Actifio, Cloudera, Eventbrite and Hortonworks all raised financing at a $1B+ valuation in the last month. And each of the respective billion-dollar rounds were led by the private investing arm of either a hedge fund or mutual fund. Now, using CB Insights data, the prevalence of hedge funds and mutual funds among the current crop of billion-dollar startups becomes quite apparent.
Hedge funds and mutual funds have collectively invested in 44% of the current crop of private, venture-backed companies that have raised financing at a $1B+ valuation. And corporations and corporate venture arms are even more well-represented – having invested in a notable 71% of the billion-dollar club.
As we’d previously highlighted, getting to a $1 billion dollar valuation takes significant amounts of capital and so the influx of well-heeled mutual and hedge fund and corporations may not be all that surprising.
The chart below highlights the investor types most prominent among the billion-dollar club. While the VCs who got in early stand to reap the biggest gains from the potential unicorn exits, it seems the addition of a hedge fund, mutual fund or cash-rich corporate investor has become a precondition to achieve a $1B+ valuation.
All of the underlying exit and investor data used in this research brief is on the CB Insights Venture Capital Database.
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