Annual Download #2025

Hi

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Before we dive into the best AI moments of 2025, I've partnered with Notion to drop $50K in founder tools, including credits from PostHog, v0, and Supabase, with a vetted list of investors to help you go from idea to funded startup.

2025 wasn't the year AI got smarter. It was the year AI got heavy: concrete poured, copper pulled, credit lines drawn.

Here's what shaped the year that turned chatbots into industrial policy:

• AI Captured 50% of All Global VC: $202B raised, up from 34% in 2024, minting 50+ new billionaires

• $1.7T in Corporate Bonds Sold: Goldman estimates ~30% tied to AI infrastructure buildout

• IPO Market Came Back: CoreWeave, Figma, Klarna led the revival; 340 total offerings vs. 240 in 2024

• 55K Layoffs Blamed on AI: 1.17M total job cuts announced, highest since 2020

• Crypto M&A Hit $8.6B: Up from $2.17B in 2024; 11 crypto IPOs raised $14.6B

• VC Concentration Intensified: Top 10 funds captured 43% of all dollars; fewest fund closings in a decade

As we continue to build at Context Ventures, we've launched Startup Intros with a simple mission: to help early-stage founders find the right investors, faster and smarter.

🎁 Megadrop: $50K in Founder AI Tools

I’m excited to partner with Notion to give you $50K in AI Founder tools to help startup founders go from idea to MVP to raising funds with confidence!

What you get:

• $50k in PostHog credit to track real user behavior

• $60 in v0 by Vercel credit to vibe code your front-end

• $50 in Supabase credit to spin up your backend

• Up to 6 months of Notion Biz + AI to run your startup

But wait, there's more:

• A Vetted List of 2,000+ early-stage VCs & accelerators

• 50 Pitch Decks from YC, a16z & Sequoia startups

• Guides on pitching and raising from the best founders!

• Comment "Founder" on my LinkedIn post, connect with me & I'll DM you the tools!

Why Notion? They just crossed $600M in ARR (half from AI products) and are preparing for an IPO at an $11B valuation. They know what founders need to scale.

Repost & Share it & I'll jump on a 15-min call with you (for the first 40 reposts)!

🔥 Context VC & Startup Intros Events Coming Up

• Jan 20: AI Startup Pitch Night: Apps to pitch are open! Join us in SF for an exciting pitch night featuring the hottest AI startups. Sign to pitch here!

• May 27: Early Stage Summit: Due to various logistical factors, we had to reschedule the event but plan to make it better than ever. Register on Luma!

💰 The AI Money Firehose: 2025 By The Numbers

AI funding didn't just grow in 2025; it consumed the entire venture ecosystem.

The Headline Numbers:

• $202.3B in AI Funding Globally: Representing 50% of all VC, up from 34% in 2024

• US Dominated: $159B (79% of global total); SF Bay Area alone: $122B

• 46 Companies went Zero-to-unicorn in under 3 years, nearly all AI-centric

The New Valuation Aristocracy:

• OpenAI: $500B valuation or the most valuable private company in history

• Anthropic: $183B valuation or the 4th most valuable startup globally

• xAI, Databricks & Scale AI: All crossed $50B+ valuations

The Mega-Rounds: OpenAI closed $40B. Anthropic raised $13B. xAI pulled in $10B+. Databricks added $5B. These four companies alone captured more than many entire sectors raised.

The Market Share Flip: AI-native startups now capture 63% of enterprise AI revenue, up from 36% for incumbents in 2024. The "AI wrapper" critique died when wrappers started outearning the wrapped.

Translation: 2025 proved that when a technology captures half of all VC dollars, it's no longer a sector; it's the default assumption.

🏗️ AI Infrastructure Is Eating Corporate Debt

AI in 2025 wasn't way more than model releases; AI was a bond issuance.

The Bond Market Went AI:

• $1.7T in Investment-grade Bonds Sold by US companies, which approached 2020's pandemic-era $1.8T record

• Goldman Sachs Estimate: AI infra borrowing drove ~30% of total corporate bond issuance

• US Data Center Credit Deals: $178.5B in 2025 alone

The CapEx Arms Race:

• Cloud Provider CapEx Exceeded $180B, with 30-35% explicitly tied to AI compute

• Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta: Each committed $50B+ annually to AI infrastructure

• The Constraint Shifted: From "can we afford it?" to "can the grid deliver it?"

GenAI Revenue Reality:

• $67.2B in Global GenAI Revenue, which is up from $44.8B in 2024

• 72% from enterprise customers: The consumer AI hype gave way to enterprise deployment

• Enterprise AI Startups: Median $3.1M ARR in first year vs. $1.6M for non-AI startups

The Pattern: AI stopped being a software story and became a capital expenditure story. The winners aren't those with the best models; they're those who can pour concrete, pull permits, and service debt.

📊 The Great VC Bifurcation

2025's VC market split into two realities: the mega-funds that captured everything and everyone else fighting over scraps.

The Concentration:

• Top 10 Funds Captured 43% of All VC dollars: The highest concentration in a decade

• Only 1,117 VC Funds Closed Globally vs. 2,100 in 2024, or the fewest in 10 years

• 57 New Corporate VC Units Created vs. 46 in 2024; the strategics are filling the gap

The Winners:

• A16z: Raised $7B+ across multiple vehicles

• Lightspeed: Closed a record $9B fund

• Sequoia: ~$1B in new early-stage venture funds

• The Pattern: If you're not top-decile, you're struggling to exist

The Squeeze:

• Seed rounds: Still abundant, but graduation rates collapsed

• Series A: The new Series B, which requires revenue, not just traction

• Series B+: Essentially a private IPO, which must prove unit economics

Translation: The VC industry underwent its own version of AI disruption. Concentration replaced distribution. Brand replaced hustle. The emerging manager thesis became the endangered species thesis.

🏛️ Trump's AI Policy: AI Doctrine Takes Shape

2025 marked a radically different federal approach to AI: deregulation at home, deal-making abroad, and infrastructure as industrial policy.

The Headline Moves:

• Day One: Biden's AI EO was revoked, shifting from oversight toward deregulation and innovation as national competitiveness

• Day Two: Stargate announced for a $500B AI infrastructure joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle

• December: EO signed blocking states from enforcing their own AI regulations, creating a "single national framework"

• DOJ directed to establish an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state laws deemed inconsistent with federal policy

The China Chip Reversal:

• December 8: Trump approved Nvidia H200 exports to China with the US taking a 25% revenue share, which partially reversed Biden-era restrictions

• The Logic: Keep Chinese firms reliant on US technology and fund American R&D through controlled access rather than total denial

The Pattern: Trump traded guardrails for growth levers. The bet: American dominance comes from building faster, not regulating harder.

👷 The Layoff Narrative Gets Complicated

55,000 workers were laid off in 2025, with AI explicitly cited as the cause. But the real story is messier than the headlines.

The Raw Numbers:

• 1.17M Total Job Cuts Announced: The highest since 2020's pandemic peak

• 55K attributed directly to AI: Challenger Gray & Christmas data

• Tech sector: 210K workers across 716 events or ~586 per day average

The Major Cuts:

• Amazon: 14K | Microsoft: 15K | Intel: 24-25K | Tesla: 14K+

• UPS: 48K | Verizon: 15K | IBM: 8K (mostly back-office)

The Debate:

• The Bear Case: MIT study found AI can replace 11.7% of US workforce ($1.2T in wages)

• The Bull Case: Only ~5% of layoffs were truly AI-driven per some analysts; most used AI as a convenient cover for restructuring

• The Forecast: WEF survey shows 41% of companies expect to reduce workforce over 5 years due to AI

The Nuance: "AI layoffs" became the acceptable explanation for any headcount reduction. Some were genuine automation but many were excuse-making dressed as innovation. The category is now too polluted to parse cleanly.

📈 The IPO Market's Selective Revival

2025 brought IPOs back, but only for companies that could prove they'd survive a real business cycle.

The Volume:

• ~340 IPOs in 2025 vs. ~240 in 2024

• ~140 were SPAC listings (vs. 57 in 2024): The SPAC zombie army returned

• Still depressed: 8 software/AI IPOs in 2025 vs. 78 combined in 2019-2021

The Winners:

• CoreWeave: $107.4B enterprise value, which is the largest tech IPO since 2021; up 60%+ from listing

• Medline: $6.26B raise, which is the largest IPO of the year by proceeds; 40% first-day gain

• Circle: Up 5x post-IPO or  crypto's vindication trade

• Klarna, Figma & Chime: All crossed the public market threshold successfully

The Crypto Comeback:

• 11 crypto/blockchain IPOs raised $14.6B vs. $310M from 4 in 2024

• 47x increase in crypto IPO capital: The regulatory thaw turned into a flood

The Divergence:

• VC-backed IPOs: Averaged 450% post-IPO surge

• PE-backed IPOs: Averaged 18% gain

• Translation: Growth still commands a premium; financial engineering doesn't

This Week's Quick Hits: The Chip Wars Keep Going

🇨🇳 Beijing Bets $21B on Atoms Over Bits: China launched three state-backed VC funds, each over $7B, targeting semiconductors, quantum computing, brain-computer interfaces, and aerospace. Silicon Valley seed-stage vibes with government backing: all aimed at tech self-reliance as US export controls tighten.

🤝 Nvidia and Intel: From Rivals to Roommates: The September deal is done. Nvidia bought 214.7M Intel shares at $23.28/share or a $5B lifeline. Now they're collaborating on custom x86 CPUs with NVLink integration. Intel's stock is up 81% YTD. Combined with SoftBank's $2B and US government backing, the turnaround has legs.

🏭 SMIC Goes Full Send on Consolidation: China's largest foundry is acquiring the remaining 49% of SMNC for ~$5.8B via share issuance to state backers. Part of a consolidation wave of 93 semiconductor M&A deals in China through September, up 33% YoY. As US sanctions tighten, Beijing is centralizing control to scale domestic chip production.

🌟 Editor's Note

At Startup Intros, our mission is to bring the latest founder-investor news straight to your inbox, keeping you ahead in the fast-paced world of Silicon Valley.

🎁 $50K Founder Tools Giveaway

Partnering with Notion (just crossed $600M ARR, prepping for IPO) to give you: PostHog, Vercel & Supabase credits, 6 months of Notion Biz + AI, 2,000+ VC contacts, and 50 pitch decks from YC/a16z startups.

Comment "Founder" on my LinkedIn post to grab it.

💭 Parting Thoughts

2025 wasn't about chatbots getting chattier. It was about concrete, copper, and credit lines.

AI funding hit 50% of all venture capital. Corporate debt bent toward data centers. The IPO market revived, but only for companies that could prove real economics. And 55,000 workers learned that "AI-driven efficiency" often means "you're the efficiency."

The question for 2026 isn't whether AI will continue to grow. It's who captures the margin once infrastructure is no longer the bottleneck. When everyone has compute, what's the moat?

We'll find out together in 2026.

Forward to a friend or hit reply to let me know what you're seeing in your world.

Till next time!

P.S. Raised this week, and we missed you? Want to be featured? Have tips or funding questions? Reply or DM us as we’re here to help.

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