Disney’s acquisition of Maker Studios represents a significant win for the Los Angeles tech ecosystem. And Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR is even bigger. In fact, based on CB Insights data, Oculus was the largest venture-backed IPO or M&A to take place in the LA or Orange County area in the last five years.
Facebook’s $2B acquisition of Oculus comes just three months after the virtual reality company raised a $75M Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz (and a little more than a month after Facebook acquired WhatsApp for up to $19B). Meanwhile, the acquisition of Maker Studios at its $950M price with earnouts would be the third largest venture-backed IPO or M&A tech exit in LA since 2009 by valuation at the time exit – ranking behind Oak Investment Partners-backed Demand Media’s $1.5B IPO. But with Demand now trading at nearly a third of its IPO market cap having faced heavy criticism of its ‘content farm’ model, the case could be made that Maker represents a bigger win for the ecosystem. It should be said, though, that Bessemer Venture Partners-backed cloud talent management firm Cornerstone OnDemand has continued to soar after its 2011 IPO and now trades at $2.7 billion.
The chart below highlights the top 10 largest recent M&A or IPO tech exits (since 2009) in Los Angeles and Orange County by valuation at the time of exit. Given that the LA ecosystem has seen venture capital investors deploy over $3.5 billion over the past five years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more distinctly SoCal VC wins in the near future.
See more Los Angeles tech exit and financing activity in the CB Insights Venture Capital Database. Sign up free below.
Note: The valuation used on IPOs is based on the company’s day 1 IPO valuation.
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