The first half of 2016 is almost over (can you believe that?) and pretty soon we’ll get a good sense of how the year has been shaping up so far. If the numbers from Q1 are any indication, it won’t be pretty.
Still, the firms themselves have been raising money at their highest rate in the decade. So that money has to be going somewhere, and there have been plenty of firms that, despite the market downturn, kept up a lot of activity in the first half of the year.
PitchBook has released the data on which firms made the most investments in the first half of 2016.
1. New Enterprise Associates
Number of deals: 46
Notable investments: Euclid Analytics, Branch Metrics, ThirdLove, DataRobot, MasterClass, and Framebridge.
In April, the firm closed its fifteenth fund with $2.8 billion in committed capital to its core fund, along with an additional $350 million for its NEA 15 Opportunity Fund. Together, that adds up a total of $3.1 billion, for the largest VC fund ever raised.
2. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Number of deals: 30
Notable investments: DoorDash, Looker, Airware, BetterWorks, and Instart Logic.
T-2. Khosla Ventures
Number of deals: 30
Notable investments: Guardant Health, DoorDash, Affirm, Hyperloop One, and DriveMotors.
4. GV
Number of deals: 28
Notable investments: Plaid, Weaveworks, Medium, Cockroach Labs, LendUp and Helium.
T-4. Andreessen Horowitz
Number of deals: 28
Notable investments: Foursquare, Instart Logic, Affirm, Medium, TransferWise and YourMechanic.
In June, the firm closed Andreessen Horowitz Fund V, a $1.5 billion venture capital fund.
6. General Catalyst Partners
Number of deals: 27
Notable investments: Circle, ClassDojo, Bustle, RealtyShares and Giphy
In February, General Catalyst raised $845 million for its eighth fund
7. Lightspeed Venture Partners
Number of deals: 26
Notable investments: Reflektive, Hungryroot, Giphy, Guardant Health, Affirm and Barefoot Networks.
In March, Lightspeed raised $1.2 billion across two funds: Lightspeed Venture Partners XI, which closed at $715 million, and Lights-peed Venture Partners Select II, which closed at $500 million.
T-7. Accel
Number of deals: 26
Notable investments: Narvar, Weaveworks, Checkr, Pearl, Luma and Grovo.
In March, Accel raised a $2 billion fund, followed by another $500 million in April.
9. Intel Capital
Number of deals: 25
Notable Investments: DataRobot, Lumiata, Helpshift and Reflektion.
T-9. First Round Capital
Number of deals: 25
Notable Investments: June, Confide, Curalate and Zendrive.
In all, 1,418 VC investors participated in at least one round in the first half of the year. There were a total of 1,575 venture financings raised by U.S. startups.
The median size on those deals is about $6 million, up from $4 million in the first half of 2015. Nearly half, 47 percent, of the deals were in software companies.
Q1 funding numbers
Since Q2 is just ending, we don’t have the number in yet, but Q1 was a down quarter for investments.
There was $13.9 billion raised, across 883 VC deals in the U.S., a 25 percent decrease in funding and six percent decrease in deals compared to Q4 2016. Compared to Q1 2015, funding dropped 21 percent and deals dropped 12 percent.
The data for U.S. startups largely jibes with the worldwide trend.
Notably, while overall investments are down, there’s one unexpected sector that has risen to the top: healthcare. Dow Jones found that healthcare ventures received nearly a third of all investments, generating $4.1 billion across 191 deals last quarter.
(Image source: entrepreneur.com)
