Mega Deals (Like Uber) Boost Venture Funding to $13B

new technologies and ways of doing things, and they are becoming leaders in ways that won’t be seen again for another 10 or 15 years.

Valuations might seem high, but Crowe said companies like Uber represent long-term transformations in the U.S. economy that will take decades to play out. “These technology trends are only accelerating,” he said. “They are not reversing. They are not going away.”

Other highlights noted in The MoneyTree Report:

—Software got more funding than any other sector during the quarter, rising 50 percent from the prior quarter to $6.1 billion. Software also accounted for the most deals, 454.

—Biotechnology ranked as second largest sector for dollars invested, with $1.8 billion going into 122 deals.

—Nine of 17 industry categories in the MoneyTree Report showed decreases in dollars invested in the second quarter. Funding for Business Products and Services declined 69 percent, Telecommunications decreased by 43 percent, and Semiconductors fell by 29 percent.

—Venture investors sank $189 million into 55 seed-stage deals in the second quarter, and $3.8 billion into 522 early stage investments. Combined seed and early stage deals accounted for 52 percent of the total deal volume, compared to 53 percent in the prior quarter.

—VCs invested $5.7 billion in 308 expansion-stage deals, which accounted for 28 percent of all second-quarter deals. That was up slightly from 27 percent in the first quarter.

—Venture firms invested $3.2 billion in 229 late-stage rounds, which accounted for 21 percent of total deal volume in the second quarter. It was 20 percent in the prior quarter.

According to the MoneyTree Report, the Top 10 Deals are:

—Uber Technologies; San Francisco; Software; $1.2 billion

—Lyft; San Francisco, Software; $250 million

—Pure Storage; Mountain View, CA; Computers; $225 million

—Intarcia Therapeutics; Boston, Biotech; $200 million

—Pinterest; San Francisco; Media and Entertainment; $160 million

—SunRun; San Francisco; Industrial Energy; $150 million

—Nanthealth; Culver City; Software; $135 million

—Proteus Digital Health; Redwood City, Biotech (Digital Health); $119.5 million

—Anaplan; San Francisco; Software; $100 million

—New Relic; San Francisco, Analytic Software; $100 million

 

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.