With the current volatility in public markets, interrupted public debuts, rumors of renegotiation of private company funding terms and the slow lifting of pandemic restrictions, many questions arise about what the venture capital funding market will look like. This year.
But while the funding environment for startups in 2022 could be very different from that of 2021 – the year when new records were set for nearly every venture capital funding criteria – January, at least, remained. very solid.
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Despite the tumult, global funding to private companies last month hit $61 billion, the fourth month above the $60 billion mark in the past 12 months, according to Crunchbase data.
Nearly $3 billion was invested worldwide in seed last month. Early-stage investors spent an additional $18 billion early on and just over $40 billion in the later stage and tech growth stage, according to data from Crunchbase.
New unicorns
On the unicorn front, 45 companies joined the Crunchbase Unicorn Board in January, matching the new unicorn count for December 2021, and up slightly from January 2021, when 43 new unicorns were minted. Crunchbase’s board now has just under 1,200 companies that have collectively raised $704 billion and whose aggregate value exceeds $4 trillion for the first time.
Unicorn Funding
In line with recent trends, some of the largest funding has gone to European unicorns:
- London-based payments firm Checkout.com pocketed a $1 billion Series D valuation valuing the company at $40 billion, making it the second most valued European private company on the board; and
- Estonia-based delivery company Bolt raised $709 million in a Series F round.
Other new unicorn funding includes:
Growth stocks continue to dominate
Growth stocks continued their lead in January 2022 by number of financings conducted and dollars invested.
Investors who led or co-led the largest financings last month included Tiger Global Management, SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital and Fidelity. Collectively, they have led or co-led the financing of transactions worth over $1 billion.
Companies with the most funding rounds in January were Tiger Global, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital India, SoftBank Vision Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, each with more than 10 funding rounds.
Larger funds raised as venture capital scales
Andreessen Horowitz closed on a slew of new funds last month, with the $8-2.5 billion fund, the $4-1.5 billion organic fund and the $3-5 billion growth fund. Fintech investor Ribbit Capital has closed Fund 7, totaling just under $1.2 billion and marking its first $1 billion fund.
Other companies that have closed the funds include Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Foundation Capital, Blossom Capital and Cherry Ventures, among others.
Sequoia Capital and crypto investor Paradigm have invested in public market investor Citadel Securities, further connecting alternative investments in crypto to public market investing for venture capitalists.
Over the past week, public tech stock markets have begun to rally. Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Tesla all posted strong fourth-quarter profits, which drove their stocks higher. The prior correction may well be overstated, which would be good news for late-stage private finance.
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Funding and releases
Unicorn Queries
Methodology
The funding rounds included in this report are seed, angel investor, venture capital, venture capital, and venture capital backed venture capital rounds. This reflects Crunchbase data as of February 2, 2022.
Please note that all funding values are given in US dollars unless otherwise stated. Crunchbase converts foreign currency to US dollars at the spot rate in effect as of the date 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
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