- Macroeconomic activity and geopolitical tensions have made a global climate of uncertain venture capital in recent months. In the midst of the Introduction Pips on the Stock Exchange and a Liquidity Crisis, some venture capital focuses on acquisitions and regional markets to find outing opportunities and maintain yields.
The VCs turn to the regional and acquisition markets in the middle of a slowdown in the IPO.
The venture capital market has been under pressure recently after several high-level companies have interrupted their IPO plans as part of an increasing uncertainty of the market.
Buy now, pay the leader later Klarna and the Stubhub ticketing platform prepared to become public in the near future, but have since paused during their launches. The IPOs on the stock market creates a liquidity tightening among venture capital companies, which means that some investors seem elsewhere.
“There are signs of life, certainly on the acquisition market – we see really cool things happening,” the public Aidan Madigan -Curtis, a general partner of Eclipse Ventures, told the public of Fortune’s Summit of the most powerful women in Riyadh.
Madigan-Curtis cited the recent OpenAi agreement to buy an IA Windsurf coding startup for $ 3 billion as an example.
“Some of these mega players who have remained private and build and go on and who know what the outing strategy looks like for these long -term guys, but probably at some point, they will owe the IPO.
Others are looking for more regional markets for signs of life.
“The regional market IPOs have never been stronger or better,” said Noor Sweid, founder and partner director of Global Ventures. “We experienced 30% growth in regional stock exchange last year.”
Investment in venture capital in the Middle East and North Africa jumped in the first quarter of this year, the regional startups by collecting $ 678 million, by Bloomberg. The push has made it the strongest quarter in the region since the end of 2023.
Saudi Arabia was in the front row for the MENA investment and ranked first in the world among the emerging markets, According to Magnitt data.
VC market under pressure
The venture capital market has also suffered from the economic disruption of Trump’s world prices.
The chaos of the market caused scanning prices to rush a turnover in 2025. Trump prices exacerbated the existing challenges on the venture capital market, according to Pitchbook, especially since the Introduction Piplens on the stock market remain obstructed and that rare liquidity.
Despite a high demand for AI, which, according to Pitchbook, attracted more than 70% of the US CV financing to T1 2025, the disturbances of the supply chain exacerbated by prices can also mitigate the appetite of investors, in particular in equipment sectors such as IA infrastructure.
Industry leaders have said previously Fortune That prices could prolong market stagnation, delay innovation cycles and extend the tightening of current liquidity through the VC ecosystem.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
