First-time funds are the smallest share, and shrinking

The record

US first-time venture funds, funds raised by a general partner with no prior fund, numbered 457 in 2021, the National Venture Capital Association's own 2026 Yearbook data pack shows, produced with PitchBook data through 31 December 2025. The same table records 477 first-time funds in 2022, 388 in 2023, 240 in 2024, and 101 in 2025. NVCA's own Yearbook landing page states the comparison directly: '101 first-time funds in 2025 — the lowest level since 2007, representing a 77.9% decline from 457 in 2021.' Capital raised by those first-time funds moved differently: $18.17 billion in 2022, $19.15 billion in 2023, then $7.16 billion in 2024 and $7.32 billion in 2025.

What the sources establish

First-time-fund count fell faster, and later, than the overall fund count: all US venture funds closed fell from 1,782 in 2022 to 585 in 2025, a 67% drop, while first-time funds fell from 477 to 101 over the same years, a 79% drop, meaning first-time managers' own share of all funds closed fell too, from roughly 27% in 2022 to about 17% in 2025. Dollars tell a noisier story than counts: first-time funds took a larger dollar share of the market's total in 2023 (17.8%) than in 2022 (8.2%) even as the venture-wide total fell, before count and dollar share dropped together in 2024-2025. Neither figure says whether any specific first-time manager hit or missed its target size, only how many closed and how much they raised in aggregate.

Scope and revision

'First-time fund' in this dataset means the general partner's first fund as PitchBook classifies it; a spinout team with prior track records elsewhere, raising its first fund under a new name, is still counted as first-time. The yearbook's own note elsewhere in the same document warns that fundraising totals can differ from prior editions' as classifications are revised and new closings are added, so the most recent year shown here is more likely to be revised upward later than an older year is.

The decision in front of you

Editorially: a founder specifically seeking a first-time fund as a lead investor is drawing from a shrinking, more recently formed pool, one that fell to its smallest count since 2007 by this dataset's own count, which can mean less negotiating leverage in that specific search, independent of how strong the wider fundraising market is for institutional venture capital overall.

• Is the prospective lead investor's fund a first close under a new brand, or its general partner's first fund by track record?
• Does the yearbook's 2025 first-time-fund figure reflect final data, or could later editions revise it upward?
• Is a first-time fund's typically smaller check size, evident in these dollar figures, compatible with the round being raised?

A count of funds closed is not a verdict on any one manager, but the shape of the pool, smaller and shrinking faster than the market as a whole, is itself information a founder can use before choosing where to spend time raising.