Q1 2014 marked a blowout quarter for funding activity with corporate venture participation as funding hit $3.01B across 129 deals.
In Q1 2014, venture capital funding in the U.S. hit its highest quarterly mark since Q2 2001. And bolstering the record-setting quarter was significant participation by corporate venture capital groups. Over the three-month period, corporate venture capital investors participated in 129 deals representing total funding of $3.01B.
Of note, CVC funding participation hit an eight-quarter high and jumped over 73% on a sequential basis. Compared to the same quarter last year, CVC funding more than doubled as CVC balance sheets are helping in late stage mega-financings.
Let the bubble chatter intensify.
Corporate VC deal sizes get big in Q1
Driven by a host of $50M+ deals including two deals totaling over $1B in aggregate funding, average deal size with corporate venture participation hit a five-quarter high and grew over 69% on a sequential basis. Of note, average corporate venture deal size nearly doubled the overall average VC deal size in Q1.
Google Ventures, Intel Capital lead in Q1
Google Ventures led all corporate VCs, investing in over twice as many U.S. venture deals as second place Intel Capital in Q1 2014.
California takes over 3x as much CVC funding as rest of the country
California took 76% of all CVC funding dollars invested across the country on the back of several mega-financings to Bay Area companies. Both Massachusetts and New York dropped off significantly on the funding front.
Ignore Corporate VCs at your own peril – CVCs are involved in ~1/3 of total VC funding
Corporate venture capital accounted for 30% of the $9.99B total venture capital funding in Q1 2014 – a five-quarter high. CVC deals as a percentage of overall VC deals in Q1 remained range-bound at about 15% of total deals.
In addition, the number of corporate VCs who participated in at least one deal in Q1 2014 hit a multi-year high with 83 unique corporate venture units doing a deal.
Mid-stage corporate venture deals heat up
Early-stage activity share in Q1 as Series B, C and late-stage Series E deals all gained share
Corporate venture funding to healthcare sector falls to five-quarter low
Healthcare CVC funding fell to a five-quarter low, dropping 23% on a sequential basis. Despite a healthy IPO market for healthcare companies, VC and CVC funding haven’t followed suit.
