The exit markets for venture-backed startups weakened in 2016 with portfolio company acquisitions and IPOs falling, according to preliminary data from Thomson Reuters. The year ended with just 41 IPOs of VC-supported companies on the Nasdaq and NYSE exchanges in the United States, the slowest year since 2009. The fourth quarter saw just nine deals […]
Venture investors pulled back in the final quarter of last year, likely spooked by the uncertainty over the presidential election. Q4 dollars going to startups in the United States came to about $8.8 billion, down 19 percent from the third quarter, by far the slowest quarter of the year, according to VCJ’s analysis of preliminary Thomson […]
Despite a slowdown in activity in the fourth quarter, U.S. venture capitalists raised more than $40.5 billion for new funds in 2016 for the first time since the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000. The year saw 265 funds raise $40.5 billion, a 38 percent jump in dollars from 2015 when $29.3 billion was […]
Big Food has found itself at odds with consumers over the past several years. An industry characterized by mass-produced, highly processed products has been upended by the Good Food Movement, which champions fresh and healthy food. Legacy brands that long dominated the market have found themselves competing with upstarts more in tune with consumer preferences. Big […]
Funds from Technology Crossover Ventures and Spark Capital lead a portfolio of mid-decade investments at Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System. But don’t sound the trumpets. The portfolio overall reflects a difficult period for venture returns, and its performance doesn’t leave much to crow about. Only one of the dozen funds with vintages of 2004 […]
Canada’s top 10 venture-capital financings in 2016 drew more than $1.1 billion from investors, more than twice the $534 million that went into the top 10 deals in 2015. That number is based on PE Hub Canada's list of the largest deals announced last year, supplemented by preliminary Thomson Reuters data. The list is headed by BlueRock Therapeutics, Thalmic Labs, DalCor Pharma and Real Matters, which were responsible for the biggest crop of $100 million-plus financings in Canada since the dot.com era.
Two recent Stanford University graduates say they and a business partner have raised $55.2 million to invest in startups founded at the school. Phil Brady told VCJ that he and Clancey Stahr, members of the class of 2015, partnered with Takeshi “TK” Mori to launch GoAhead Ventures. The team raised money from Japanese institutions, corporations and […]
Early-stage investor ff Venture Capital says that from an investing perspective, 2017 is the year of artificial intelligence. And it’s among a number of venture firms putting startup capital where their AI instincts are. Market researcher Marketsandmarkets expects the AI market to reach more than $16 billion by 2022, a rate of nearly 63 percent a year. The research firm […]
By Alex Derber, VCJ Correspondent The United Kingdom has propelled European innovation funding for most of this century. Its GPs tend to raise and invest more money than their nearest rivals in Berlin, Munich and Paris, and do so across Europe and the United States. Young British companies also benefit and receive more venture funding […]
The coming year could see unicorns lose their horns and morph into donkeys. That seems to be the consensus in the venture community. Nearly a third of the 90 U.S. tech startups that have reached $1-billion-plus valuations will eventually be worth less than $1 billion, according to report by private-markets-research firm SharesPost in the fall. “Some unicorns have been […]