What a day.
On May 6th, 2015, the high watermark for this era was set.
In just 24 hours, 17 Startups announced $1,401,700,000 in venture capital funding raised.
Let that sink in for a moment. In all of Q1 2015, startups raised $18.2B total.
Let’s take a look at the companies who raised rounds, then we’ll dive into the numbers to see what it could mean.
The companies behind the massive day
Yesterday’s companies that announced funding are a diverse bunch.
Ranging from industries like Enterprise Software Health Insurance to Drones and Mobile Payments and many in between, they span a wide variety of industries.
The startups also hail from countries all over the world. They call countries like the US, Ireland, China, India, Israel, and Sweden home.
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Here they are:
- Zenefits, $500 million Series C
- Affirm, $275 million Series C
- Adaptive Biotech, $195 million Series F
- eDaijia, $100 million Series D
- Delhivery, $85 million Series D
- DJI, $75 million Series B
- Symbiomix Therapeutics, $41 million Series A
- Cybereason, $25 million Series B
- Cubic Telecom, $20.4 million Venture round
- Chartbeat, $15.5 million Series C
- Wrike, $15 million Series B
- Microf, $12.3 million Venture round
- SessionM, $12 million Series C
- 908 Devices, $11.6 million Series C
- Digit, $11.3 million Series A
- Automile, $5 million Series A
- Omise, $2.6 million Series A
Competition driving upward pricing pressure
In our Q1 2015 Startup Funding Report from April, we observed competition over the hottest companies from a number of venture firms driving prices and average round sizes upwards.
One could consider yesterday’s massive fundraising another piece of evidence pointing in that direction. Average deal sizes were higher across the board at all stages of funding.
Even if deal volumes decrease in Q2 2015 the way they did last quarter, average round sizes may continue to rise as competition amongst venture firms remains high.
Stage |
Average Deal Size (Q1 2015) |
Average Deal Size (Tuesday, May 6th, 2015) |
Series A |
$8.1 million |
$15.0 million |
Series B |
$18.1 million |
$38.3 million |
Series C |
$24.6 million |
$162.8 million |
Late |
$65.2 million |
$82.5 million |
The unstoppable unicorn
We would be remiss not to mention Zenefits, now valued at $4.5 billion.
Of the $1.4+ Billion raised yesterday, Zenefits’ massive $500 million Series C accounts for roughly 35.7% of it.
This most recent round brings Zenefits’ total funding to $583,600,000. The only company to raise more than $500 million by its Series C?
Dropbox.
Congratulations on joining the club, Zenefits. You are now officially a unicorn.