October 16, 2025

Venturing out

Hi there,

HLTH USA is days away. 

Join CB Insights analyst Ellen Knapp for a live reveal of the Digital Health 50 on Monday, October 20 at 4 PM (Plutus Stage). 

Haven’t registered for HLTH yet? Click here and use code H25P_CB250 to save $250 on your pass.

And now, here is this week's Hot or Not.

Hot: $10B+ valuations

Decacorns — companies valued at $10B or more — raised a record $94.5B through Q3’25 across 32 deals, surpassing the previous record of $45.5B in 2021. 

Funding to decacorns is concentrating among the largest companies — especially leading AI startups, including: 

• AI infrastructure xAI and Scale
• Defense startups Anduril and Helsing
• Fintech company Ramp

Explore the full breakdown of where venture dollars are flowing in our State of Venture Q3'25 Report.

Not: Early exits

Companies are staying private longer, with the time to exit rising from 12.2 years in 2015 to 15.9 years in 2025.

Plentiful private market capital and an increasingly healthy secondaries environment coupled with no drag from quarterly earnings and regulatory hassles means this trend is here to stay.

See more in our State of Venture Q3'25 Report.

Hot: Humanoid robots

Humanoid robots captured 17 deals in Q3 — the most deals for the 2nd quarter in a row — continuing momentum from Q2'25, when it also led with 23 deals. 

Figure scored the largest deal of the industrial humanoid market, raising a $1B Series C round at a $39B valuation, making it the 9th most valuable private company globally.

Dive into the data here.

Not: Startups that aren’t AI

AI companies are capturing a record share of funding and deals this year, at 51% of funding and 22% of deals. 

The US is proving especially dominant in AI, attracting 85% of total AI funding and 53% of deals in 2025.

Four of the 7 largest rounds this quarter were based in the US: 

• Anthropic ($13B)
• OpenAI ($8.3B)
• Databricks ($1B)
• Figure ($1B)

See which sectors are getting squeezed in our State of Venture Q3'25 Report.

The +1

Source: u/COLaocha via Reddit

Low IQ chart. This chart is dumb smart?

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

Co-Founder & Exec Chair

P.S. Want to learn more about where VC activity is heating up? Register for our briefing on the State of Venture Q3’25 here.

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