December is usually a time for Christmas shopping and, after last year’s global economic recovery, companies received some bumper presents from their investors.
If November was the month for exits, then last month saw a surge in rounds being completed before the end of the calendar year.
With more than $2bn drawn down from company balance sheets and investment funds for 56 rounds, December was also a month for large deals, according to Global Corporate Venturing’s unique analysis of investment (click to see table), fundraising and exit data and trends.
The two largest, stuck just before New Year’s Day were $500m for 360buy Jingdong Mall, a China-based online electronics retailer, and Groupon, a US-based online discount coupon provider.
(Groupon is only halfway through its planned round and the timing of its filing meant it was unable to be added to the main table.)
US retailer Wal-Mart was one of the investors in 360Buy, while Groupon raised its round to provide some money for its founders instead of accepting an exit to search engine Google’s reported $6bn offer earlier in the month.
And, November and the year’s biggest venture-backed flotation, internet holding company Mail.ru for $912m, is one of the investors whose parent owns a chunk of Groupon.
Companies’ booming cash flows has helped fill more nascent businesses funding needs with online retailer Amazon investing $175m in Groupon’s peer, LivingSocial.
The other main sector for investment continued to be clean-tech, and energy with one participant saying it remained bubble-like conditions.
Japan-based conglomerate Sumitomo invested $100m for a minority stake in rare-earths miner Molycorp, which provides elements necessary for many energy efficiency products, while Elevance Renewable Science also gained $100m from a consortium including French oil major Total, and OPower gained $50m after winning General Electric’s backing.
Corporate venturing units also benefit from more than $1bn in flotations and exits to trade peers, including Brands4Friends sale to eBay for $200m, Teradata buying Aprimo for $525m and Ecommerce China DangDang’s initial public offering.
The buoyant cash and profits at some companies and changing industry dynamics maintained the pace of corporate venturing funds being set up. Asian gaming group The9 set up a $100m programme, the same size as India-based consultancy SMC’s fund, while China-based technology group Legend revealed next year’s fundraising plans.
In Europe, the ambitions were smaller, with French waste group Suez setting up a €50m programme and UK-listed drugs group GlaxoSmithKline setting aside £50m from its SR One corporate venturing unit to invest just in the UK. The crossover between sectors also became increasingly important with Hon Hai, a Taiwan-based maker of electronic goods seeding a healthcare fund.