SaaS now 60% of VC activity

Software-as-a-service now makes up about 60% of global venture activity, according to DealroomAgent, up from 32% in 2015. (x.com) Dealroom’s global venture guide says software-as-a-service has become the most prominent business model in venture capital, with close to half of global venture investment now going to software-as-a-service tech companies. The same guide says enterprise software has had “serious upwind” in 2025. (dealroom.co) The jump comes after a year when global venture funding rebounded, but the money clustered in fewer places. KPMG said global venture investment topped $500 billion in 2025, while deal activity fell, a sign that investors were writing larger checks into narrower themes. (kpmg.com) Crunchbase reported $425 billion in global startup funding in 2025 across more than 24,000 private companies, up 30% from $328 billion in 2024. It also said 2025 was the third-highest year on record for venture financing. (news.crunchbase.com) That concentration has been strongest in artificial intelligence, which pulled in roughly 50% of global venture funding in 2025, according to Crunchbase. KPMG said the year-over-year growth in venture investment was fueled “almost entirely” by capital deployment into artificial-intelligence-focused companies. (news.crunchbase.com) (kpmg.com) Software-as-a-service sits inside that shift because it gives investors a business they already know how to price: recurring revenue, subscription contracts, and usage data that can be tracked quarter by quarter. Silicon Valley Bank’s State of SaaS report said deal activity stayed healthy even as valuations softened and debt financing grew more common. (svb.com) The mix inside software is changing too. Silicon Valley Bank said 1 in 6 United States venture deals in enterprise software involved artificial intelligence or machine learning startups, up from 1 in 12 deals before the pandemic. (svb.com) That helps explain why marketing technology and agency software keep attracting attention. Chiefmartec’s 2025 report said the martech market had grown to 15,384 products, up from 14,106 a year earlier, giving investors a large field of software vendors selling tools for customer data, campaign automation, and measurement. (glances.com) The headline number does not mean every software company is getting funded. KPMG said investors in late 2025 were moving away from broad-based investing and focusing on companies with “defensible” models, while Silicon Valley Bank said early-stage software remained more resilient than later-stage companies tied more closely to public-market comparisons. (kpmg.com) (svb.com) The result is a venture market where software takes a bigger share of the pie even as the pie is increasingly dominated by a few favored categories. In 2026, that leaves founders selling software subscriptions in a larger lane, but under a brighter spotlight. (dealroom.co) (kpmg.com)