The year has started with a rush of deals closing just before and after the change in the Gregorian calendar.
There were 98 deals last month, according to Global Corporate Venturing – click here for table, of which just more than two-thirds (68) involved US-based portfolio companies.
The vast majority, 83, were investments or follow-on rounds, with an aggregate £3.7bn of disclosed value provided by the consortia.
The biggest deals were for US-based companies (of which there were 68 for American companies in total) Facebook (which raised $1bn from non-US investors through Goldman Sachs) and Groupon ($950m). Other big news concerned US-based organic semiconductor company Plastic Logic, which received $700m in committed debt and equity ($200m initially) from venture capital firm Oak Investment Partners and Rusnano, a Russia state investment company – big news, as revealed by www.globalcorporateventuring.com , as its previous corporate venturing units, including Intel Capital, Dow Venture Capital, BASF, Siemens and Mitsubishi, were diluted down. (As no corporate venturing unit is in the latest round, the deal is not included in the deals table.)
Of the 98 deals, the healthcare and information technology sectors provided 20 each, followed by media and clean-tech. Although 35 deals declined to disclose the round, there were 15 B rounds and 12 C rounds, the dominant stage of investment for corporate venturing units.
There were fewer exits last month. Healthcare company Biovex sold to Amgen for $425m plus performance fees, while film rental group Lovefilm exited to online retailer Amazon for $320m. Business network LinkedIn also filed for a provisional flotation on either Nasdaq or New York’s stock exchanges and declined to pick one of its investors, investment bank Goldman Sachs, to handle its listing (as revealed by www.globalcorporateventuring.com in December).