Venture capital hits record high in U.S. in 2020 despite pandemic

(Reuters) – Venture capital backed corporations in the United States raised nearly $130 billion final Twelve months, environment a document despite the COVID-19 pandemic, figures from data firm CB Perception launched on Friday repeat.

While the investment total is up 14% from 2019, the preference of affords is down 9% to 6,022. And so-called mega-rounds, affords which will seemingly be $100 million or better also hit a document amount and quantity with $63 billion raised in 318 affords.

“What we’re seeing is a ‘prosperous in finding richer’ phenomenon the establish successful, excessive momentum technology corporations are vacuuming up a total lot of the financing,” CB Insights chief executive Anand Sanwal quick Reuters by electronic mail.

He mentioned that data confirmed a mountainous drop in a in actuality early stage investment called seed stage, and expected some of those corporations that stand out to search “insatiable investor demand” with fewer rivals for the cash.

The pattern of mountainous investments doesn’t glimpse devour it will unhurried in 2021 as there could be a ramification of capital chasing investments, negate some project capitalists.

Already on Thursday Quantum Metric, a startup that provides customer analytics and enchancment tools for online companies, mentioned it raised $200 million in its most sleek financing spherical, which values the firm at better than $1 billion.

In 2020, a total lot of the mega rounds were raised by tech corporations that got a steal from COVID-19, which drove up a long way flung work and e-commerce.

“Capital tends to apply classes that dangle a ramification of legs. And I declare staunch now you’re seeing a ramification of conviction in the abet of classes and corporations which will seemingly be utilizing un-doubtable trends,” mentioned Arun Mathew a partner at Silicon Valley project capital firm Accel, an early investor in Facebook.

“I declare it’s perfect right to claim 2021 is going to be a banner Twelve months for a ramification of tech corporations,” Mathew mentioned.