tl;dr: Continuing our theme of finding new ways to discuss data, the following interactive tool is worth playing with if you want to better understand the US venture market.
Not everything in life is a spreadsheet. Just most things worthwhile. Today, however, we have something different for you to enjoy: A nifty tree that you can use to drill into the most active states where venture capital was deployed in 2015, their most active sectors, and which companies raised the most in their respective niches.
Put more simply, here are the biggest rounds in the biggest verticals in the most active states. As before, I want to lead with a public shoutout to current Mattermark worker Karan Goel, with whom I have been collaborating. I owe him tacos when he gets back to San Francisco.
Enjoy:
Methodology: Top five states sorted by number of funding rounds; top five industries also sorted by number of rounds; top companies selected for quantity of funding raised. Click on nodes to sort the information.
What struck me in the above data is how many nine-figure rounds that we saw in 2015. It’s nearly unsettling.
Now in 2016 when the normal camber of conversation is that things are slowing down, and the companies should control their burn rates, and perhaps venture capitalists invested more than they should have, looking backwards can be downright odd. Still, this is where we were.
I’m always up for new ways to stare at data that do not require a chart of a spreadsheet; certainly we can be more creative than that on at least an infrequent basis. Tweets with suggestions and ideas are more than welcome.