Global venture capital funding continues on tear in October with $ 54 billion invested – Crunchbase News

As we enter the final quarter of a successful funding year, the record pace of global venture capital funding continues.

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More than $ 54 billion was invested in more than 2,000 companies around the world in October. This is the fourth highest funding month in 2021, with year-over-year growth of 84% in October.

Two-thirds of global venture capital funding in October went to Series C and subsequent funding stages, with $ 36 billion invested in 302 companies, according to data from Crunchbase.

One-third of the funding has been invested in seed and start-up cycles, representing $ 18 billion in more than 1,700 companies.

New unicorns

Along with the growth in funding year over year, the Crunchbase Unicorn board of directors added 43 new companies in October. The most active investors in these new unicorns were Bessemer Venture Partners, 8VC, Sequoia Capital India, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue, all with more than 10 investments over time in the current culture.

The new unicorns that have raised the most funds to date include London-based Zopa, which offers peer-to-peer loans; TIER Mobility, a Berlin-based shared electric moped company; and Medable, based in Palo Alto, Calif., which is transforming clinical research through patient data. Major industries for new unicorns include fintech, healthcare, crypto, data, and analytics.

The Unicorn Companies as a cohort raised $ 20.3 billion in funding, or about 38% of total global funding for October.

Public debuts

The IPO markets for tech companies remained open with 34 venture capital-backed debuts in October.

The most valued company to go public last month was San Francisco-based GitLab, a development operations platform founded in 2011. Khosla Ventures, ICONIQ Capital, August Capital and GV were shareholders listed in its S -1, all with more than 5% possession.

WeWork eventually went public via a SPAC that valued the company at around $ 9 billion, a fifth of what it was valued in a round led by SoftBank in 2019.

Other public launches valued at over $ 4 billion include Charlotte, North Carolina-based billing and payment platform AvidXchange, London-based Babylon, an online healthcare platform made public through a SPAC, and the San Francisco-based Udemy learning platform.

Looking forward

Global funding for 2021 could exceed $ 600 billion based on the current funding pace, compared to $ 334 billion for 2020.

Venture capital has spread to more regions of the world, showing greater year-over-year growth for startups based in South America and Europe. This year was also a banner year for public debuts and mergers and acquisitions.

And there are still large amounts of capital available to deploy. Tiger Global announced the closing of a new $ 8.8 billion fund, Sequoia Capital has restructured its venture capital business into a single top tier and registered RIA fund, and seed funds of more and more important were announced by the main venture capital firms.

In other words, no slowdown is in sight.

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Methodology

Funding rounds included in this report are seed, angel investor, venture capital, venture capital, and private equity rounds in venture capital backed companies. This reflects data from Crunchbase as of November 2, 2021.

Please note that all fundraising values ​​are shown in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currency to US dollars at the spot rate in effect from the date on which funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even though these events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historical spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman