Apr 3, 2025

BioPharma Dive data show the median biotech venture round remained near $100 million, continuing a trend toward larger financings that began in 2024. Published April 3, 2025 During the first quarter, the median private biotech financing involving one of the roughly two dozen venture firms tracked by BioPharma Dive was worth $93 million. ediebloom via Getty Images Biotechnology company funding rounds remain larger than they were in 2022 and 2023, in a sign venture firms continue to favor bigger bets rather than parceling their money into smaller, but more numerous, financings. The median funding round involving one of the roughly two dozen venture firms tracked by BioPharma Dive was worth $93 million during the first three months of 2025, according to BioPharma Dive data . That’s roughly equal to the median for the same period last year, but higher than any other quarter in the two years previous. Median figures for financings in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2024 all eclipsed $100 million, the threshold often used to define biotech “megarounds.” During the first quarter this year, about $3.2 billion of the $4.1 billion in investment tracked by BioPharma Dive came via these megarounds. The largest were a $600 million round for AI drug discovery company Isomorphic Labs, followed by a $411 million Series A for obesity startup Verdiva Bio , and a $351 million Series D for Eikon Therapeutics , a well-funded biotech formed around a type of microscope technology . The total number of megarounds involving the firms BioPharma Dive tracks climbed from 42 in 2023 to 72 last year. Another 13 took place in the first quarter, data show. Gwendolyn Wu/BioPharma Dive, data from BioPharma Dive The growth in round sizes is indicative of a trade-off venture firms appear more willing to make in the current climate. In joining bigger syndicates, investors dilute their ownership stake, but the companies they're backing have a better chance to survive, grow and “not be immediately back in financing mode,” said Jack Bannister, senior managing director of Leerink Partners' equity capital markets team. Many recent megaround recipients had clinic-ready drug programs that originated from China. In the first two weeks of January alone, Verdiva, Windward Bio , Timberlyne Therapeutics and Ouro Medicines debuted with nine-figure raises to fund their China-sourced candidates. The trend reflects the close attention venture firms are now paying to China’s fast-growing biotech industry. Startups in China can go from launch to clinical trials much more quickly, and at a lower cost, than their U.S. counterparts, making their drug prospects enticing to investors. Programs licensed from Chinese pharmaceutical companies are also now "clearly high quality,” said Srini Akkaraju, founder and managing general partner of Samsara BioCapital. “You skip all of this, four years of toiling away to get to a drug and prove that it does something in humans,” Akkaraju said. “You end up paying the upfront that covers that, or maybe covers that plus some. But you're starting right here, right now, with the actual clinical-stage asset.” Venture investors are also “increasingly behaving like private equity firms,” searching for safer bets and quicker investment returns, said John Wu, an analyst at Boston Consulting Group. That shift makes a "sure thing" like a clinic-ready program from China more appealing. They're finding willing partners in China, as developers there struggle through a tight funding climate and, due to differences in drug pricing policies, face thinner sales margins. “In order for these biotechs to actually get a return on their investment, they need to go global,” Wu said. The rise of these deals has created a cohort of startups with high valuations, which could complicate their path to public market. The result may be more “down rounds,” where companies get lower valuations than they did in previous financings, in order to set up favorable conditions for a public offering or acquisition. According to Bannister, this valuation disconnect is a key reason why the pace of IPOs remain slow . Taking more money now allows startups to wait out the IPO market and potentially "revisit" the issue later. The additional money "is worth more than the theoretical downside of a higher post-money value," he said, referring to a company's stepped-up valuation after a large financing. Gwendolyn Wu/BioPharma Dive, data from BioPharma Dive The increase in round size has helped investment rebound from a recent low in the fourth quarter of 2023 , when about $2.4 billion was doled out across 28 deals involving firms tracked by BioPharma Dive. Since then, quarterly totals have twice surpassed $4 billion, including the first three months of 2025. Some investors warn a slowdown could be coming, however. Sentiment among public investors is turning increasingly negative as biotech underperforms the broader market. Significant upheaval at the Food and Drug Administration has added regulatory uncertainty as well. Akkaraju expects that bearish sentiment to show up in funding totals over the next few months. "Everybody's hurting," he said. Recommended Reading