AI isn’t just minting frontier model labs, it’s dragging forgotten venture sectors back into the game.
Healthtech, cybersecurity, biotech, and enterprise SaaS all saw a decisive pickup in early-stage activity in Q4 2025, driven by AI-native startups that look very different from the last cycle’s darlings, according to PitchBook’s latest Emerging Tech Indicator (ETI), which tracks pre-seed through Series B deals done by the top 15 VC firms globally.
Healthtech is the clearest example of the shift. Health and wellness deals jumped to $678 million across 23 transactions in Q4, more than double the previous eight-quarter average of $332 million and 16 deals. The money is flowing into two buckets: consumer-facing “know your body” platforms and AI tools that make providers’ operations more efficient.
Function Health, a subscription service that gives members access to a battery of lab tests and personalized insights, raised a $300 million Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation—an 11.5x step-up from its June 2024 Series A. On the enterprise side, Paradigm Health pulled in $78 million for clinical trial management software, while Valerie Health raised $30 million to automate front-office workflows with AI.
Venture dollars are also returning to brick-and-mortar care, but with an AI angle. Radial Health, a network of mental health clinics, closed a $50 million Series A, and obesity-care chain Knownwell raised $26.1 million. Together, those deals suggest investors are moving away from popular telehealth bets and toward “AI plus services” models that plug into existing care infrastructure rather than trying to replace it.
Aside from health and wellness, cybersecurity reached a new high. Cyber deals hit a record $643.1 million in Q4 across 15 transactions, with average valuations in the segment jumping to $273.4 million—more than double the previous eight-quarter average of $129.1 million. Ten of those 15 were Series A rounds.
Here, too, the deal list reads like a catalog of “AI + cyber” companies. 7AI raised a $130.6 million Series A for an autonomous threat-detection platform that continuously monitors digital environments. Vega Security secured $120 million for AI-powered threat detection and analytics, while Adaptive closed an $81 million Series B for generative AI–based threat simulations.
Biotech, long out of favor after the 2021 boom, also showed signs of life with deals climbing to 10 in Q4—the most since late 2022. Braveheart Bio raised $185 million in its first financing round to advance cardiovascular drugs licensed from China’s Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, while Expedition Therapeutics secured $165 million for a COPD therapy licensed from Fosun Pharma.
Even enterprise SaaS—under fire in the public markets for sluggish growth and seat-based pricing—looked surprisingly lively in the emerging tech lens. Q4 SaaS activity reached $313.4 million across 19 deals, with 10 at the seed stage. PitchBook’s analysis argues that what’s getting funded now is “service as software”: products that deliver AI-powered outcomes, not just tools employees have to learn and adopt.
Against the backdrop of a more cautious overall deal economy—and continued mega-bets on a handful of frontier labs—the ETI data suggests a narrower but sharper playbook at the top of the market. Health, cyber, biotech, and SaaS never truly disappeared from VC portfolios. Elite firms are now willing to lean back into them, so long as the pitch is less “another point solution” and more “AI-native system that moves real-world outcomes.”
