Early-Stage Tech Funding Hits High in March – $1.5B on 462 Deals

March saw over $1.5B, a multi-year high, going to early-stage startups across over 450 deals. The report below details early stage (angel – Series A) technology financings and some of the hottest early-stage tech companies based off of social media, news, and web traffic momentum that were funded in March 2015.

Specifically this report covers:

• Overall financing trends
• Mean & median deal sizes
• Which sectors garnered the most investment
• The month’s largest deals
• The most active VCs
• Which sub-industries are hottest
• Companies with the most momentum

FINANCING TRENDS

MAR 2015: $1.51B INVESTED ACROSS 462 EARLY-STAGE DEALS

Early-stage Tech deals reached their highest monthly total in two years, as startups raised $1.51B across 462 early-stage deals.

OVERALL MEDIAN DEAL SIZES FALL BELOW $1.5M

The median round size across all early-stage Tech deals fell to its lowest figure since February 2014, at $1.3M. Median early-stage deal sizes have now fallen in 4 of the last 5 months.  Averages tick up as a handful of large early stage deals serve to bring up the averages.

ANGEL ROUND SIZES POP IN MARCH

After mean and median deal sizes fell in February, Angel rounds jumped to $1.58M on average, and $1M on a median basis. Median angel round sizes have now reached $1M+ in 7 of the last 12 months.

SEED DEAL SIZES FALL OFF CLIFF IN MARCH

Median Seed deal sizes in Tech fell 30% to $0.63M in March, their lowest number since January 2014. Mean Seed deal size also fell drastically to $0.86M, matching March 2014’s round size.  Seed deal sizes have been trending down over the last many months. While the large Seed deals do get a lot of attention, they remain the exception.

MEAN SERIES A HITS THREE YEAR HIGH

Multiple Asian startups raised $50M+ Series A rounds, including Mangguo TV which raised $160M at $1B+ valuation. These large rounds caused the mean Series A round size to reach $9.69M, it’s highest point in three years. On a median basis, Series A rounds reached $5.52M, the second largest median round size in three years.

MOBILE BOUNCES BACK, INTERNET FALLS

Mobile startups bounced back from just 24% of all early-stage Tech deals in February, to 28% in March. Internet deals fell from their 12-month high of 68% to 63% in march.

INTERNET FUNDING REMAINS ABOVE 60%

Internet startups have now captured 60%+ dollar share in 10 of the last 12 months, as they took 62% of early-stage Tech investment dollars in March. Mobile accounted for 25% of funding, as all other sectors remained range-bound.

LARGEST EARLY STAGE DEALS RAISE $181M

Carbon3D, a 3D manufacturing technology, was the largest US early-stage tech deal in February, raising $41M from Sequoia Capital and Silver Lake Partners, among others. Food-delivery startup Maple was the second largest US deal, raising $22M from chef David Chang, Thrive Capital, and Primary Venture Partners, among others.

EAST VENTURES TOPS MOST ACTIVE VCS

East Ventures was the most active early-stage Tech VC in March. The Indonesia-based VC invested in a slew of Seed deals including Shopback, Oddle, and Polyglots, among others. 500 Startups was second with multiple Seed and Series A investments including Visual.ly and Zipmatch.

MOMENTUM

HR & WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT TOPS GROWTH

HR & Workforce Management startups saw the largest deal growth of any tech sub-industry in March 2015 vs. the same month a year prior, with over 15 deals done last month. CRM startups saw the largest decline, but the sub-industry still had over 10 deals in March 2015.

HIGH-BUZZ EARLY STAGE TECH COMPANIES

We tracked overall news mentions as well as web traffic metrics (pageviews, reach, rank) and Twitter mention growth for early-stage tech companies that received financing in March 2015. Below are the 4th to 20th ranked companies in each metric. The full top 20 is available to CB Insights customers on the Research tab.

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