Back to school. Venture capitalists nearly doubled their spending on new US university spinoffs in 2025 to $690 million after three years of declines, PitchBook data show.
They also increased their spending in later rounds of US companies spun out from academia, contributing $6.3 billion to those startups. One such example is Commonwealth Fusion Systems — the fusion energy firm out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that raised $863 million last year.
They’re already on track to exceed 2025’s figures — in part, because federal funding has dried up, according to Katie Rae, CEO of venture firm Engine Ventures. The Trump administration’s funding crackdown has frozen or cut $12 billion in US universities.
“In the long term, shutting down research is bad policy,” she told Semafor. After all, some of the most consequential tech advances in decades have happened in academia — including the touch screen and the internet. “In the short term, the best ideas are still finding a way through.”