There was a return to robust corporate venturing deal-making in October, with pronounced signs that risk appetite is increasing.
In an eventful month, many across the US suffered signifcant diffculties caused by hurricane Sandy, as the US presidential election entered the fnal straight.
During the month both investments and exits were up against September and the same month last year on most metrics (click for charts).
There were 100 investments worth $1.1bn tracked by Global Corporate Venturing during the month, up from 67 deals in September worth $1bn and 94 deals worth $1.7bn in October last year.
The largest investment of the month was the $130m series C raised by France-based music streaming company Deezer from Russia-based industrial conglomerate Access Industries and venture firm IDInvest Partners.
The second-biggest was the $90m round raised by IO Data Centers from investors including JPMorgan and New World Ventures, backed by the Pritzker family.
The third-largest deal was the $80m round by multi-corporate-backed Brightsource Energy, a US-based solar thermal company.
There were 18 exits and one initial public offering in the month worth $1.8bn, compared with seven exits worth $963m in September and six exits worth $1.5bn in October last year.
The largest exit of the month was of US-based education programme company EmbanetCompass, backed by US-based education corporate, Knowledge Universe, which was sold to UK-based education and publishing group Pearson for $650m.
This was followed in size by the trade sales of US-based healthcare company NextWave, backed by Fidelity Biosciences, which raised $245m, and Pokelabo, backed by DeNA and Sega, two Japan-based online games developers, which raised $175m.
One of the month’s two fotations was the $141.3m capital raising by US-based identity security company Lifelock, which was backed by US-based technology company Symantec and US-based bank Goldman Sachs.
The increased activity was accom-panied by a marked uptick in early-stage deals, with 34 A rounds (34%) and 13 seed deals (13%), nearly half of all deals, compared with 15 A rounds (22.4%) and seven seed rounds (8.9%) in September. IT was the busiest sector with 22 deals, followed by healthcare with 19 and consumer with 15 deals.
The US made up a typical 62% of invest-ments. France was the next most active country with five deals, followed by India, Russia and the UK with four deals, and Norway, Egypt and China with three deals.