The domestic financing enthusiasm has been on the rise for two consecutive years, but the average amount of money raised by each startup in a single financing round has decreased by more than 6 million yuan.

Looking back at the equity financing of startups in the first half of this year, IT Juzi has found one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

The good news is that the domestic financing enthusiasm has been increasing for two consecutive years, reaching a new peak in the first half of 2025. In particular, early - stage investments have remained consistently active.

The bad news is that startups are raising less money on average.

The real business world is, of course, far more complex than this. The data model we've developed aims to identify some simple and direct patterns in this complex world, making trends clearer.

Data from IT Juzi shows that in the past five and a half years, the number of equity investment transactions in the domestic primary market has been continuously increasing, rising from 2,960 transactions in H1 2023 to 3,493 transactions in the second half of 2024. In the first half of 2025, the number of financing transactions reached 3,743, a year - on - year increase of 16% and a quarter - on - quarter increase of 7%.

This is a rare positive sign. Although the economic situation has been in a downward cycle in recent years, there's little we can do about macro - level factors. In the venture capital market, however, the data clearly shows that the market's activity has been continuously improving, having emerged from the trough and grown for two consecutive years.

Of course, we also understand that this growth is only a phased performance.

If we take a longer view, with a 10 - year cycle, we're still in a relatively low period. Even with a 5 - year cycle, this isn't the peak of venture capital transactions. However, this year is expected to be the second - highest point from 2021 to 2025.

In terms of financing amount, the data shows a fluctuating downward trend: from H1 2023 to H1 2024, the total amount of equity transactions in the domestic primary market continued to decline. In the second half of 2024, it rebounded to a peak of 458.413 billion yuan. Subsequently, it declined again in the first half of 2025, with the estimated total financing transaction volume at 328.43 billion yuan, a 1% decrease compared to the same period in 2024 and an 18% decrease compared to H1 2023.

Why do the investment transaction amount and the number of transaction events in the primary market show completely opposite trends?

Actually, the data indicator of transaction amount is greatly affected by large - scale events. Some extremely high - value transactions have influenced the results.

We extracted and separately counted events with single - transaction amounts > 1 billion yuan from the IT Juzi database.

As can be seen from the above chart, although the number of such events isn't large, averaging around 40 per half - year and not exceeding 100 per year, the difference in the total financing amount they represent is as high as nearly 150 billion yuan. The proportion of this amount is significant enough to affect the overall situation. In fact, in the second half of 2024, the total amount of such events accounted for more than 50%.

Comparing with the total market financing amount in the above chart, we find that the total amount of financing transactions exceeding 1 billion yuan per single transaction almost completely follows the same trend as the overall market financing amount, indicating the significant impact of high - value financing transactions on the market.

If we exclude extremely high - value financing events and then observe: another financial curve represents a broader range of "ordinary financing transactions". It's generally stable, with an "N" - shaped trend, fluctuating within a small range. The fluctuation amount in the past few half - years hasn't exceeded 40 billion yuan.

After excluding transactions exceeding 1 billion yuan per single transaction, the total financing amount in the venture capital market in the first half of 2025 increased by about 5% compared to the same period last year. The number of investment and financing events in the first half of 2025 increased by 17% - the increase in the number far exceeded the increase in the amount, directly leading to a decrease in the average amount.

When calculating the average financing amount per single transaction for "ordinary financing transactions", we found that since the second half of 2023, this amount has shown a significant and continuous downward trend.

In the first half of 2025, the average financing amount per transaction decreased by 6.62 million yuan year - on - year, reaching 60.4034 million yuan. Compared to two years ago, this figure has decreased by 16.3872 million yuan.

This may indicate that investors are being more cautious with their money.

From the investment side, the current venture capital situation can't really be called "optimistic", but there's no need to be overly pessimistic either. We should maintain a normal mindset.

Additionally, although there were more overall transactions in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, the results vary across different investment stages.

For example, the number of early - stage investment events (Series A and earlier) has significantly increased, with a 20% growth rate. Investment events in the growth stage (Series B and C) increased by 9%. However, strategic investment events decreased by 13%. There was also some growth in post - Series D maturity - stage events, but the quantity was very small, with less than 100 events.

This article is from the WeChat official account "IT Juzi" (ID: itjuzi521). Author: IT Juzi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.