A dollar total from 2015 is not one from 2025

The record

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index page, retrieved 16 September 2026, describes the CPI as a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services, published on a monthly schedule with an accompanying inflation calculator. The Federal Reserve's H.10 Foreign Exchange Rates release, dated 14 September 2026 at the time of retrieval, is the Federal Reserve Board's own weekly statistical release of exchange rates between the US dollar and other currencies. Provider reports such as the Q1 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor state dollar figures, such as its reported $267.2 billion in Q1 2026 US deal value, without restating them in a prior year's purchasing power.

What the sources establish

Neither the CPI page nor the H.10 release is itself a venture-data product; they are the two official building blocks a desk needs before comparing dollar totals across time or across currencies. The CPI measures how much a fixed basket of consumer goods costs from month to month, the standard basis for converting a nominal dollar figure into a comparable real one across years. The H.10 release reports exchange rates as a rate on a given date, the input needed to see what currency, and what date's rate, sits behind any total a provider states as converted into dollars. PitchBook's report, like most provider releases, states its dollar figures as reported, in the dollars of the period covered, without itself performing either adjustment.

Scope and revision

A CPI-based adjustment changes only for purchasing power within one currency; it does not correct for cross-border conversion. An H.10-based adjustment changes only for the exchange rate on a chosen date; it does not correct for inflation within either currency. Providers that aggregate deals priced in euros, pounds or other currencies into a single dollar total have applied some exchange rate, on some date, that their methodology may or may not specify; a global total is a function of that conversion choice as much as it is a function of deal activity. Comparing a 2015 dollar total with a 2025 dollar total, without applying either adjustment, compares two different units that happen to share a currency symbol.

The decision in front of you

This is an editorial guide to two adjustments, not a recommendation about how any particular series should be restated. Apply CPI to compare purchasing power across years within one currency, and check a provider's stated exchange-rate method before comparing a cross-border total across periods.

• Is this dollar figure nominal, or has it already been adjusted for inflation?
• If the total blends currencies, does the provider state which exchange rate and date it used?
• Would the comparison across years still hold after applying the CPI adjustment for the same window?

The number does not carry its own inflation or currency adjustment built in. The reader has to bring the CPI and the exchange rate to it.