2018 Venture Capital Landscape

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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..

If you would like help raising outside capital for your company, please reach out to me.

<I>Trent McCracken is a global business & technology consultant with over two decades of leadership experience as an entrepreneur and CEO of technology and software companies.</I>
Trent McCracken is a global business & technology consultant with over two decades of leadership experience as an entrepreneur and CEO of technology and software companies.

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