The year 2018 saw record-breaking deals in the Venture Capital world that hadn’t been seen since the 90’s. Most notably Capital investment exceeded the $100B mark for the first time in almost two decades. As documented in the Pitchbook NVCA Venture Monitor, deals exceeded $130B.
Software, Pharma and Biotech continue to dominate the deals by sector with software deals representing 5x that of Pharma and Biotech. Software also saw a record level of capital invested (46.8B) which represented more than 50% growth YOY. However the needle moving the furthest came from corporate investors. In 2018 corporate investors participated in over 1,400 deals totaling over $65B, an increase of 83% YOY.
The other major record setter was 52 first-time VC funds were raised in 2018. This group not only set a record for # of funds, but also total capital of $5.3B. Twelve of the funds raised over $100M, and four funds exceeded $250M. There were 864 VC exits in 2018 with more than $120B spread between them. Most notably are Github and Moderna Therapeutics.
Even Angel and Seed Stage investment performed strong in 2018, totaling $7.5B. The median seed-stage deal reached $2M representing a 40% YOY increase.
The major takeaway I took away from the report was that deals exceeding $25M now comprise over 60% of total deal value. More than 50% of the deals are now north of $5M.
This report shows strong activity within the USA VC world, and from the beginnings of 2019, it doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon..
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