The extraordinary boom in private funding for early-stage businesses has attracted banks and mainstream investors into territory long dominated by venture capital firms. In response, some VC firms are starting to look more like banks and mainstream investors. This seems a risky strategy. READ MORE
Why tech companies have venture capital funds
February saw the announcement of yet another corporate venture fund, prompting CNBC reporter Jordan Novet to quip, “If your company has no corporate-venture arm, what is it even doing?” Novet’s comment came on the heels of MongoDB’s new fund (disclosure: I work for MongoDB), but the intentional irony strikes home because it comes on the heels of recent announcements from Databricks (December 2021) and Snowflake (November 2020), joining larger tech companies that launched their own venture funds years ago, including Salesforce (2017), Microsoft (2016), Google (2009), Red Hat (2000), and Intel (1991). READ MORE
Russia-Ukraine Conflict Could Further Rankle Supply of Semiconductors And VC Funding
While 2021 was a record year for VC-backed semiconductor startups raising money, this year has started off much slower—a trend that may continue due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Last year saw VC-backed semiconductor startups—which includes everything from chipmakers to design firms to hardware developers—raise more than $6.4 billion in funding, according to Crunchbase data. That number dwarfed the $3 billion seen in 2020. READ MORE
What the Heck is a SPAC and Why Do I Care?
Private business owners have surely heard the term “SPAC” a lot over the last few years. For professional advisors and non-transaction lawyers, the term may be ubiquitous, but still somewhat of a mystery. They may be wondering, what is a SPAC, why are so many people talking about them, and do they have anything to do with me or my clients? READ MORE
Private Equity’s 2022 Game Plan
A strong economic environment, record dry powder in the form of $500 billion, and cheap capital have fueled a surge in U.S. private equity. Fundraising, deal, and exit activity are at a scale and pace not seen since the early 2000s. Indeed, 2021 was a record for PE exits, and exit values hit a 20-year high. READ MORE
Private Equity Markets Performed Strongly in 2021, With More Investors Expected
Private equity markets will likely attract more institutional and high-net-worth individual investors this year, after consistently outperforming public markets during the pandemic, according to an industry analysis released Thursday.
Last year, private equity on average generated an extra 83 cents per dollar invested since 2017 relative to public markets, according to the 2022 market overview by Hamilton Lane, a Pennsylvania-based private markets investment management firm that tracks more than 45,000 funds with more than US$15 trillion in assets. READ MORE
The crypto industry's latest milestone: its own corporate VCs
Earlier this month, NFT marketplace OpenSea became the latest big crypto company to set up a venture arm.
Why it matters: Despite the recent boom in VC money now focused on backing cryptocurrency and web3 companies ($32 billion invested in 2021 alone), these corporate VCs still believe there’s something unique they can bring to the table. READ MORE
For Years, Investors Have Overlooked Diverse Founders
Harlem Capital has set an incredibly audacious goal for a venture capital firm: Invest in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 20 years.
Managing partner Henri Pierre-Jacques is well aware that reaching that number is a tall order. At an Inc. streaming event on February 24, he told Beatrice Dixon, co-founder and CEO of Atlanta-based feminine-hygiene business the Honey Pot Company, that he and his partner wanted a mission that would force them to stretch and be uncomfortable. READ MORE
Cybersecurity Market Sets Records for Venture Capital in 2021, Expected To Keep Rolling
While most would probably prefer that the cyber threat landscape not be as big or active as it has become in recent years, there are always winners in private industry in every set of adverse circumstances. In this case, it’s the cybersecurity market. Venture capital flocked to cybersecurity startups in 2021, leading to a record $29.5 billion raised (more than double the amount seen in 2020). READ MORE
America's most resilient jobs are venture-backed
“In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data,” a quote attributed to mathemetician W. Edwards Deming, is NASA’s unofficial motto.
For the first time, we have data to back up what many already knew — venture capital-backed companies are a major catalyst for growth and dynamism in our economy. READ MORE
Funding Starts To Cascade Into Web3 Startups
As “Web3” and the “decentralized web” have grown as buzzwords in the startup industry, so has investor interest in what some think will be the next iteration of the internet.
Earlier this month—in just about 24 hours—two companies that help developers build decentralized applications announced huge funding rounds. READ MORE
Cybersecurity Investment Rises Amid Russian Invasion of Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine not only threatens to upend the world geopolitical order, it’s also affecting several different business sectors, notably cybersecurity.
For days before and even during the invasion, several Ukrainian government and financial sites experienced hacks and disruptions. There have been reports that the FBI has also asked U.S. businesses to be on the watch for ransomware attacks as tensions in Eastern Europe boil over. READ MORE
Private Equity Takes Cautious Approach to Cryptocurrencies
Private equity (PE) firms are taking a cautious approach to cryptocurrencies as an alternative investment option, recent research has showed.
Only 3% of PE firms with more than $15 billion of assets under management have invested in cryptocurrency, according to an EY survey. READ MORE
Private equity firms put focus on talent before backing new deals
Private equity firms are looking harder than ever at how well companies are positioned to retain and attract talent when considering new investments, as waves of employee turnover continue to ripple across nearly every industry.
Analysing company talent has long been a part of deal due diligence at private equity firms, but industry experts say the issue is now coming up much earlier in the process. The conversations are focused on employees at large, rather than just senior management roles, particularly when it comes to employee turnover. READ MORE
Investors have come to see private markets as a cash cow
EVERYONE WHO has an investment portfolio or is in a pension scheme knows that they are exposed to the gyrations of the stockmarket. Only some are aware that a rising share of their savings pot has been invested in private assets, including private equity (leveraged buy-outs), privately held debt and infrastructure and property holdings. And most would be surprised to know how big this exposure has become. Private equity and property alone make up almost a fifth of American public pension funds’ portfolios. A whopping 39% of large American endowments sits in buy-outs, venture capital and real assets. Private assets have become the opium of the savings industry because they are assumed to generate high returns. As our special report this week explains, this belief may be a delusion. READ MORE
When A VC Fund Shouldn’t Hire A Public Relations Agency
Money is everywhere in the world of venture capital. In 2021, U.S.-based startups saw a record $93 billion worth of funding in the seed stage. Since money is such a commodity, a lot of VC funds have pondered working with PR agencies to bolster their presence so as to not miss out on checks, either signed for the next big startup or received from a big name limited partner (LP). As alluring as press clips and media mentions in top-tier outlets may seem, venture funds are often not well positioned to make any of that media happen. Based on our experience at BAM, here are five reasons why venture funds should skip the PR agency: READ MORE
Climate investment is heating up with more than $40B invested across 600+ deals in 2021
2021 was a hell of a year for startups operating in the climate space. Globally, around 1,400 investors are looking at the next generation of companies that are tackling climate change. They deployed more than $40 billion across more than 600 deals — that’s more than twice as much capital deployed than the year before. Mobility and energy startups are consistently raising the most capital, with great food & water tech in a distant third place, according to a new report from Climate Tech VC. READ MORE
In Staggering Sign Of Venture Spending Growth, Insight Partners Closes $20B+ Fund
A decade ago, $20 billion would have been enough to fund roughly a third of all global venture funding for an entire year. Today, it’s the sum that just a single investor racked up for a single fund.
This morning, software-focused growth investor Insight Partners announced it raised over $20 billion for its 12th flagship fund. That’s more than twice the size of the 11th flagship fund, which closed about two years ago with $9.5 billion and ranks among the largest funds ever. READ MORE
Semiconductor Shortage Produces Record Venture Funding
There may be a shortage of semiconductors, but there’s no lack of venture funding to companies in the chip space.
While most of the talk around semiconductors revolves around disruptions in the supply chain, the industry actually saw an unprecedented amount of venture capital in 2021—as well as one of its biggest M&A years ever. READ MORE
Why top tech VC firms are betting big on life science startups
Machine learning, data science and other computational methods are wielded by a growing number of biopharma startups to find new drug targets, design new therapeutics, and support their testing.
Venture capitalists — including those that haven’t touched the sciences previously — are paying attention. READ MORE