When all is said and done, U.S. venture fundraising in 2017 will finish a couple of billion shy of $30 billion. But overall U.S. fundraising dropped in 2017 compared with the previous two years, in terms of the number of funds and the total amount raised. Through Dec. 27, U.S. venture firms raised 248 funds […]
In January 2017, initial coin offerings were an obscure fundraising mechanism with all-time cumulative funding totaling less than $300 million. By early December, that amount had increased more than 14-fold to nearly $4.3 billion. Over the course of the year, ICOs incited skepticism and curiosity, elicited celebrity endorsements, and prompted the creation of a new […]
The top recurring headlines that dominated much of 2017 were those regarding the sexual-harassment accusations levied against several VCs. The story line is one the VC community will no doubt revisit in the months and years ahead. The ramifications include a rethinking of LP-GP agreements, fund formations, potential lawsuits and a loss of entrepreneur confidence. […]
With a week still to go, 2017 has already added up to a big year for venture investing, as money going to U.S.-based startups this year trails only 2015 as the most since the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000. Investors through late December pumped $64.1 billion into young companies and completed 4,262 deals, […]
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers had the most M&A deals among U.S. venture firms in 2017, with 14 portfolio companies to exit. That’s according to VCJ’s analysis of preliminary disclosed data from Thomson Reuters. Those companies, which include application performance management solutions company Appdynamics, photo-video music app Flipagram, IT platform Simplivity, and biotech company True […]
Funds from OrbiMed Advisors, BlueRun Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures and Giza Venture Capital lead a portfolio of late-decade venture funds at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. The portfolio of 2006 and 2011 vintages is made up largely of mid-sized and smaller funds and takes a diverse approach to investing. Almost 60 percent of the funds […]
The majority of venture-backed startups ultimately fail, and most of those shutter with little fanfare. VCJ looked back at some of the more memorable companies that ceased operations in 2017, which raised a combined $1.68 billion in venture funding before going extinct. Several of the companies that closed down in the first half of the […]
In early December, FirstMark Capital announced that it hired Beth Ferreira as managing director. And just like that, women made up 40 percent of the firm’s investment team. Ferreira arrived just a couple of months after FirstMark added Catherine Ulrich as a managing director on the team. Ferreira and Ulrich now sit alongside three men, Managing Directors Rick Heitzmann, Amish Jani and Matt Turck. “One […]
Ottawa has unveiled the details of its $400 million program to shore up venture capital supply in Canada, giving particular focus to backing late-stage tech and righting gender imbalances. The Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative, first announced in March's federal Budget 2017, was launched today by the Liberal government to channel $1.5 billion of new money into Canada’s innovation ecosystem. VCCI will do this by leveraging private commitments to VC funds, primarily through market intermediaries. Every $1 VCCI allocates through Business Development Bank of Canada must be matched by $2.25 from private sources, such as corporations, institutional investors and wealthy individuals.
The matching formula, a unique feature of current Canadian public policy in the VC space, is based on one already tested in the market by VCCI’s predecessor.
When Iman Abuzeid was raising a seed round last spring, she compiled her target investor list. She then winnowed it by typical criteria, such as a firm’s industry focus and stage and what year their funds were at in their lifespans. The 32-year-old co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, a San Francisco startup that enables hospitals […]