Explained in 5 charts: Venture capital in 2023

Barely two weeks into the year, the 2024 startup news machine is running at full clip. A quick scan of TechCrunch headlines reveals venture funds adding new capital , and startups that have either raised lots of money or are in the process of closing deals to raise lots of money . We’ve gone over how venture capital investment fared across the world over the past few days, but today we wanted to provide a more comprehensive look at the numbers.

The TechCrunch+ team has charted data from PitchBook on venture capital investment flows across the world, and in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. The following data visualizations include a full eight quarters of data, showing the come down from 2021’s venture excesses through to the end of 2023.

We’ll start with the global picture, and then talk through how each region did. This chart doesn’t appear too dramatic at first glance. It’s clear that there’s been a steady decline in investment accompanied by a similar decline in total deal volume since Q1 2022. But we were left with a bearish impression when we first looked at the latest numbers, because venture investment in 2023 ($345.7 billion) had dipped to levels we’d last seen back in 2018 and 2019 — before the pandemic struck.

However, Q4 2023 was particularly bad: Q4 2017 was the last time we saw venture investment in the last three months of the year fall so low. That’s not good, especially as venture investment continued to drop in every quarter of 2023. Is 2024 not going to be the comeback year that many hope it will be?.