The new US Trump administration's policies will likely lead to far-reaching changes in health, defence, crypto, semiconductor and energy sectors.

With Donald Trump due to be sworn in as US president, today marks the beginning of a shift in US policy that investors will need to prepare for. Despite the obvious differences between the politics of Trump and outgoing president Joe Biden, some of the expected trends are stories of continuity, while others will see disruption. Based on what we know about the incoming administration, here is what industry figures think Trump’s impact on corporate venturing could be across five key sectors.
Crypto – A corporate venturing surge?
Trump is the US’s most crypto-friendly president, judging from the statements he has made about the sector during his campaign. This could encourage a new wave of startups seeking to take advantage.
Crypto was already on the rise as an investment focus for corporates. According to GCV’s CVC Funding Round Data, corporate-backed funding rounds in US crypto startups increased to $1.6bn in 2024 from $1.1bn in 2023.
In GCV’s yearly roundup of the 10 most active corporate investors for 2024, the second and third spots were held by crypto companies Animoca Brands and OKX, respectively.
On the campaign trail, Trump talked about making the US a “bitcoin superpower”. He also promoted the idea of making a “strategic reserve” of the cryptocurrency. His criticisms of the Biden-appointed chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler suggest that he will oversee a looser crypto regulatory environment.
Defence – A stronger Europe?
For Daniel Carew, a defence investor and partner at the Europe-focused tech VC firm Join Capital, the real story of what is happening in the US is what it means for Europe.
The incoming president has been critical of European Nato partners that have not reached the organisation’s defence spending target of 2% of GDP. He recently demanded that this be upped to 5%, and on the campaign trail made comments that left his commitment to supporting European security ambiguous.
Carew sees a Trump administration driving the world to a greater US-China bipolarity but thinks this presents an opportunity to Europe’s defence tech landscape, with the continent pushed towards greater self-sufficiency.
“Certainly, the US is going to become more protectionist. Whether it’s tariffs or whatnot, we’ll see. Europe is going to have to stand much more on its own feet in terms of defence, economic security and supply chain security,” he says.
“As it becomes polarised, you either follow the US or you follow China, or you try and do something else – and hopefully there’s appetite to do something else.”
Carew says that a lot of the most groundbreaking commercial and military startup technology is being developed in Europe, with the war in Ukraine acting both as an urgent spur to innovation and also as a proving ground for the new tech.
Crucially, the US imposes strict rules on the leadership of its defence companies. Carew thinks this will deter successful European defence startups from making the jump across the Atlantic, a trend seen in other tech industries such as AI.
“Ironically, defence could be the reason where we get a new sort of generation of European industry that stays within Europe. The US investment will have to come to Europe to participate because of the China market [being the only strong alternative]. The regional [rivalry] will actually maybe work in our favour.”
Semiconductors and AI – Trump’s impact on corporate venturing
For all the attention given to the differences between outgoing US president Joe Biden’s administration and Trump’s new one, the semiconductor industry is more likely to be affected by continuity of policy rather than a dramatic shift.
Sanjay Kumar was a senior director in the US CHIPS Programme at the US Department of Commerce, working on the Biden administration’s $280bn project to strengthen the US’s chip design and manufacturing capabilities. He says that under the new administration, we can expect “more of the same” as we were seeing under Biden.
“[On] the regulation of technology, I think they will continue the way they have been continuing [already]. It’s a new arms race to control AI technology. It remains to be seen if the governments around the world will trust the companies to develop technology independently or proactively shape the AI technology development.”
One of Biden’s last acts as president last week was to introduce tighter controls on the US’s AI technology, to prevent it from being transferred to China. This includes drawing up a tiered list of countries, designating them according to how safe they are to export high-end chips to.
While it is not known how far the new administration will go in enforcing these rules, Trump has previously taken a hard line against China. Although he has publicly criticised the Chips Act, suggesting that tariffs would have achieved the same result without the need for large investments, there has been no firm indication that his government would claw back the spending. As such, the rapid scaling up of US production is likely to continue.
Kumar believes that the trend towards tighter controls over the tech is inevitable, and that VCs and CVCs will be swept up in geopolitics.
For a start, in a world where the flow of chips is restricted, he expects many countries will now feel compelled to invest heavily in their own infrastructure, fearful of losing access to the US tech.
“I think what’s going to happen to the VC world is that we will see more funding dollars going into the AI startups in different parts of the world which wouldn’t have otherwise happened. We’ll see around the globe countries proactively investing money into AI and computing startups.”
And in an increasingly tense trading climate, he suspects that greater scrutiny of technology that could potentially benefit China’s military – those considered dual use – would freeze the flow of money between the two rival powers.
“VCs won’t be able to make investments into Chinese technology companies so easily. Western VCs, US VCs, and also the US startups won’t be easily able to take money from the Chinese VCs. Where it’s going is towards a bipolar innovation ecosystem.”
These are complications no investor is likely to welcome, but the reality is that they will now have to be choosier.
“Ideally The Qualcomms, Intels, Broadcoms of the world, they would love to access, through their venture capital, the best technology in any part of the world. [But] with proactive control of technology by individual countries its not going to be easy for CVC to invest in the best of the breed,” Kumar says.
“Things are going to develop in silos now.”
Health – The RFK Jr effect
A healthcare CVC investor spoke to GCV about what he called the “RFK Jr effect” on the health sector, referring to Trump’s pick for secretary for health, Robert Kennedy. He thinks Kennedy’s policy stance will encourage more consumer demand for preventative healthcare, an area the politician has championed to tackle avoidable chronic diseases.
Kennedy has been criticised for making groundless health statements, including misinformation about vaccines and HIV. But he has also received attention for views on preventative healthcare that are generally considered to be more measured, including campaigning against ultra-processed food and advocating for nutrition to be taught in medical schools.
If the administration does support preventative healthcare, it could complement a broader cultural acceptance of the benefits of a healthier lifestyle. This could serve to push preventative healthcare further into the mainstream, raising demand and making it a draw for investors.
There are already signs that one preventative healthcare sector is on the rise. Full-body MRI scans paid for out-of-pocket by consumers have become increasingly popular as on-demand diagnostic tests.
In February last year, Ezra, a full-body MRI scan startup, raised $21m in a series B funding round with backers including the insurer Allianz, through its Allianz Life Ventures fund. Q Bio uses MRI scans, data analysis and AI to build digital twins for customers who want an overview of their health. It raised $40m in 2020 from backers including Telus Ventures, the CVC of Canadian technology group Telus.
Energy – Renewables may suffer, but don’t write off EVs
The incoming president has shown little shyness in expressing his fondness for oil drilling. Trump’s impact on corporate venturing in the energy sector is likely to shake a lot of existing trends.
“We think that energy will see a huge gain from the next administration, just based on deregulation,” Pete Bastien, the US-based president of Hitachi’s corporate venture arm, told GCV recently.
The new administration’s favourable views on power-hungry areas like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mean all kinds of energy could receive investment, especially at the baseload level.
“Oil and gas will maybe see the major boost, but I think fission will get lifted up and especially small reactors, because Trump has actually mentioned in a few interviews that he thinks nuclear is a viable way to generate electricity and the regulations are way too strict,” says Bastien. “But he also thinks the large reactors are too complex and have many cost overruns, so he wants to see something different.
“This is just talk. But we think that talk can lead to interest in the market. At a high level, that’s basically what we see right now.”
In the renewables sector, wind projects may see fewer subsidies. Heat pumps and hydrogen are also vulnerable under the Trump administration as they were recipients of subsidies and incentives in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act two years ago – a bill Trump has threatened to repeal. The other area Bastien says won’t do particularly well under the new administration is electric vehicles, which includes batteries.
But that’s hardly a death knell for the sector.
“EVs aren’t going away,” he says. “They’re going to be pressured by the next administration, but the trend is here to stay in my opinion, and batteries are the major driver for EVs.”
“I can imagine that if someone has a better chemistry or a better way to monitor batteries or recycle the battery, I think they will all continue to see investment. Maybe not at the same pace or the same valuations, but I don’t think there will be that much of a downturn.”