2025 Trends: Industries That Are Turning Startup Investing
The year 2025 marks a crucial milestone for startup investment, combining the acceleration of recent dynamics and the emergence of new strategic priorities. However, this context is part of a complex economic climate, marked by government instability in France, a flight of capital to the United States and an overall decline in fundraising. In this context, startups must redouble their efforts to focus on the essentials: revenue, customer acquisition and the optimization of their business models.
Health and biotechnology: new paradigms under construction
While previous years have seen an explosion in investment in medtechs and connected health, 2025 refocuses efforts on more targeted segments, including personalized therapies, medical artificial intelligence, and solutions for rare diseases.
Startups leveraging AI to accelerate drug discovery or creating digital twins to simulate clinical trials continue to see strong traction. These technologies are transforming biomedical research by drastically reducing development time and costs. For example, investments in generative AI reached $56 billion in 2024, marking a dramatic 192% year-over-year growth*. Meanwhile, the AI market in drug discovery, estimated at $932.25 billion in 2023, is expected to reach $1,409.15 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.31% between 2024 and 2030**.
Startups like Nurea and Deeplife are a perfect example of this dynamic. Nurea, with its medical imaging analysis technology, makes it possible to effectively detect and prevent cardiovascular diseases. For its part, Deeplife is revolutionizing biomedical research with its cellular digital twins, reducing the time and cost of clinical trials while increasing their accuracy. These innovations are a testament to the maturation of the sector, where the tangible impact of technologies has become a key criterion for investors.
Compared to previous years, priorities are changing: while 2024 was marked by a general interest in medtechs, 2025 favours solutions that have proven their effectiveness in real-life situations. This shift reflects an increased demand from investors for projects capable of generating a concrete impact, both medically and economically.
Energy transition: increasing maturity of projects
The energy transition continues to dominate investment priorities in 2025, but with an evolution marked by an increase in the maturity of projects. While 2024 saw a surge in green energy generation technologies, such as wind and solar, 2025 brings more complex and differentiated solutions, such as advanced storage technologies and CO2 capture systems.
Startups specializing in green hydrogen, which had already had a promising year in 2024 thanks to public investment plans, continue to rise. However, the novelty lies in the emergence of industrial decarbonization solutions, which aim to transform heavy sectors such as steel or cement. These technologies, although still expensive, benefit from increased regulatory pressure in Europe and favourable financial incentives, positioning 2025 as a decisive year for the scale-up of these projects***.
Artificial Intelligence: Diversification and Strategic Applications
Artificial intelligence in 2025 shows an impressive diversification, with a rise in concrete applications in various sectors. Logistics optimization, predictive maintenance and cybersecurity solutions are particularly attracting the attention of investors. A prominent example is My Digital Buildings, which is revolutionizing the management of connected buildings through the integration of AI to optimize maintenance, reduce energy costs, and strengthen infrastructure security. In a context where resource management and sustainability are becoming priorities, these innovations meet the strategic needs of companies and communities, while offering immediate performance gains.
Unlike previous years, when generative AI largely dominated, 2025 highlights directly applicable uses, capable of transforming industrial and commercial practices. This reflects the growing demand from companies for tools that generate immediate value.
Education and training: upskilling at the heart of the priorities
Continuing education and upskilling are experiencing exceptional momentum in 2025. While remote work had already catalyzed the adoption of educational platforms in 2020 and 2021, this year marks a shift towards integrated training solutions, adapted to the specific needs of companies.
Investors are turning to startups offering personalized content, often enriched by immersive technologies such as the startups Smartch or Autrice. Smartch modernizes corporate learning with connected tools, while Autrice designs personalized content tailored to the specific needs of companies.
Deeptech: long-term but attractive prospects
Despite their long development cycles, deeptechs continue to attract investors in 2025. Fragmos Chain and Biomemory are a perfect example of how the industry is evolving. Fragmos Chain addresses the challenges of traceability and performance with its innovations in next-generation semiconductors, while Biomemory revolutionizes data storage with DNA technology, a strategic step forward in the face of growing storage capacity needs.
These startups show that deeptechs are no longer limited to fundamental research. By forging strong industrial partnerships and offering concrete applications from their early stages of development, they attract a wider range of investors. Unlike 2023, when financing was mainly based on public subsidies, 2025 marks an increasing involvement of private capital, a sign of increased maturity in the sector.
The year 2025 marks a turning point in startup investment, with increased diversification of sectors of interest and increasing maturity of projects. Comparisons with previous years reveal a rise in investor demands, who are now looking for innovations that generate immediate impact, supported by robust market dynamics.
For entrepreneurs, this evolution represents both an opportunity and a challenge: they must not only offer differentiating solutions, but also demonstrate their economic viability and alignment with major societal trends. As for investors, their ability to identify high-potential projects, at the crossroads of technological innovation and societal impact, will be the key to their success in an ever-changing entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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* In 2024, generative AI startups raised a record $56 billion across 885 deals, a 192% increase from 2023. spring
** The global AI market in drug discovery was valued at approximately $932.25 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $1,409.15 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.31% between 2024 and 2030. spring
A special mention should be made of heavy industrial sectors, such as steel or cement, where decarbonisation technologies are emerging as key solutions. These sectors, traditionally responsible for high CO2 emissions, are facing increased regulatory pressure in Europe, notably thanks to the Green Deal, the Carbon Border Tax (CBAM), and the revision of the ETS system. These policies, combined with stricter emission standards and ambitious sectoral targets in countries such as Germany and France, encourage manufacturers to invest in technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCUS) or green hydrogen. At the same time, financial incentives, such as European or national subsidies, support this transition. 2025 is shaping up to be a crucial year for the scale-up of these innovative projects, with major potential impacts on the industries and investors involved in these transformations.
Upskilling, is training intended to increase existing skills in order to allow the continuation of the same profession, or the same field of activity, in a context of change in the profession. For example, customer relationship training for an employee who moves from the back office to the front office.
