startup Founders’ Leadership Capability Will Be A Top Priority For VCs In 2025

In the competitive landscape of venture capital, startups are often laser-focused on crafting the perfect pitch deck, proving product-market fit, and showcasing ambitious revenue projections. As an entrepreneur and three-time founder, I’ve been in those rooms, pitching to VCs, fielding tough questions, and navigating the nuances of valuation negotiations. One thing I’ve learned from these experiences is that while metrics and projections are vital, they’re only part of the equation. A strong leadership team—one that inspires confidence, demonstrates resilience, and adapts to shifting landscapes—is often the factor that distinguishes startups commanding top-tier valuations from the rest of the pack. READ MORE

Kevin Ryan Has Invested in More Than 180 Startups. Here’s What He Says Founders Should Focus On

Serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan is sometimes referred to as the “Godfather” of NYC tech, and for good reason. After making a name for himself by growing digital advertising company DoubleClick from a startup to a public company that eventually sold to Google for $3.1 billion, Ryan co-founded a string of New York-based startups, including Business Insider, the online-shopping company Gilt Groupe, and the wedding-planning site Zola. READ MORE

Successful Private Equity Firms Manage Talent Differently

The private equity industry has long known that it needs new approaches to value creation.

PE firms are holding onto companies in their portfolios for longer time periods and doing more complex transactions (such as industry “roll-ups”). There is more money chasing fewer potential acquisitions, and higher interest rates are creating higher bars for performance. These factors explain why operational performance now accounts for twice as much value creation as deal-making and financing. Executives have also known—or claimed to know—that leadership, human capital, and people skills are the sparks that ignite value creation: 69% of PE and portfolio company leaders cite talent, more than name operating efficiency (49%) or organic growth (30%), as the most important factor. READ MORE

AI startup gold rush: Inside the high-stakes world of AI investments

Nvidia might have become the world’s most valuable company for a brief period this year – but when it comes to investments in AI, 2024 represented yet another landmark 12 months for venture capital flowing into AI startups around the globe.

The likes of Anthropic, Scale AI, Cohere, Mistral, Figure and Elon Musk’s xAI all raised hundreds of millions of dollars in 2024 to fund their AI development and expansion efforts. READ MORE

Reimagining Venture Capital In The Age Of Exponential Technology And Big Bang Disruption

The venture capital landscape is evolving rapidly, shaped by the pace of technological advances and increasingly decentralized global business models. In particular, exponential technologies—innovations from different backgrounds that come together and double in capacity and halve in cost at astonishing speed—are generating a wave of high-impact disruptions, often known as “Big Bang Disruptions.” These disruptions shake markets almost overnight, scale fast (as they don’t need to win all five categories of sequential innovators and go after two at most) and quickly render existing solutions obsolete. READ MORE

It’s Time To Break Up Silicon Valley’s Venture Capital Good Ole Boys Club

When a (potentially or obviously) lucrative private startup raises money, it’s always the usual suspects who are part of the funding round.

Big venture capitalists, such as Sequoia Capital. Big investment banks like Fidelity. And big companies with their own VC arms. Google. Apple. Amazon. Even Uber.

Driverless car company, Waymo, just closed an “oversubscribed” $5.6 billion funding round. READ MORE