Corporate venturing is starting to take its place in the light of statistics collected about the broader venture industry.
This has many positive implications, as firms can track their positioning, entrepreneurs can judge where potential sources of funding might come from and senior management can gain the comfort blanket of knowing they are not stepping too outside industry norms, or are intentionally doing so for considered reasons.
Last week’s addition to the pile of statistics comes from CB Insights, an excellent provider of analysis and data across the venture ecosystem from angels to venture capital firms and corporations.
The report – click here – is required reading and a helpful guide to the US’s main three venture markets of Massachusetts, California and New York.
CB says corporate venture capital (CVC) investing was down in the first quarter (Q1) in dollars, number of deals and overall percentage of dollars invested by all venture capital (VC) investors.
However, CVCs still accounted for 18.47% of all dollars invested ($1.09bn of $5.9bn in Q1) and 10.7% of all companies receiving investment (785 total investments).
The decline in CVC funding in Q1 is at a lower rate than independent VC, CB found.
The data collected by Thomson Reuters for the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree Report reflected this last point as CVC continued to increase its role in funding US start-ups in Q1 by participating in 18.6% of all VC deals and contributing 8.4% of the dollars. These figures represent an increase from the previous quarter when CVCs participated in 14.8% of the deals and provided 7.5% of the dollars.
By contrast, in the first quarter of 2012, Global Corporate Venturing tracked 249 investments worth $5.2bn, of which two-thirds were in the US, and 46 exits worth $5.1bn. Our analysis for subscribers – to pay for a licence and to see more click here – of the second quarter will be out this week with a provisional 247 investments worth $4.4bn and 41 exits worth $29.3bn (the latter boosted by social network Facebook’s bumper flotation).
Part of the difference in numbers appears to be partly data gathering methodologies – CB just counts 220 corporate venturing funds whereas GCV tracks the 736 known corporations that take minority stakes in entrepreneurial third parties from funds or their balance sheets, while other data providers have historically not counted a deal unless it had an independent VC in the syndicate, an anachronism in today’s venture funding environment.
But whichever statistics provider is used, the important point is the industry is being followed and can start to shape and take its rightful place in the mindsets of the people who count – the entrepreneurs and providers of capital.
This was my goal when I handed in my notice as an editor at news and data provider Dow Jones two years ago to set up this title and its sister(s) data and information services; to help us continue our role, please continue to let us know the news and deals as they happen and ways we can further help you.