Venture capital funding in early 2023 may not have been as bad as many thought, according to new analysis from Perth-based investment data firm Techboard.
When it releases its March quarter funding report this week, Techboard has identified Invested $1.01 billion in 111 transactions. The figure comes from a Cut Through Ventures analysis released in early April that put him 50% above $661 million in 82 deals.
Techboard CEO Peter van Bruchem declined to comment on why the findings of the two venture data companies are so different.
Based on funded figures, Q1 2023 will be It was the slowest quarter for investment since Q4 2020, when it posted $844 million, and is only slightly behind Q1 2021, but earlier that period, van Bruchem said, The second quarter of 2020 was the only quarter to break the $1 billion mark.
“March funding levels were considerably subdued by the impact of the recent Silicon Valley bank collapse and a number of other factors such as rising interest rates and pressure on the cost of living,” says a Funded report.
“In March 2023, an Australian start-up announced it had raised a total of $204 million from 36 private rounds. That’s less than half the amount we won in 2019, down from a typically weak January when we won $372 million in 28 deals.”
The Australian results suggest that local startups are actually doing better than international startups when it comes to investment. CB Insights has found that global VC funding has hit its lowest quarterly amount since Q4 2019.
But van Brugem says local Monthly private fundraising is not a very positive story. January had its second-highest funding level on record, but after January 2022, February and March saw significantly worse results, with February having its lowest funding level since 2020.
“Analyzing deal data by deal size provides a lot of insight. First, the deal profile by deal size for Q-Mar-2023 is nearly identical to Q-Mar-2021, but the analysis by deal label is Now we see far fewer late-stage deals in March 2023 Q,” he said.
“Comparing the current quarter to the previous quarter, we see a decrease in the number of rounds across all deal labels, with the largest declines in Pre-Seed and Series A. Declines were recorded across all deal sizes, although, most notably at $1 million.”
Quarterly deal size over the last four years.Source: Tech Board
An overall decrease in deal size In contrast to the December 2022 quarter, the average round size for Series A and Series B increased in the previous September quarter.
Drops were recorded for all deal sizes, but were most pronounced in the $1M to $5M and $20 to $50 ranges.
The good news in Techboard’s report is that women-led ventures secured a significantly higher percentage of overall funding compared to the shockingly low numbers in Techboard’s report. Funding women-led ventures According to a September 2022 report, only 0.73% of all private funding will land in female-only companies in FY2022, with 14.9% of the funding going to startups with at least one female founder.
In March 2023, 4.64% of private funding was spent on companies with all-female founding teams and 25% on teams with at least one female founder, according to funding updates It became clear.
Four “mega deals” helped kick off 2023. Fintech Till Payments banked $70 million in Series D just weeks after cutting 120 staff (founder Shadi Haddad stepped down as CEO shortly after capital injection): WiseTech Global Songtradr, the US-based music licensing marketplace backed by Richard White, founder of Songtradr, pocketed $68.7 million in Series E. Carbon exchange market Xpansiv has pocketed $181 million at a reported $2 billion valuation.
These investments are notable because historically March has seen fewer mega deals than other quarters.
But as the world grapples with how to deal with climate change, investors seem determined to back the sector. Climatetech startups across agritech, cleantech, clean energy, and e-mobility accounted for 35% of funding in the March quarter, or $354 million.
Fintech accounts for $192 million (19%), and healthtech startups raised $123 million (12%) of total funding in that quarter. The full March quarter report is available at: techboard.com.au
Quarterly deal size.Source: Tech Board
