While the fourth quarter showed a little resilience — bouncing back after a slow Q3 — the Asia venture market has proven a bumpy, if not entirely closed, road for investors in the past year.

However, a Crunchbase data analysis shows that while China’s declining venture market pulled Asia’s numbers down, other countries also slumped.

So with that, let’s take a look at the region by examining some of its biggest venture markets by country.

China

China’s venture market was brutal in 2024 — hitting its lowest venture funding total since 2014, when only about $20 billion was invested, according to Crunchbase data.

Overall, venture funding in China plummeted 32% from 2023, hitting only $33.2 billion last year.

Despite the drop, China did see four of the six $1 billion-plus rounds to Asia-based startups last year:

• In February, artificial intelligence startup raised more than $1 billion in a funding round led by and , formerly Sequoia Capital China.
• In March, , a developer and manufacturer of electric vehicles, raised a $1.1 billion Series B.
• Also in March, , a maker of dynamic random-access memory semiconductor products, raised $1.5 billion in a venture round.
• And in December, , an electric vehicle brand, raised a Series C worth approximately $1.5 billion.

If there is any good news, it’s that China’s venture market saw a slight rebound in Q4 from a dreadful Q3. In the final quarter of last year, a total of $7.3 billion was invested into China-based startups — a 20% increase from Q3, but a whopping 46% drop from the $13.6 billion Q4 2023 saw.

Nevertheless, China’s “deflationary spiral” — a downward economic cycle where prices fall, leading to lower production and wages — and investors’ reaction to it are clearly crippling the region’s venture market.

Of course, geopolitical tensions with the U.S. and its allies and China’s tightening ties to Russia are only adding more uncertainty to the world’s second-largest economy.

Singapore and Israel

It would be insincere to downplay China’s role in Asia’s venture market. Just a quick glance at the numbers show it is about half of the region’s entire VC ecosystem. No other country’s increase or decrease in venture dollars can really move the needle much in the region, and certainly not to the degree the Red Dragon can.

Still, other countries also participated in the region’s venture downturn, including two known for their startup scenes: Singapore and Israel.

Singapore saw the bigger decline, with VC-backed startups there raising only $4.9 billion last year — a 39% decline from the $8 billion invested in the country in 2023 and a massive drop from the $12 billion witnessed in 2022.

The country did see one massive raise in October, when Singapore-based , a developer and operator of data centers, raised $1 billion from institutional private-equity investors.

Singapore actually saw a nice uptick in Q4 last year, raking in $1.5 billion — more than double the $600 million it saw in Q3. However, even that number is lower than the $1.7 billion it saw in Q4 2023.

Similarly, Israel’s vaunted venture market also took a hit in 2024 while the country was mired in violent conflict with Hamas and other groups in the Middle East.

Investors only put $3.1 billion in funding into Israel-based startups last year — a 26% drop from the $4.2 billion in 2023 and down about 63% from the $8.4 billion raised the year before, Crunchbase data shows.

The country’s largest rounds went to , a developer of ultrasound technology devices for image-guided acoustic surgery that raised a $150 million private equity round in June, and AI chipmaker , which locked up a $120 million extension of its $136 million Series C that minted it a unicorn back in 2021.

What’s up?

That said, not all countries in the region saw their venture funding totals decline.

Asia’s second-largest venture market, India, saw a modest 5% increase in its 2024 total, finishing with $13.2 billion of venture dollars invested in domestic startups. Last year’s numbers included a $1 billion venture round in January for , a renewable energy company based in New Delhi.

However, the biggest increase from one of Asia’s major venture markets came from Japan. That market saw a 62% boost from 2023 to $4.2 billion. The venture total is the highest for the country since 2021 when $4.4 billion in venture capital was invested in Japan.

However, even Japan’s significant jump couldn’t come close to erasing China’s diminishing numbers. In fact, no country will be able to overcome that nation’s huge dip — and Asia’s funding numbers won’t see any type of rebound until China’s economy sees a major turnaround.

Related reading:

• Asia Venture Funding Tanks To 10-Year Low

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Per Crunchbase , the largest global automakers 1 and their affiliated venture funds have joined in at least 52 startup funding rounds this year, collectively valued at close to $2.8 billion. By deal count, the pace of activity is similar to what we’ve seen in the previous four years.

Automakers are also leading quite a few rounds. Per Crunchbase , they served as lead investors in at least a dozen deals this year, putting over $1.3 billion to work. However, that’s a bit slower than other recent years, as charted below.

Autonomous driving

As for investment themes, the autonomous driving sector claimed the largest slice of funding. The biggest investment came in June, when agreed to pump another $850 million into San Francisco-based , which is restarting self-driving programs in several cities.

The next-biggest was South Korea-based , which describes itself as an “AI mobility company,” with a focus on technology enabling autonomous vehicles. The company picked up $183 million in a – and -led round in June.

These large automaker-led financings come amid a broader upsurge in funding around self-driving vehicles. It’s an area that, despite producing its share of flameouts, continues to tantalize with the vision that, some day, autonomous vehicles will safely shuttle along our streets en masse.

Autonomy was one of a few themes that captured automakers’ interest. To illustrate, below we used Crunchbase to assemble a list of seven recipients of the largest automaker-led rounds this year.

EVs and supply chain sustainability

With electric vehicle adoption still gradually on the rise, automakers are also investing in startups offering more sustainable approaches to producing batteries and sourcing materials to make them.

On this front, Oakland, California-based , which develops ion exchange technology for lithium extraction, is one of this year’s larger fundraises. The company secured $145 million in a February round that included among its backers, and plans to extract lithium from the Great Salt Lake.

Also this year, , a German company developing environmentally friendly liquid fuel from CO₂ and hydrogen, raised $129 million in a financing round from backers including .

Automakers who were particularly active

Crunchbase data shows that some automakers are much more active than others in startup dealmaking.

So far this year, has been one of the standouts, participating in 10 startup financings, mostly deals by its venture arm, . Its activity skews early stage, backing rounds from seed to Series B. Most recently, Toyota Ventures participated in a $31 million Series A for , an energy storage technology developer.

and its VC arm, , have also been active, with eight startup investments, including Cruise.�� Most recently, General Motors Ventures participated in a $39 million July Series B for , a U.K. startup focused on improving battery efficiency.

has also kept up the pace of dealmaking through its BMW i Ventures investment arm, with seven deals this year. Most recently, it participated in a Series A for , a cloud simulation company.

Challenging times

Automakers’ startup investments this year come amid a challenging period for the industry, with higher rates pushing up purchasing costs and continued hurdles associated with the long transition to electric vehicles.

That said, staying competitive means there’s still a vested interest to take stakes in and keep up with startups technologies associated with popular themes like autonomous driving and sustainable EV production.

Related Crunchbase Pro lists:

Related reading:

• ������Ƶ Autonomous Driving Startups Surprisingly Starts To Move Again

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, a battery production startup, announced on Wednesday it raised a whopping $300 million Series B, bringing total funding to $390 million and raising its valuation to $1.2 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

The Series B was led by and real estate-focused with additional participation from the likes of and . The latest raise will help fund the operations of its battery cell factory that completed construction in December and will formally launch in 2024.

“We are transitioning from a startup funded by venture capital to a manufacturer fueled by growth capital,” said ONE CEO . (Ijaz previously worked at and ’s secretive transportation initiative before founding the company in 2020.) “That’s important in this environment where urgent demand for U.S.-based cell manufacturing is on the rise.”

Charging up the market

Indeed, the U.S. trails China in battery manufacturing. And, thanks to the rise of electric vehicles and the subsequent need for high-powered, easy-to-scale battery technology, that’s something the U.S. government is looking to change.��

The Inflation Reduction Act promises subsidies for EV companies, including a tax credit for those that use battery materials sourced in the U.S. The U.S. also passed a new law called the Invent Here, Make Here Act to prevent new developments in battery technology made in the U.S. .

This comes at a time when supply chain issues and the rising cost of battery and metal material are bottlenecking U.S.-based electric-car manufacturers. Funding for electric-vehicle startups has plummeted from its 2021 highs thanks to the rising cost of materials. General Motors announced on Tuesday electric-vehicle production due to manufacturing and logistics issues.��

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While last year shattered records in venture capital, 2022 started off slow and only declined from there. Large, late-stage rounds were most affected as venture capital started to pull back. However, 10 companies in the U.S. were still able to break the $1 billion barrier in individual raises this year.��

As we close out the year, let’s take a look at the top rounds of 2022:

1. , $2B, gaming: The metaverse is going to be epic — at least that is what both and — the family-owned holding and investment company behind — are betting on. Both invested $1 billion in  North Carolina-based Epic Games, valuing the gaming giant at $31.5 billion. The deal came just a week after Epic a partnership with LEGO to develop a “family-friendly” metaverse for kids. The company said the new cash will “advance the company’s vision to build the metaverse.” Founded in 1991, the Fortnite creator has raised more than $7 billion to date, according to Crunchbase data.

2. , $1.7B, space travel: was everywhere this year — including here. Along with the seemingly never-ending purchase, his SpaceX company made headlines after it raised $1.68 billion in June. It was reported that the raise values the Hawthorne, California-based company at around $125 billion. SpaceX raised $1.9 billion in funding in April 2020 and has , according to Crunchbase data. Previous investors in the company include , , and the , among others.

2. (tied) , $1.7B, logistics: Logistics were big this year with the supply chain still supremely mucked up. Novi, Michigan-based Lineage Logistics rode that interest to a huge $1.7 billion private equity round led by in January. The past couple of years exposed many flaws in the global and domestic supply chains — and investors have taken note that it is an industry ripe for disruption. Other startups such as Seattle-based and San Francisco-based also landed large rounds in 2022.

4. (tied) , $1.5B, defense: Costa Mesa, California-based Anduril locked up a Series E worth nearly $1.5 billion in December that valued the company at $8.5 billion. That nearly doubles the company’s previous valuation in June 2021. The funding round was led by . Anduril was founded in 2017 by , most famous for selling virtual reality company to — then called Facebook — for $2 billion. Anduril builds software and hardware enhanced with artificial intelligence and machine learning for the military and defense industry. It works with the U.S. and its allies to create drones, underwater vehicles, and different operating and control systems. Luckey has he started Anduril because many big tech firms were turning their backs on doing business with the , hurting the U.S. military’s ability to modernize as defense needs change.

4. (tied) , $1.5B, retail: Jacksonville, Florida-based Fanatics raised $1.5 billion in a funding round that values the sports platform company at $27 billion. The company — which has exclusive licensing deals with most U.S.-based professional sports leagues and many universities to make and sell official team merchandise — was , less than a year ago. The latest funding round includes new investors , and , as well as existing investors. Earlier this year, Fanatics trading cards for $500 million.

6. , $1.35B, autonomous cars: This was a strange one. In February, Cruise announced that would invest $1.35 billion now that Cruise was operating fully driverless cars. The thing is — SoftBank reneged. That would be the first sign of SoftBank’s growing problems and poor investment strategy. SoftBank had made the commitment to invest when the company hit the milestone back in 2018 with its initial funding of $900 million. After SoftBank backed out, however, acquired SoftBank’s equity ownership stake in Cruise for $2.1 billion and made the startup whole on the round.

7. , $1.15B, financial services: Miami-based market-maker Citadel Securities locked up a $1.15 billion minority investment led by . The company provides both institutional and retail investors with liquidity to execute transactions across an array of equity and fixed income products. Citadel Securities works in more than 50 countries, supporting more than 1,600 clients.

8. (tied), $1B, electric vehicles: San Francisco-based charging startup TeraWatt Infrastructure landed a huge Series A of more than $1 billion back in September. Launched out of stealth in May 2021, TeraWatt Infrastructure has built out a network of charging stations. The company acquires property in “strategically relevant” locations and helps customers operate EV fleets without the need to own and operate their own infrastructure. The new funding comes from funds managed by and existing investors and , and will be used for further development and expansion, including the buildout of a growing portfolio of charging centers. The round is the largest raised by a VC-backed startup in the electric vehicle segment this year, according to Crunchbase data. The company says it previously raised a $100 million seed round.

8. (tied) , $1B, cybersecurity: No cybersecurity company raised a round larger than this Lone Star State cyber company. The $1 billion-plus round was led by , and is cybersecurity’s largest raise since San Jose, California-based cloud security provider closed a $1.3 billion round in November 2021. That was cybersecurity’s only round worth $1 billion or more last year. Addison, Texas-based Securonix offers security information and event management, and extended detection and response capabilities to companies. While we covered the heat the XDR sector has seen here, it is also interesting to add a note about the SIEM space. Earlier this year, news broke that had looked at buying in what would be the giant’s largest acquisition ever. While Splunk does a lot of things, many looked at the deal as a way for Cisco to enhance its IT security with Splunk’s SIEM platform and ability to use data to improve security.

8. (tied) , $1B, health care: and its parent, , have been active health care investors — especially recently. That trend has continued as Alphabet led a $1 billion investment in its former life sciences unit, Verily. Alphabet spun out what would become Verily as its own independent subsidiary in 2015. The South San Francisco-based firm — which introduced a COVID-19 testing program in 2020 — has now raised more than $3.5 billion in capital, according to Crunchbase.

Big global deals

While U.S.-based startups were able to weather the chilly conditions and raise large rounds, three of the five biggest global rounds were raised by companies outside the U.S.

• Denmark-based energy trading house raised a $3.7 billion corporate round.
• China-based , which has five different EVs in the market, raised a Series A worth approximately $2.5 billion.
• , a joint venture operation in India between Viacom, raised a $1.8 billion venture round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the year. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late.

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Fourteen unicorns — private businesses valued at $1 billion or more — joined our unicorn board in October, bringing the total new entrants to the board this year to 295. That’s down sharply from the 614 new unicorns in 2021, but still well above the 173 minted in all of 2020.

October marked the fourth month since July when fewer than 20 companies joined the board. Recent months have had the lowest counts of new unicorns created since August 2020, when nine new companies joined the board.

The 14 new unicorns added $36 billion in value to the board this past month. That compares with September, when 12 companies joined and added $19.6 billion in value. In contrast, 50 companies joined the board in October 2021, adding $98 billion in value.

Last month’s new unicorns hail from nine countries. Of those, six are U.S.-based, and five are from Asia — one each from China, Japan, Indonesia, India and Israel. Three hail from Europe with one new unicorn each from the U.K., Spain and Liechtenstein.

Funding to all unicorn companies reached $6.6 billion for October 2022, a total of 25% of venture capital this past month.1

Overall in 2022, around 28% of venture capital was invested in unicorns, far below the 44% invested in unicorns in 2021.

Most highly valued

The most highly valued new company on the list is Guangzhou-based electric vehicle company , a subsidiary of .�� The company raised $2.5 billion in a Series A strategic investment which valued it at $14.3 billion. It is the most highly valued private Chinese electric vehicle company out of 17 currently listed on The Crunchbase ������Ƶ.

Exit

One company exited The Crunchbase ������Ƶ in October:

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based gene editing biotech company went public at a valuation of $1.7 billion, raising $175 million in the process and marking the only IPO from the board last month. The company was most recently valued at $1.2 billion in 2021.

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Methodology

Funding rounds included in this report are seed, angel, venture, corporate-venture and private-equity rounds in venture-backed companies. This reflects data in Crunchbase as of Nov. 2, 2022.

The Crunchbase ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

An electric vehicle charging startup may have raised the biggest round, but the real winners of the week were biotech and drug discovery companies. The list this week is dominated by biotech and health care startups as investors continue to see the value in new and innovative treatments.

1. , $1B, electric vehicle: A San Francisco-based charging startup tops the list this week with a huge Series A of more than $1 billion. Launched out of stealth in May 2021, TeraWatt Infrastructure has built out a network of charging stations for the operation of light- to heavy-duty fleets. The company acquires property in “strategically relevant” locations and helps customers operate EV fleets without the need to own and operate their own infrastructure. The new funding comes from funds managed by and existing investors and , and will be used for further development and expansion, including the buildout of a growing portfolio of charging centers. The round is the largest raised by a VC-backed startup in the electric vehicle segment this year, according to Crunchbase data. The company says it had previously raised a $100 million seed round.

2. , $310M, agtech: Startups that solve some of the farming and food issues we are now facing due to drought, environment and changing habits have been quite popular with investors. New York-based Gotham Greens is the latest to raise big—securing a $310 million Series E led by the Impact Fund and . The indoor farming startup sells leafy greens grown in hydroponics-equipped greenhouses. The company says using hydroponics in their greenhouses allows them to use 97% less land when compared to farming. Gotham Green’s goal is to have 13 locations across nine states by 2023. So far, the company is building new greenhouses in Texas, Colorado and Georgia, in addition to existing greenhouses in Chicago and Providence. Launched in 2009, the company has raised $435 million to date, per Crunchbase.

3. , $300M, biopharma: ACELYRIN is the first biopharma/biotech company on our list this week, but it won’t be the last by any means. The Los Angeles-based startup raised a $300 million Series C led by . ACELYRIN has now raised $550 million in less than 12 months. The company is developing treatment for inflammatory diseases and is entering late-stage trials. Founded in 2020, the biotech startup has raised $558 million to date, per Crunchbase data.

4. , $205M, security: Although we often focus on cybersecurity, there is still a real need for security in the physical world. That is something technology can help with, too. San Mateo, California-based Verkada is doing just that and closed a large $205 million Series D led by that values the company at $3.2 billion. The company offers a plethora of products that include video security cameras, door-based access control, environmental sensors and more. Founded in 2016, Verkada says it has raised more than $360 million.

5. , $200M, human resources: Chicago-based Atlas raised a $200 million Series B funding led by San Francisco-based growth investor . Atlas helps companies build a presence in new countries by dealing with compliance and payroll as the employer of record. “Atlas is enabling companies to seize the opportunity to be competitive, flexible, and borderless” said , its founder and CEO.

6. , $160M, biotech: Another biotech and another big round. San Diego-based RayzeBio locked up a $160 million Series D financing co-led by , and . The company is developing targeted radiopharmaceuticals to use against tumors and said it has “several novel drug candidates for clinical evaluation in the near future.” RayzeBio says it has now raised $418 million since starting operations in August 2020.

7. , $125M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based clinical-stage medicine developer Nimbus Therapeutics closed a $125 million private financing, which included participation from new investors and , among others. Founded in 2009, the company has raised $427 million, according to Crunchbase data.

8. , $102M, biotech: San Diego-based cell-engineering startup Capstan Therapeutics closed a $102 million Series A led by . Founded last year, the firm has raised $165 million, according to the company.

9. , $100M, biotech: San Carlos, California-based biomedical platform Galvanize Therapeutics raised a $100 million Series B financing led by Founded just this year, the startup has now raised a total of $148.5 million in funding, according to Crunchbase data.

10., $90M, biotech: Columbus, Ohio-based gene therapy-focused biotech company Forge Biologics raised a $90 million Series C co-led by and . Founded in 2020, the startup has raised $330 million, per the company.

Big global deals

The top 10 rounds announced this week all came from U.S.-based startups—a rarity. The largest deal outside the U.S. was:

• India-based , which offers shared electric two-wheelers to reduce traffic congestion, closed a Series B worth approximately $82 million.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Sept. 10 to 16. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration:

These newly minted unicorns raised a total of $3.2 billion over time, and added $19 billion in value to the board.��

This signals a big change in the venture markets from August a year ago when 45 companies joined the board, adding $82 billion in value at that time.��

New unicorn counts are also slightly down month over month from July when 14 newly valued unicorn companies joined the board.

Of the 12 new unicorns, seven hail from the U.S., two from China, and one each from India, Indonesia and South Korea. Companies are from varied sectors, from real estate to car hailing, wallets to marketplaces, and electric vehicles to shipping.��

‘s is one of the companies to join the board this past month with a $350 million investment from that valued the company north of $1 billion. It has yet to build a website, but plans to build a company that reinvents the rental market experience in a world of remote work.��

The most highly valued unicorn from this past month is Shanghai-based , an electric vehicle company jointly created by and . Zhiji was valued at $4.4 billion in a Series A funding.��

Funding in 2022

Unicorn startups have raised just over $102 billion this year as of the end of August. This contrasts with the peak in unicorn funding in 2021, where unicorn companies raised $305 billion in private financing, with 85% of that in late-stage and private equity rounds. 1

Exits

Three companies exited the board via the public markets in August 2022. They include South Korea-based car sharing company , last valued at $1 billion in a corporate round in March, and more recently valued around $632 million as of Aug. 31 in the public markets.��

Kentucky-based waste and recycling company went public via a SPAC deal. It was last valued at a billion dollars in 2017, and its current value is around $258 million on the public markets.��

And Washington, D.C.-based predictive analytics company went public via a SPAC merger. It was last valued at $1.4 billion in 2021. Its current valuation on the public markets is close to $1 billion.��

Despite the slowdown, the keeps growing in size and currently hosts 1,395 private companies.��

Update: The new unicorns of August 2022 now count 12 companies adding $19 billion in value to the board. Seven of the new unicorns are U.S.-based companies.

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Methodology

Funding rounds included in this report are seed, angel, venture, corporate-venture and private-equity rounds in venture-backed companies. This reflects data in Crunchbase as of Sept. 1, 2022.��

The Crunchbase ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.��

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .��

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

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The layoffs amount to around 840 employees, and come less than a year after Rivian went public in the largest IPO of 2021.��

“Over the last six months, the world has dramatically changed with inflation reaching record highs, interest rates rapidly rising and commodity prices continuing to climb—all of which have contributed to the global capital markets tightening,” Rivian CEO wrote in an email to employees, according to the WSJ.

Rivian went public in November 2021, raising $11.9 billion through its IPO, Crunchbase data shows. The Plymouth, Michigan-based company was valued at $66.5 billion at the time of its IPO.

The company’s stock price is down around 68% since the beginning of the year, and had a market cap of about $29.6 billion on Thursday. The company warned employees earlier this month that layoffs were coming.��

Growth stocks have been hit hard by the turmoil in the public markets. More than 32,000 employees of U.S.-based tech companies have been laid off so far this year, according to a Crunchbase News tally. The tech industry and tech-adjacent companies like those in the electric vehicle and biotech spaces seem to be bearing the brunt of the layoffs.

Rivian has faced some production challenges since it’s been public as well. In March, the company cut its production forecast in half to 25,000 vehicles, pointing to a parts shortage, according to the WSJ.

Rivian is not the only electric vehicle company to conduct layoffs. also laid off some employees and closed an office in California after CEO said he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.��

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According to our friends at TechCrunch, the round values the eight-year-old company at . It was raised just eight months after Sila Nano’s that was led by and brings its total venture raised , according to the company.

Alameda, Calif.-based Sila Nano said it has come up with new manufacturing methods to create a silicon-based anode to replace graphite in a lithium-ion battery. Its chemistry allows for “lighter, safer, higher energy density batteries for mass adoption of electric vehicles, smarter, longer-lasting portable electronics, and broader use of renewable power source,” according to the company.

In the short term, Sila Nano said it plans to use the new capital to focus on ramping up production volume so that it can supply its first commercial customers in consumer electronics within the next year. Longer term, it will continue to scale up production to bring its batteries to market, along with partners BMW and Daimler, “accelerating the path toward powerful, low-cost electric vehicles.”

The company also announced that Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric, will be joining its board as an independent director.

The deal also marks Daimler’s since January 2018, according to its Crunchbase profile. It also recently put money in Chinese autonomous driving startup and Bay Area-based , a maker of zero-emission, battery-electric buses.

Illustration:

Over the past two years, we’ve seen a massive spike in venture funding by major auto manufacturers. Deal counts are up, more automakers are investing, and more big rounds are getting done.

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However, an analysis of Crunchbase funding data for the twenty finds wide variance in investment sizes, timing, and strategic focus. Some automakers have focused on unicorns and mega-rounds, while others are active at the early stage. Still others have yet to park much capital in startups, illustrating a long-term reticence to engage actively in the venture space.

None of this is especially surprising to industry insiders. Automakers “operate at a different clock speed than the technology industry,” said Chris Stallman, a partner at , a transport-focused venture firm with offices in Detroit and Boston. Five to seven year vehicle product cycles make startup partnerships difficult because there is uncertainty about whether the company will still be around when a car comes to market.

That said, it’s no secret that automakers have shown more interest in startups lately. Nor is it any secret what’s driving that surge, given the massive shifts the industry faces from the rise of electric cars, autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing services, and other emerging technologies and transportation business models.

Below, we set out to quantify combined investment by automakers in startups of all stripes, along with acquisitions, with a focus on how individual automakers compare.

Deal Pace Speeds Up

First we look at deal count. Broadly, funding records for the past five years show a dramatic rise in startup investment beginning in 2016 and revving up further in 2017.

In the chart below, we look at the number of disclosed venture and seed rounds with participation by the major automakers. Keep in mind, these are only disclosed rounds, so the actual number of investments may be quite a bit higher, as automakers are known to do stealth deals as well.

Deal-making isn’t concentrated in any particular sub-sector. We see sizeable rounds, for instance, for , a car-selling platform, , a provider of electric vehicle charging stations, , a provider of peer-to-peer car-sharing, StoreDot a battery developer, and Momentum.ai, an autonomous driving startup.

Car companies aren’t just doing more deals; they’re doing bigger investments. In all, automakers participated in at least eight mega-rounds ($100 million or more) this year, up from zero a few years ago. In the following chart, we look at mega-rounds over the past five years:

Ride apps have dominated so far this year, with at least four companies in the space securing mega-rounds with automaker participation: Via, Grab, Gett, and Careem. Autonomous vehicles were also big, with Nauto and ArgoAI scoring mega-rounds.

Carmaker M&A

While it was a big year for startup investment by automakers, M&A has been slower. That’s not abnormal, as car companies generally don’t buy a lot of startups, although they do the occasional big deal or smaller asset purchase.

So far this year, we haven’t seen any large M&A transactions involving automakers. The most recent large-dollar purchase was GM’s purchase of self-driving technology startup for $1 billion in 2016.

The latest deal, Volvo’s purchase this month of valet parking app developer , by contrast, was a smaller asset sale involving a startup that had ceased offering its service. Other recent deals, including Ford’s purchase of commuter transit provider , and PSA Group’s acquisition of online auto repair platform Autobutler, were smaller deals involving early stage companies.

Whether they opt to partner or acquire, however, automakers are cultivating more relationships with startups, Stallman told Crunchbase News. The global recession of 2008-2009 required heavy cuts to R&D for many struggling automakers, and in the last couple years they’ve been playing catch-up. Bringing in an outside startup can be a good way to speed up internal efforts.

How The Biggest Automakers Stack Up

Not everyone’s operating at the same speed, however. Some automakers like venture investing a lot more than others.

Looking at deal count, �ұ�������Բ�’s BMW was the most active automaker by a wide margin, with more than 30 disclosed investments since 2012, including 10 so far this year. A majority are through its corporate fund, BMW iVentures, which invests across multiple sectors including autonomous driving, electric vehicles, AI, and automotive cloud technology.

Although most deals are Series A or B, invests across stages, and many of its early stage rounds are quite large. This summer, the fund participated in a $38 million Series C for , and a $159 million Series B for , a developer of AI-enabled camera technology for automotive fleets.

�ұ�������Բ�’s was also quite active in 2017, with eight investments, including participation in two mega-rounds for two ride apps, New York-based and Dubai-based .

In the chart below, we look at the number of disclosed investments since last year by major automakers:

A few automakers have so far stayed out of startup investing. Fiat Chrysler, in particular, has been reticent to invest, although a recent self-driving car partnership with Google demonstrates an interest in partnering with Silicon Valley companies. Nissan and Mazda have also shown little appetite for VC.

The Road Ahead

Looking ahead, it’s not far-fetched to presume that the momentum for startup investing among automakers will continue. If anything, signs point to further acceleration, with Toyota recently unveiling a and Ford scaling up its tech-focused Ford Smart Mobility division.

Moreover, if any industry’s investment activities are going to follow Newton’s of thermodynamics, it ought to be transportation.