US

A total of 127 women-led venture capital funds closed on a combined $2.45 billion in 2025, according to Venture Capital Journal's exclusive research.

Leader at Brown Advisory, which manages $12bn in assets for endowments and foundations, says LPs are anxious about a concentration of AI exposure in public markets and are leaning more heavily into venture this year to diversify high-growth assets.

As part of the Menlo Park, California-based firm’s foundational team, the 25-year VC veteran has recent experience as head of Five Arrows Global Technology and as senior portfolio manager at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Speculation about mega-sized AI IPOs has growing numbers of VC-backed companies also queueing up to go public, while increasing demand for scale and strategic growth is expected to be a key factor in M&A activity.

Emerging managers outperformed established peers across all the important acronyms – IRR, TVPI, RVPI and DPI, according to new research.

Analysis by the Colibrí Institute of nearly 2,500 VC funds raised between 2000 and 2024 found that emerging managers outperformed established managers in DPI, IRR and TVPI.

'What is happening in the public markets lets us know the competitive landscape in the private market,' says Umesh Padval, who leads Seligman's new venture business.

Encouraged by Google’s launch of a new agentic commerce protocol, some VCs are on the lookout for start-ups developing technology that would streamline consumer shopping with minimal human intervention.

Known LPs in the firm's previous funds include Princeton University's endowment and South Korean investment company SK Networks.

The firm’s limited partners come from a network almost 1,000 industrial owner-operators in the Midwest, including construction company Shiel Sexton.