We often point to the fact that a corporate investor is likely to be found among the syndicates of larger VC rounds. There is no lack of reasons for this. On the one hand, for a variety of reasons, many corporate investors are often reluctant to publicly disclose their backing of a startup until it has reached later stages of development, which naturally tend to involve larger-in-size rounds. On the other, some corporate venturers play the game for financial returns mainly, therefore later-stage and larger rounds – some of which with special classes of shares guaranteeing minimum returns should an envisioned exit strategy nosedive – are also an alluring option to them.
This year is already a record year in terms of the number of nine-figure rounds, with 482 such rounds by the beginning of August, worth an estimated total of $130bn. This leaves 2020, which was also a record years, considerably behind with its 337 rounds, worth an estimated total of $81.66bn.
Corporate-backed nine-figure rounds are, thus, interesting to monitor on a global scale. Historically, the majority of deals sized $100m and above have been concentrated mostly in the US and China. However, it is more interesting to ask what type of companies actually raise such gargantuan rounds. Unlike their concentrated geographical distribution, there does not seem to be a bias for companies from any particular sector among those top rounds raisers, as the GCV Analytics bar chart illustrates. Except for some occasional peaks for companies from the transport, consumer or health sector in recent years, a promising business from almost any sector can be (almost) equally as likely to raise a large round.
