As SPACs Slow, Terms Change And The Market Widens For Targets

While the SPAC craze dominated last year and investors rode that momentum into 2021, the crowded market has cooled slightly as many of the vehicles continue to search for their perfect mate.

Those changing market dynamics have created an adjustment in the terms of some SPACs — in an attempt to make the vehicle more attractive to investors — and shifted where some are looking for that much-needed target. READ MORE

VC-Backed Cyber Companies Bought Up At Record Pace

Venture capital investors aren’t just putting a record amount of money into cybersecurity startups, they are also cashing in, as evidenced by an explosion of M&A deals in the space.

The number of M&A deals for venture-backed cybersecurity companies in the first seven months of 2021 almost equals the total amount for all of last year, per Crunchbase data. This year has already seen 77 deals — while last year saw a record total of 80. READ MORE

Tech Startup Financing Hits Records as Giant Funds Dwarf Venture Capitalists

Big money-management firms expanded their dominance in Silicon Valley last quarter, crowding out venture capitalists in a once-niche business and putting 2021 on pace to nearly double last year’s record in startup financing.

Hedge funds, mutual funds, pensions, sovereign-wealth groups and other so-called nontraditional venture investors were more active in the second quarter than in any previous period, according to research firm PitchBook Data Inc. These firms participated in 42% of startup financing deals, and those deals accounted for more than three-quarters of the invested capital, according to Pitchbook. READ MORE

Private equity stakes its claim in sustainable investing

While some firms such as KKR have been focused on ESG and impact investing for more than a decade, a once exotic idea has gone mainstream and more PE firms are steering limited partner capital into ESG investments, especially those with a climate focus, such as renewable energy. Private equity funds that invest solely in renewable energy assets raised about $52 billion last year, a record, according to Bloomberg. And the money for such funds so far this year is 25 times the amount flowing to fossil fuel asset funding. READ MORE

Robinhood's rescue: The VC deal that turned a crisis into one of 2021's biggest IPOs

In a market environment where rapid dealmaking has become the norm, venture capitalists' multibillion-dollar investment in Robinhood during the GameStop stock saga earlier this year stands out.

On the morning of Jan. 28, stock-trading clearinghouses told Robinhood to post $3 billion in regulatory capital. Without these funds, Robinhood's investing app wouldn't be able to continue its normal course of business. READ MORE

EdTech IPOs Begin To Shift From Chinese- To U.S-Based Companies

In a year when IPO deal volumes are hitting record highs, edtech is in the spotlight — particularly this past week.

This week saw language-learning platform Duolingo, along with K-12 edtech company PowerSchool go public, following edtech software company Instructure’s IPO last week. Chinese online tutoring platform Zhangmen also had an IPO last month while Coursera’s public debut was back in March. In other words, it’s been a banner year for U.S.-based edtech companies to go public, after China-based edtech companies have dominated the U.S. IPO market in recent years. READ MORE

IPO Activity Is Speeding Up In These States

It’s no secret that the IPO market has been on fire this year. I wrote about it just two weeks ago: IPO deal volume reached a new high in the first half of the year as many companies look to take advantage of favorable market conditions.

We’ve been seeing venture-backed startups that were long-rumored to be eyeing an IPO go public, along with older, more established companies tap into the public market — often for the second time.  READ MORE

How 2021’s Red-Hot Venture Funding Landscape Is Shaking Up Early-Stage Investing

Startup funding around the world is on a tear this year and, increasingly, it’s not just traditional venture investors driving that growth.

Globally, venture investment is up 95 percent year over year to at least $288 billion through the first half of 2021. North America and Europe have seen even greater gains, and funding is up at every single stage, per Crunchbase data. READ MORE

VC Firms Are Pouring Billions Of Dollars Into Green Tech

ESG investing: it's in every media outlet and on every bank's business plan. A rush to what many call alignment of values with investment goals has led to a flourishing new industry with funds popping up like mushrooms after the rain. Green-tech startups are the new dotcoms, it seems, and the danger of a bubble seems distant—for now.

Interestingly enough, things were very different just a few years ago, as the Wall Street Journal's Scott Patterson noted in a recent article. The past decade, he wrote, saw a pullout of investors from the green energy technology field after a couple of notable demises—one of solar company Solyndra back in 2011 and one of battery maker A123 Systems a year later. READ MORE

Star-Gazing Investors Launch More Money Into Space Tech

Although Jeff Bezos‘ and Richard Branson‘s brief space jaunts have generated massive media interest in space travel for the last week, investors have been over the moon about space tech for at least two years now.

Venture funding in space travel, satellite communication and aerospace — which includes space-related technologies such as thrusters and propulsion systems — hit a new high last year, and that record is likely to be eclipsed this year. READ MORE

WeWork debacle wasn’t possible without VC help

For the better part of two years now, I’ve been wondering how the 2019 WeWork debacle happened. Whatever, sure, Adam Neumann is a wild and crazy guy — but without commitments from a number of sophisticated investors (Benchmark! T Rowe Price! Fidelity! Harvard University!), his tequila-soaked dreams never would have become a reality. I’ve been waiting for someone to explain what these people were doing, handing Neumann all that cash, and The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell finally gets there. READ MORE

Healthcare venture capital has already blown away 2020 records

With the wind of the pandemic at its back, the biopharma industry saw a surging tide of fundraising in 2020 that has only exponentially grown this year. But with VC dollars flowing like never before, are there some cracks showing in biopharma’s gold-tinted façade?

In the first half of 2021, total healthcare venture spending in the US has already outstripped 2020’s record-breaking totals across biotech, healthtech and beyond, putting the industry on a funding pace that could be hard to match in coming years, according to a new report from Silicon Valley Bank released Wednesday. READ MORE

HR Tech Funding Explodes As Companies Grapple With Transforming Workforce

Venture capital money is flooding the human resources space as employers seek new ways to recruit, hire and retain their workforces.

Human resource technologies — which can run the gamut from background checks to benefits and everything in between — already has seen nearly $3.6 billion in venture funding for 260 deals this year, according to Crunchbase data. That dollar amount already surpasses all of last year, which witnessed not even $2.2 billion invested in 500 funding deals. READ MORE