Venture trends follow similar patterns across the globe. You won’t find many places where AI isn’t the focus. Nor will you find many that are generating exits at a higher rate than in 2021.

However, the depth of the decline or the robustness of the rebound can vary, sometimes widely, based on the size and development of the regional venture markets.

This is the case between the US market and Europe. The trends are similar: AI, lack of liquidity, secondaries and low fundraising. But a comparison of the markets highlights the vast differences. In the US, deal value surged to $339.6 billion, with 65.4% of it going to AI. In Europe, €23.3 billion invested in AI accounted for 35.5% of the market’s deal value, which only barely surpassed 2024’s total.

Fundraising between the two regions also highlights the vast difference in venture resources. Europe’s fundraising was the lowest in a decade at €12.0 billion. US VC fundraising also fell to a decade low, though it hit $66.1 billion.

If the answer is liquidity, the US holds an edge, generating $298 billion in exit value in 2025, compared with Europe’s €67.8 billion. This could drive further consolidation of venture resources into the US.

VC is a riskier strategy than most asset classes, so global volatility caused investors to retreat everywhere, which is why similar trends have emerged. But because it’s a riskier strategy, the reallocation to VC has not been as uniform, as LPs look to derisk their investments as much as possible until economic uncertainty fades.

Where we will find resilient venture ecosystems in the next few years will be where LPs feel they can get the best return, and therefore place their VC allocation.

Europe and the US are entrenched markets, but their future growth isn’t likely to be even. We explored the trends of each market in more depth in our European Venture Report and the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, which was sponsored by J.P. Morgan, Dentons and EisnerAmper.