Fundraising (value up 51%)
U.S.-based venture firms raised more than $5.5 billion in March, up 51 percent from the nearly $3.7 billion that what was collected in February. The charge was led by Founders Fund, which raised about $1.3 billion for its sixth fund and Accel Partners which raised $1.2 billion in commitments for its fourth growth fund. Accel also closed on $500 million for its 13th primary fund.
Deals (value down 0.4%)
Venture deals within the venture market saw a slight drop-off in March, as the overall value decreased 0.4 percent from $3.75 billion in February to almost $3.73 billion in March. However, the total count of U.S.-based VC deals increased from 403 deals in February to 443 in March. That’s because the size of the deals did not reach billion-dollar levels. The top deal of March was Sunnova Energy Corp, which raised $300 million from multiple investors.
M&A (value up 128%)
Venture-backed mergers and acquisitions had a tremendous March. There was a total of 21 venture-backed, U.S.-based companies that were acquired in March. Of those, eight disclosed their acquisition prices, which combined for a total of $2.74 billion, a 128 percent leap from the $1.2 billion in disclosed M&A in February. The premier deal of the month was Cisco Systems buying Jasper Technologies, which provides a cloud-based IoT platform, for $1.4 billion.
IPO (proceeds down 72%)
The number of VC-backed IPO deals was cut in half, going from four in February to two in March. The pair in March combined for $123 million in proceeds, a 72 percent drop from the $436 million in combined proceeds in February. All six VC-backed IPOs have been in biotech. In March, the top offering of the month was Corvus Pharmaceuticals Inc, an oncology-focused clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, which went public for $70.5 million.
Source: Based on Thomson Reuters data
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