What Funding Slump? Active Venture Investors Picked Up The Pace In Q3

Global startup funding may have slowed within the third quarter, however that slowdown apparently didn’t apply to probably the most lively enterprise buyers, most of whom really upped their dealmaking tempo.

That is notably true for the three most-active post-seed buyers — Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst — which all considerably elevated dealmaking in Q3. General, out of the 14 most-active buyers at this stage, charted under, solely two did fewer offers 12 months over 12 months, Crunchbase information reveals.

Seeing Y Combinator atop the ranks of most-active post-seed buyers is noteworthy, because the famed accelerator is greatest identified for seed rounds. Nevertheless, the group has through the years elevated efforts and fundraising to assist its accelerator cohorts as they scale.

Lots of the post-seed rounds Y Combinator backed this previous quarter had been for AI-focused firms, which isn’t shocking given the high number of AI startups in recent accelerator cohorts. AI-related firms it backed post-seed this previous quarter embrace information improvement platform Encord, legaltech startup Leya, and AI search engine Exa.

In the meantime, Andreessen Horowitz, the second-most-active enterprise investor, additionally put giant sums final quarter into startups together with Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sustkever, and Hebbia, an AI analytics platform.

Lead buyers

One other approach to rank lively enterprise buyers is to take a look at who led or co-led the biggest variety of rounds. This metric is meant to make clear which busy startup backers additionally tended to supply a big portion of capital of their chosen rounds.

As an instance, under we record 9 buyers who led or co-led the very best variety of post-seed rounds.

The previous quarter’s rating isn’t too totally different from Q2. Each instances, the identical 4 companies — Andreessen, Normal Catalyst, Accel and Khosla Ventures — had been additionally within the prime 4 slots. Nevertheless, this time round, it was Andreessen and Normal Catalyst tied for the highest slot.

Spendiest lead buyers

To get a way of who put probably the most capital to work, we additionally ranked lively buyers who led or co-led rounds with the very best collective worth. This isn’t a precise science, provided that lead buyers in syndicates hardly ever disclose how a lot they contributed to a selected spherical. Nevertheless, it does present a way of who’s investing giant sums.

For Q3, we ranked 10 buyers that led or co-led rounds collectively valued at $500 million or extra, as charted under.

Right here, Normal Catalyst got here out on prime after main and co-leading at the least eight rounds valued at $100 million or extra in Q3, per Crunchbase information. The most important embrace financings for German AI protection firm Helsing ($492 million Collection C), Indian grocery supply platform Zepto ($340 million Collection G) and AI coding platform Codeium ($150 million Collection C).

Founders Fund ranked second, largely on account of a single deal: a lead funding in protection tech unicorn Anduril Industries’ $1.5 billion August Series F.

Most-active seed buyers

At seed stage, quarterly deal rely for lively buyers can fluctuate broadly every quarter. That’s partly as a result of it’s widespread to announce batches of seed investments all collectively fairly than deal by deal. Moreover, seed offers could get added to the database a number of weeks or months after they shut.

Given this state of affairs, it’s not essentially an indication of bother to see that the three most-active seed buyers all did far fewer offers within the third quarter than they did a 12 months in the past.

Moreover, whereas reported deal counts contracted, rankings didn’t change a lot. Techstars, Y Combinator and Antler are often the most-active seed buyers in a given quarter.

To supply a broader image of who’s lively at seed stage, under we record 12 buyers who participated within the highest variety of reported financings.

Large image: excessive illustration amongst U.S. buyers

Whereas the ranks of lively buyers didn’t present a dramatic change since the prior quarter, it’s related to notice one development that has continued to play out. That’s the preponderance of U.S.-headquartered buyers amongst these backing the best variety of offers and main the biggest rounds.

Amongst our most-active lead enterprise buyers, for example, all are U.S.-based. On the record of most lively post-seed buyers by spherical rely, all however one are headquartered within the U.S.

As U.S. buyers prime the most-active listings, North American venture investment can also be holding up a bit higher than the worldwide common. Largely, this is because of large rounds for AI-focused firms.

Wanting forward, it’ll be fascinating to see if areas which have posted weaker funding tallies in current quarters see a rebound. If that’s the case, that can doubtless convey extra buyers headquartered in these areas into our most-active rankings.

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Illustration: Dom Guzman