From 2014 onward, venture capital-backed tech companies have pulled in a total of 22 financing rounds sized $500M or more, including 10 already this year. The cumulative amount raised in these rounds was $17.5B.
That represents explosive growth compared to the 2010 to 2013 period, when there were just 4 financings that were $500M+, which cumulatively raised $4.2B. That means there were 5x more $500M+ financings from 2014 to-date than in the previous four years put together.
When looking at the geographic breakdown, half of the 22 rounds since 2014 went to international companies including a combined 6 financings for now-merged Chinese car-hailing apps Kuadi Dache and Didi Dache, as well as Indian eCommerce service Flipkart. The US $500M+ rounds are anchored by 4 Uber financings, as no other US company has more than one $500M round.
The increase in large rounds is another data point in the “tech is frothy” argument, and adds to our previous research that details the increasing number of $1B+ rounds, rise of hedge-fund and mutual-fund activity, and the ever-growing Unicorn club.
The full trend below.
For this analysis, we counted only equity financing rounds to companies that have received VC financing at some point in their lifespan.
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