Capital Hasn’t Left — It Has Just Begun to Choose

— From the 2025 Global Venture Trends, See Who Stands in the Right Position

Hello everyone, I am CEO Yang.

The line I have heard most this year is:
“The capital market has gone cold.”

But if you really lay out the data, you will find it is not like that at all.

Capital hasn’t left; it has just begun to choose.

1. The World Has Entered an Era of “Fewer Deals, Higher Value”

In the first three quarters of 2025, the global venture market gave a cruel but extremely clear signal:

• Number of deals down more than 20% year over year
• Amount invested up more than 57% year over year
• 2% of deals absorbed 63% of the capital

This is not a recession;
this is the knockout round formally beginning.

The market no longer wants to hear “we could try this too”;
it is only willing to bet on three things:

1. Scale
2. Barriers
3. Irreplaceability

This is why many feel “there is less money,”
but those who really stand at the core position actually receive more.

2. AI Absorbs Half the Capital, but What Really Attracts It Is Not Models

In 2025, AI-related investment accounted for 51% of global venture capital,
and in the US as high as 85%.

But look carefully at where the largest investments flowed and you will find a key shift:

What took the huge capital was not apps, not tools, but infrastructure.

• AI supercomputing clusters
• Large data centers
• Cloud GPUs
• Energy and cooling systems

In other words:

Models will become obsolete, but compute, electricity and infrastructure will become the new real estate.

3. Capital Has Treated AI as a “Contest of National Power,” Not a Startup Topic

You will see several very unusual phenomena:

• Data-center companies raising tens of billions of dollars in a single round
• Energy startups signing long-term contracts directly with Google, Microsoft and Meta
• Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) explicitly positioned as “dedicated power for data centers”

This means one thing:

AI is no longer a product race but a national-level infrastructure race.

When an industry enters this stage,
what capital looks at is no longer the growth curve
but:

• Can you last 20 years
• Can you be caught by institutions
• Are you an indispensable link

4. Why Does Big Money Invest in Only 2% of Deals?

Because in an era when uncertainty has become the norm,
capital moves only toward “the position least likely to go wrong.”

That position usually has three traits:

1. Long construction period, long payback period (short-term money can’t get in)
2. Capital-intensive, technology-intensive (competitors naturally become fewer)
3. Once built, replacement cost is extremely high

This is also why:

• AI compute centers
• Energy systems
• Industrial-grade hardware
• Defense and autonomous systems

will again become the core of investment.

Not because they are sexy
but because they can withstand risk.

5. As Asia Grows Conservative, Internationalization Becomes a Necessary Condition

Another very important fact that many are unwilling to face:

• Asian investment amounts have almost stagnated
• Deal sizes are small
• Extremely sensitive to geopolitical and policy risk

This isn’t about who is right or wrong
but about the choices of capital structure.

When regional capital turns conservative, an international footprint is no longer ambition but a survival strategy.

6. A Frank Word for All Entrepreneurs and Investors

I want to condense this report into one sentence:

If you cannot become part of the infrastructure,
you will eventually be eliminated by the infrastructure.

This is not pessimism;
this is the answer the era has already given.

7. The Last Part: Only Judgment, Not Position

Every era redefines what a “core asset” is.

In the industrial era it was land and factories.
In the internet era it was traffic and platforms.
And in the AI era, the answer is becoming very clear:

Compute, energy and data centers are becoming the new foundation of civilization.

Capital hasn’t left.
It has simply begun to stop wasting bullets.

And the real question is just one:

Are you at the table, or outside it?

——
CEO Yang