VC backed companies raised more than $32bn during the second quarter of 2015, the Venture Pulse Q2 ’15 report from KPMG International and VC data company CB Insights has revealed.
In total 1,819 deals were completed during the quarter taking the total amount of funds raised during the first half of the year hitting $59.8bn.
The surge in funding in the second quarter represents a 49% increase over the first two quarters of 2014.
Dennis Fortnum, global head of KPMG Enterprise, said: “We are excited to work with CB Insights over the next two years to produce the Venture Pulse quarterly series.
“CB Insights has become a ‘go to’ source for robust data, insights and trends related to venture capital and emerging industries, and we are looking forward to working with them to provide a comprehensive look into venture capital investment around the world.”
Large deals are playing a major role in driving funding trends driven primarily by late-stage deals whose sizes are soaring worldwide.
$100m+ mega-round financings to VC backed companies are also on the rise. In the first two quarters of 2015, there were more than 100 mega-rounds, including 61 in Q2 that cumulatively raised more than $16bn in investment.
Brian Hughes, national co-lead partner, KPMG Venture Capital Practice, KPMG LLP, added: “Low interest rates combined with increasing participation by hedge funds, mutual funds and venture capital arms of large corporations means there is a tremendous availability of capital.”
And Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights, said: “Increasingly, VC-backed companies are staying private longer, and the best companies have a menagerie of funding options.
“This helped buoy Q2 2015 funding to levels last seen during the dot com era. Notably, the strength was global – from Berlin to Bangalore and the Bay Area to Beijing.
“While the funding environment is certainly frothy, we are seeing start-ups rapidly re-shape markets ranging from transportation to hospitality to healthcare.”
Regionally, North America, unsurprisingly, continues to lead global venture capital activity. With $37.5bn invested in the first half of the year, funding is on pace to surpass 2014’s high by more than 25%.
In Asia, a mix of traditional venture capital sources mixed with hedge funds, private equity and corporates led to $15bn invested into VC-backed companies in the first two quarters of 2015, putting Asia on track for 45% growth year-over-year.
Venture capital activity also spiked in Europe during the first half of 2015 with $6.6bn invested. This puts Europe on pace to surpass 2014 totals by nearly 60%. Interestingly, late-stage deals in the region surged in Q2 reaching an average of $51.9m.
Arik Speier, partner, head of technology, KPMG Somekh Chaikin, said: “VC’s in Europe are reducing risk by investing at a later stage.
“In the past they invested in many companies in a wide portfolio and managed their own risk, now they are shifting strategy and investing in fewer companies and more money in each.”
‘Unicorn’ investment grows
The second quarter was also a “banner quarter for ‘Unicorns’” – venture capital backed companies with valuations in excess of $1bn.
Q2 saw the number of new Unicorns more than double to 24 over Q1’s 11 new Unicorns. This included 12 new Unicorns in the United States and nine in Asia. Among the quarter’s new Unicorns were Zenefits, Oscar Health Insurance and MarkLogic.