Tag: VC Funding

2018´s Industry Recap and 2019 hottest industries for Venture Capital

2018 was a historical year. Last year saw the highest level of venture capital funding since 2000, the last year of the dot-com bubble.

According to data published by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association, Venture Capital firms spread roughly U$S 131 Bn. across 8.949 deals.
The previous record was a $100 million total notched in the year 2000.

More than a half of the total capital invested came from U$S 50 M (or more) deals. This boosted the average deal size and valuations across every investment stage and series last year. But because venture investors are paying so much up front, it’s becoming harder to profit.

382 fundings were U$S 100 M (or more) “megarounds,” up from 266 in 2017, with 184 of those coming from the U.S.
In terms of “unicorns,” companies with a valuation of at least U$S 1 Bn., the U.S. saw the creation of 53 new ones in 2018 versus 29 in 2017.
The fourth quarter alone saw 21 “unicorn births,” the highest ever recorded in a single quarter.

Venture capital investments in Asia rose 42% in 2018 versus 2017 with an 11% increase in the amount of money invested. Asia broke records with a 35% in “megarounds”, to 162, and a 60% jump in the creation of unicorns, with 40 coming of age during the year.

California, Massachusetts, and New York continue their dominance of venture investment activity, attracting 79% of total U.S. capital invested and 53% of the number of U.S. deals completed last year.
VC funding in the San Francisco region jumped 55%, to U$S 28 Bn., and New York funding reached U$S 13 Bn.
Venture Capital firms and investors point to increasing operating costs and higher valuations in those three states, signaling optimism for more investment in emerging ecosystems, which also have the benefits of a growing talent pool, maturing networks and ecosystems, and more favorable pricing.

VC Trends

Artificial intelligence, digital health and financial technology companies led the investment portfolios, with AI-related funding jumping 72%, to U$S 9.3 Bn.

Software continues to eat the world but life science activity has seen significant growth.
More than U$S 23 Bn. was invested across 1,308 deals in life science startups, a record high for both metrics.
Healthtech drew a significant portion of angel/seed investing in 2018Q4, highlighting investor interest in funding groundbreaking technologies to meet some of the biggest challenges and opportunities in the sector.

Rising Trends in the Venture Capital Industry

Today, the most successful companies in the world, such as Snapchat, Xiaomi, Uber, or SpaceX have been funded by  venture capital (VC) investors. The venture capital funding pattern has changed and gained popularity in different countries over the years.

In 2015, the VC market around the world consisted of $128.5 billion, wherein, 71 VC backed companies managed to reach a unicorn status along with a total of 7872 deals made.

 

Industries that Receive the Most VC Funding

According to a 2016 report by Martin Prosperity Institute, VC funding is available across different industries. In the U.S., software sector has around 36 percent of the VC investment with a value of about $12 billion, whereas, bio-technology and media and entertainment comprise 17.3% and 9.5% respectively. The top five industries consist of $25 billion investment constituting 76% of all VC investments.

Software sector received the highest funding even in the last quarter of 2015, i.e, $4.5 billion with 369 closed deals. On the other hand, bio-technology collected $1.5 billion via 95 deals and media & entertainment sector managed to secure $881 million by closing 114 deals.

 

VC Funding Trends

Venture capitalists invest in different stages of a business. According to a 2017 report by Crunchbase, the average seed funding in the first quarter of 2017 was approximately 38% higher than 2016’s first quarter funding, which shows that a number of investors are ready and excited to invest in new startups. These investors are basically accelerator programs that offer funding to newbies showing strong potential to grow in the future.

 

Major Cities for Venture Capital Investments

In another report by Martin Prosperity, it is stated that industry wise VC investments are also confined to small geographical locations. For example, half of the VC investments in software sector have taken place in San Francisco, representing 25% of the investments, whereas, San Jose represents 20%.

In the US, the flow of VC investments mainly comes from Boston – New York – Washington corridor and San Francisco Bay Area, representing 40% of all the VC investments around the world.  In 2012, a total of $42 billion worth of VC investment was recorded worldwide. The data included 150 cities and the center point was the U.S. that accounted for 70% of the global investment, whereas, Europe and Asia only represented 14% investment.

 

Popular Sectors for VC Investments

Some of the popular sectors that have received a large percentage of investment are advertising, big data, cloud computing, SaaS, marketplaces, hardware and software.

 

Advertising – Although, it has been a center of attention for many years, but in the past 5 years, it has lost its position and the investment has decreased from 15% to only 5%. Advertising business models are gradually losing their value in the eyes of investors. One of the key reasons behind it is the heavy influence of advertising networks, including Google and Facebook.

Big data – Business models, in which the driving factor is big data, have experienced a growth in VC investment. In 2010, the series A funding comprised of 2.5% investment, but by 2015, the funding rose to 7.5%. On the other hand, seed investment has not shown any improvement or decline over a period of last 4 years.

Cloud computing – It is an infrastructure used by product developers to create services. In the last 4 years, this particular business model has also remained the same, i.e., 4%, in both series A funding and seed investments. However, it slightly went downward back in 2013 to 2014.

E-commerce – Although, e-commerce has been one of the well-known business models in terms of VC investments, yet, the seed stage investment suffered a decline from 15% to well below 10% and series A remained the same.

SaaS – In case of SaaS, series A investors didn’t perform as good as seed investors. Series A increased from 5% to 10%, whereas, seed stage experienced a surge from 5% to 15%. This sector shows attractive prospects for funding as merely less than 2% of the software market shifted to SaaS.

Marketplace – This sector experienced a surge in seed funding from 2.5% to 10% in the last four years. Uber and AirBnB are the reason behind its massive success. The current growth rate has motivated investors to consider it a potential sector for investment. Series A investment, however, remained at 5% of the dollar amount.

 

All in all, it is quite evident that VC investment has become one of the key sources of finance for many successful businesses and is currently dominating the world’s market at a rapid pace.