Bigger Outcomes As Startup Exits Gain Steam In 2025

The U.S. venture capital market is seeing a rebound in exits for billion-dollar startups in 2025, following a quiet period. Both IPOs and M&A activity are increasing, with overall values for exits up significantly compared to previous years, Crunchbase data shows.

While IPOs are not yet at normalized levels, there’s growing confidence in the market, especially for companies with strong growth stories and those focused on AI innovation. M&A values have surpassed previous peaks, driven by several large acquisitions.

That will come as welcome relief for venture investors. The dearth of exits in the past three and a half years has placed significant pressure on venture firms as the industry geared up to invest in the new AI wave.

Exits were up year over year for U.S. billion-dollar startups — though well below values seen in 2020 and 2021 — an analysis of data from The Crunchbase Billion-Dollar Exits Board shows.

By mid-August this year, U.S. billion-dollar debuts were above values not seen since 2022 and counts since 2023.

While the bigger exits tend to concentrate on IPOs, M&A is also on the rise in 2025. Billion-dollar acquisition counts were on par with 2024, however, values were up in 2025 year over year — and well above each year since 2018.

Markets coming back

On the IPO front, “we are certainly not back to a normalized level by any stretch of the imagination,” said Ran Ben-Tzur, co-head of capital markets and public company group at the legal firm Fenwick. He advised on the issuer-side for both CoreWeave and Figma.

Still, Ben-Tzur said he is seeing a lot of activity and anticipates “more of a normalized environment heading into the back half of this year.”

Many companies are doing confidential submissions, he said. “You’re probably going to start to see a number of companies — the ones that are looking to go out in the fall — move toward public filings over the next few weeks.”

The period after Labor Day is a common time for companies to file before the close of Q3. A number of companies also tend to file toward the end of September, particularly those that finalize their annual accounts in late January.

A key focus area for public-market investors is innovation in AI, Ben-Tzur said, “what the potential tailwinds are, but also how it impacts the financial model. Are you going to get disrupted by AI over the next few years?

“They’re really drilling down on that as a diligence topic with companies,” he said.

2025 debuts

As of mid-August, 13 U.S.-based venture-backed companies have gone public at a value of $1 billion compared to eight companies for all of 2024, per Crunchbase data. These 2025 listings were collectively valued at the IPO price of $86 billion, compared to $56.5 billion in 2024.

Among the largest IPOs this year, Figma and Circle each saw significant first-day IPO pops north of 100%. CoreWeave’s stock rose in the months after its IPO, and Chime was up 37% by the end of first day trading and is currently valued around its IPO price.

Among 2024 listings, Astera Labs, Reddit and ServiceTitan closed up on first-day trading, though below 100%.

Rory O’Driscoll, founder and partner at Scale Venture Partners, summed it up on the 20VC podcast. “Price clears all markets,” he said in reaction to Figma’s first-day stock appreciation, which closed on the first day of trading at close to $68 billion — well above its 2024 private financing valuation of $12.5 billion.

“The money in the private rounds was cheaper and less hassle for the past three years than the publics. So, no surprise we did more private,” he said. The Figma IPO demonstrates, “the cheap money is now in the public markets,” said O’Driscoll.

If a company wants to raise in the next two years, “now would be a really good freaking time,” he added.

M&A rose

So far this year, M&A totaled $84 billion across 22 transactions —  well above the prior peak in the past six years, which was $68 billion across 29 companies in 2021.

The largest deal in 2025 was Wiz’s planned $32 billion acquisition by Alphabet. The next largest were Ampere Computing in the semiconductor sector, Modernizing Medicine in AI healthcare workflows, and wireless networking company Digital Global Systems, each acquired for more than $5 billion.

Transaction counts are on par with 2024 totals, with overall prices up year over year from $38 billion. That is a more than $45 billion difference year over year so far — and was not all attributable to the Wiz acquisition.

Greater confidence

The successful debut of Figma, trading 2x above its IPO price, is an indicator that the market is open for tech companies with a growth story incorporating AI. The stronger M&A market signals a more confident dealmaking environment.

We will be watching the markets over the next few weeks.

Related Crunchbase queries:

•  US Venture-backed Billion-Dollar IPOs in 2025
• US Venture-backed Billion-Dollar M&A in 2025

Related reading:

• Figma More Than Triples In First-Day Trading
• Chime Climbs In Market Debut
• With Google’s $32B Bid For Wiz, Big Exits Are Finally Picking Up
• With $6.2B Purchase Of Chip Designer Ampere, SoftBank Is Going Big This Year
• IPO Market Outlook: Window Reopens, But Expect A Convoy, Not A Stampede

Methodology

We include exits for U.S. venture-backed companies valued at $1 billion or more. Companies are included based on their IPO value or M&A deal price. We only include a company’s first exit.

All funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman