August's 10 biggest venture capital investments were made in 10 different industries, from automobiles to food delivery to online education to consumer electronics. So who can say what is the hottest sector of venture capital last month?
Moving away from dollar amounts and looking at the number of deals made, we see that healthcare and biotechnology are clearly the winners. Of the 172 venture capital deals exceeding $10 million Trusted Insight tracked in the month, 25 were healthcare startup investments. Biotechnology, a closely related industry to healthcare, saw 16 deals, led by a $38.55 million funding round in Color Genomics, a genetic data startup co-founded by former Twitter executive Elad Gil.
SaaS, fintech ( including mobile payments) and e-commerce are also among venture capitalists’ favorite sectors in August.
Chinese startups continue to score disproportionately large fundings on the top 10 deals list. While Chinese investors have a track record of investing heavily only in home-grown startups, this month some of them began to show interest in Silicon Valley.
WM Motor, a potential Chinese rival of Tesla, raised a colossal $1 billion in a series A round. Freeman Shen, the electric carmaker’s founder and a former executive of Chinese auto giant Zhejiang Geely, which acquired Volvo Cars in 2010, didn’t disclose investor names, but said the funding came from Chinese investors, Reuters reported. In comparison, Tesla started with just $7.5 million in 2004.
HNA Group, a Chinese conglomerate with holdings in various industries, invested $336 million in RocketSpace, a San Francisco-based startup accelerator, which has housed more than 800 tech startups in an office building in San Francisco’s financial district. The deal marks one of the largest fundings by Chinese investors in American startups.
Here are 10 biggest venture capital deals in August:
1) Investor: Undisclosed Chinese Investors
Startup: WM Motor
Location: China
Industry: Electric automaker
Funding Amount: $1 billion, Series A
2) Investor: HNA Group
Startup: RocketSpace
Location: San Francisco, California
Industry: Startup accelerator
Funding Amount: $336 million
3) Investors: KKR, TowerBrook Capital Partners
Startup: OVH.com
Location: France
Industry: Cloud computing, web hosting
Funding Amount: $279 million
4) Investors: Bridgepoint Capital, DST Global, General Catalyst Partners
Startup: Deliveroo
Location: London, UK
Industry: Food delivery
Funding Amount: $275 million, series E
5) Investors: Undisclosed Institutional Investors
Startup: Carvana
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Industry: Online used car marketplace
Funding Amount: $160 million, series C
6) Investor: Revolution Growth
Startup: DraftKings
Location: Boston, Massachussetts
Industry: Online gaming
Funding Amount: $153 million
7) Investors: Sequoia, Yunfeng Capital
Startup: Vipkid
Location: China
Industry: Online education
Funding Amount: $100 million
8) Investors: Windham Venture Partner, Others
Startup: CVRx
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Industry: Medical device, Healthcare
Funding Amount: $93 million, series G
9) Investors: Sensata Technologies, Delphi Automotive, Samsung Ventures, Motus Ventures and GP Capital
Startup: Quanergy Systems
Location: Sunnyvale, California
Industry: Navigation
Funding Amount: $90 million, series B
10) Investor: Xiaomi
Startup: Yi Technology
Location: China
Industry: Camera manufacturing, consumer electronics
Funding Amount: $90 million
Click here to see more monthly VC summaries.
For questions, comments or story ideas, please contact us at editorial@thetrustedinsight.com