August 2015 Early-Stage Tech Report: Funding Falls To Lowest Level Since July 2014

After June and July saw over $1.3B in funding, August saw a major pullback in both deals and dollars, falling below $1B for the first time since July 2014 on just 429 deals.

The report below details early stage — Angel and Series A — technology financings, and ranks some of the hottest early-stage tech companies funded in August 2015 based on momentum data from social media, news, and web traffic.

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
• Companies with the most momentum

AUGUST 2015: $986M INVESTED ACROSS 429 EARLY-STAGE DEALS

Early-stage tech funding fell off of July’s multi-year highs to just $986M across 429 deals. Overall this was the lowest monthly total for dollars since July 2014.

MEDIAN TECH EARLY-STAGE DEAL SIZE FALLS TO LOWEST POINT SINCE FEBRUARY 2014

The median round size across all early-stage tech deals fell to $1.25M in July and stayed there in August, its lowest figure since February 2014.

ANGEL DEAL SIZES TOP $500K FOR 11 OF LAST 12 MONTHS

After median Angel rounds fell to $500K in May 2015, median deal sizes have rebounded, reaching $1M in July 2015, and $790K in August.

SEED DEAL SIZES REMAIN RANGE-BOUND

After a new normal of $1.2M for median seed deal sizes hit in late 2014, 2015 has seen just one month above $1.2M (April 2015). The median sat at $1.1M in August while averages have remained between $1.3M and $1.5M for 9 of the last 12 months.

$5M CONTINUES TO DOMINATE SERIES A ROUND SIZES

After a few large rounds brought up Series A deal sizes in July, August saw the standard $5M median Series A round size. This has become the new standard as 9 of the last 12 months have seen a median round size of $5M.

MOBILE DEAL SHARE REACHES 30% FOR JUST THIRD TIME IN THREE YEARS

While internet startups continued to account for the bulk of the deals at 58% deal share, mobile startup deal share increased to 30% in August 2015, its highest total since June 2015, and just the third time its reached 30% over the last three years.

FUNDING SHARE REMAINS RANGEBOUND

Internet startups accounted for 51% of funding dollars to early-stage tech companies in August 2015, ending a previous trend of falling dollar share for three straight months. Mobile companies took 26% funding share after multiple large Series A financings skewed mobile share in July 2015, pushing it to 41%.

LARGEST US EARLY-STAGE DEALS RAISE $131M

Flexport, a supply chain and logistics startups, was the largest US early-stage tech deal in August, raising $20M from A-Grade, Bloomberg Beta, and Susa Ventures, among others. Rift.io and CastAR rounded out the top 3, as the top 10 deals cumulatively raised $131M in August.

500 STARTUPS AND INTEL CAPITAL ARE MOST ACTIVE IN AUGUST

500 Startups and Intel Capital were the most active early-stage tech VCs in August. 500 Startups invested in Chewse, Pana, and BioBots among others. Techstars Ventures, Accel Partners, and NEA rounded out the top 3.

MOMENTUM

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 August 2015. Below are the 4-20 ranked companies in each metric. The full top 20 are available to CB Insights customers on the Research tab.

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