What follows is the collected charts and tables and graphs from the monster-sized Q3 2018 global venture report. It’s one the longest things that we publish each quarter, and honestly, we’re proud of it. ()

But not everyone wants all images and thousands of words of explanation. So, for you visual learners out there, here’s the text-free version:

We’ll do this again in three months. Until then, back to our regular reporting.

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What follows is the  version of that report: Just the charts. So, take a spin and enjoy yourself.

Illustrations:

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Here’s what the Q3 dollar distribution looked like:

Overall, venture capitalists pumped $353.7 million into Texas startups across 91 known deals in the third quarter of 2018. In perspective – just like last year’s third quarter – that is less than what was invested in all of Austin alone during the second quarter. VC funding in the Lone Star state was down a whopping 56 percent compared to the $800 million raised in the second quarter – the exact percentage it was down in last year’s third quarter compared to Q2 2017. The dollars raised were, at least, 11 percent higher than last year’s $319.6 million raised during the third quarter.

So, Texas’s venture activity in dollar terms was down compared to the most recent sequential quarter, but it was up on a year-over-year basis.

At 91 known transactions, deal volume for the state is also particularly low for Q3 2017—by far the lowest seen since the start of 2017, although it is important to note that numbers (both dollars and deals) will likely go up as more deals are reported over time.

However, while some deals will trickle in (seed-stage rounds are usually the most tardy), it seems unlikely that Texas had a strong Q3 compared to this year’s Q2 or Q1 in deal volume terms.

All Venture Is Local

Venture capitalists invested $150.6 million into Austin startups across 44 known deals in the third quarter, according to Crunchbase data. That’s 28 percent less than the $208.4 million raised in the year-ago third quarter across 52 transactions. It’s also down 65 percent compared to the $429.7 million raised in the 2018 second quarter.

A number of Austin startups closed on double-digit funding rounds between June and September, but the deals weren’t as large as those seen in the second quarter. In July, home improvement startup raised $15.7 million and ERP platform raised $15 million. Most of the closed transactions were valued at less than $10 million.

Dallas had a particularly weak quarter. The city accumulated just $38.1 million across 24 transactions. That was down a whopping 86 percent from the $275.2 million raised across 33 deals in Q2 2018. As is frequently the case in Dallas, two companies alone were responsible for the majority of the total raised in the city: Electromagnetic surface wave startup raised $12.2 million, and , which provides field management software, brought in a $10 million Series A round in July.

Dallas-based —an off-site package management service for residential complexes—closed on a $3.1 million seed funding round in early August. At the same time, the startup announced plans to Austin by year’s end.

As mentioned above, Houston had a relatively good third quarter performance compared to the same period last year. The city—still recovering from Hurricane Harvey more than one year later—raised $138.8 million across 16 deals compared to $24.2 million over 18 deals in Q3 2017. Its largest known venture rounds were actually significantly larger than those closed in Austin during the three-month period, which is unusual.

And while most outsiders think Houston is all about oil & gas, the city is also home to the world-renowned Texas Medical Center (which includes the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, among other institutions) and Rice University—both of which spawn a lot of research-based startups.

During the quarter, three of the city’s four biggest funding rounds were raised by healthcare-related companies. In September, immuno-oncology startup brought in $40 million while biopharmaceuticals developer raised $30 million. Utility startup netted $23.6 million in July and , which is developing modified viruses for the treatment of the most aggressive forms of cancer, hauled in $15.5 million in September.

Since the numbers don’t tell the whole story of Texas’s venture capital scene, we talked to some investors in the area to get the big picture. Not surprisingly, most VCs take these sorts of reports with a grain of salt.

VCs Weigh In

, general partner at , acknowledges that Austin does tend to see an “ebb and flow” of activity.

The state as a whole has seen a number of large private equity deals or buyouts in 2018, and Flager believes those transactions, while often considered good for the involved companies and their investors, do take away from venture dollars raised. For example, earlier this year from , and Houston’s by .

“The amount of private equity right now is the most ever raised, and I think you’re going to see more of those types of transactions,” Flager said. “As a firm, we saw more volume in the first half of the year of dollars going into private equity or the secondary market than we saw in the previous 10 years of the firm.”

Looking ahead, though, Flager believes Austin is definitely in a growth phase.

“While we’ve been around a while, a number of the other VC firms here are only a few years old,” he pointed out. “It takes companies five to seven years to get to a stage to justify a valuation that would merit $50 million-plus funding rounds. We’ll get there, but it’s a process. It takes time.”

, managing director of Dallas-based , believes that the national trend has been fewer companies raising larger amounts, especially in the B and later-stage rounds.

“This seems to be moving towards the earlier rounds as the amount being raised is getting larger,” he said. “Texas investors seem to be more prudent and perhaps see these larger rounds and valuations and decline investing in these companies.”

, partner at Houston-based , thinks the quarter is the start of more good things to come for the state’s largest city.

“The energy industry, coupled with life sciences, continue to pay off in Houston as the city continues to unite around helping build a vibrant ecosystem,” he told Crunchbase News. “We’ve got the perfect recipe for growth right now.”

In addition, Gilani noted that Houston also saw more than 20 smaller transactions in enterprise software companies. He told Crunchbase News that this gives the city “a really healthy and balanced mix” of growing startups.

“I’m bullish on Texas, but extremely bullish on Houston. In many ways, Houston is finally catching up to its natural position as the largest city in the Texas startup eco-system,” he told Crunchbase News. “Houston has always been the biggest city in the state and has always had the largest economy, so it was always bizarre that the city lagged so far behind Austin when it comes to VC and PE dollars.”

Having lived in both cities, I think it’s pretty cool that Houston actually gave Austin a run for its money in the third quarter. As I mentioned, many out-of-staters might not realize that Houston is home to amazing research centers. That’s why I believe it’s likely only a matter of time that we’ll see more large funding rounds like the city experienced during the third quarter.

Hey, a little healthy competition among cities never hurt anybody, right?

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, founder of and member, told Crunchbase much of the same.

“While capital seems to be flowing more easily than ever, the share going to women and minorities remains paltry,” she said. And anecdotes aren’t the only thing holding up this narrative.

Global Dollar Volume

In the third quarter of 2018, $6.4 billion went into startups with at least one female founder. This represents 14 percent of all venture and corporate venture funding deployed globally in 276 rounds. Out of that 14 percent, 4 percent went to only female founded teams and 10 percent went to companies with male and female co-founded teams.

Quarter-over-quarter dollar volume has dropped by 70 percent for female founders. However, the significance of the decline is tempered by an outsized $14 billion Series C round for Ant Financial—founded by Peng Lei, who is one of two dozen female billionaires in China—in Q2. But removing that anomalous round doesn’t let investors off the hook in Q3.

So far in 2018, 20 percent of venture funding has gone to startups with at least one female founder. By contrast, 2017 venture investments in female founders tallied at 14 percent. Overall 2018 is up by six percent, due to the second quarter increase courtesy of Ant Financial. But it’s not difficult to change 2018’s narrative.

Excluding Ant Financial’s $14 billion dollar round from 2018, only 12 percent of dollar volume has gone to female-founded startups this year, a two percent decrease from 2017’s full-year average.

The chart shows, again, how distortive the Ant round really was.

Next, we’ll take a look at deal volume for female-founded startups. (Bear in mind that this is reported data, not projected, so there will be some lag in the data.)

Leading Venture Investors In Female Founders

Investors that represented the highest deal count in startups with at least one female founder include with 6 investments, and at 5, , , , , , and — tying at four each in Q3 2018. We are seeing corporate venture play a more significant role in startup investing, a trend we’ve been tracking in Crunchbase.

We have also included the deal count percent of companies with female founders for the quarter. The highest percent is with three deals, representing 75 percent of their publicly-disclosed investments this past quarter. This is followed by 8VC and at 60 percent.

You can see in the above that it’s not incredibly hard to differentiate a firm by this metric. Just do two more, and you move from tied for fourth to pushing for second. One more and you’re tied for first. That more firms aren’t cracking the top three (in volume terms) in the above chart is notable.

Median Venture Rounds

We also took a look at the median venture and corporate venture for female founded versus male founded startups over the last five quarters. For male-only-founded startups the median is $7.9 million, for female and male co-founded teams $6.7 million, and for female only founded teams the median is $6 million. The median for male founded teams is 23% higher than male and female co-founded teams, and 55% higher than the median for female only founded teams over these past five quarters.

The data in the chart is a bit spiky, but what’s plain is that female-founded startups raise less than their male-only counterparts. And adding men to the team doesn’t close the gap.

However, some positive news is hiding in the data, particularly at the start of a startup’s life.

Seed-Stage Hits Records

For the first quarter ever, female founded startups raised over twenty percent of seed funding dollars. Seed-funded companies with at least one female founder raised $260 million in the third quarter of 2018 representing 269 seed funding rounds.

From a deal count perspective, the last 5 quarters are all at 20 percent or over.

In percentage terms, around 21 percent of Q2 global seed rounds included a female founder. In the third quarter, that rose to just over 24 percent. Of course, that last figure is a higher percentage of a smaller base, meaning that total round count fell. But in terms of makeup, startups with a female founder did better than in the second quarter.

Next we’ll see who’s leading on seed investments into startups with female founders.

Leading Seed Investors In Female Founders

Leading seed-stage investors in companies with at least one female founder for this past quarter include with 21 investments, at 16, and with 13. , , and also made the list with 5 investments or more. Notably, tracked at 100 percent and Quake Capital Partners, , , , and all were 50 percent or above with investments in a female founded company this quarter.

Female Founder Rounds Of Note

Within the last five quarters, there have been fifteen venture or corporate rounds over $1 billion and a further 34 rounds of $500 million or more. Of the fifteen largest rounds, ten are from Asia-based companies and five are from the United States. Only two of the companies have at least one female founder, including and Singapore-based .

Of all the deals that included female founders in the 3rd quarter, the following growth rounds caught our eye.

• raised $300 million from GlaxoSmithKline to partner with and develop drugs. They previously raised a $250 million growth round in September 2017 led by Sequoia Capital. Anne Wojcicki is the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe.
• , a startup that allows car owners to rent out their car, raised $300 million this quarter from the SoftBank Vision Fund. GetAround is co-founded by Sam Zaid, Elliot Kroo, and Jessica Scorpio.
• , an e-commerce website selling around 300 household items mostly for $3 raised $240 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund. Tina Sharkey is the CEO and co-founder of Brandless along with co-founder Ido Leffler.

So what’s coming next for female founders?

Looking Ahead

Overall, Q3 2018 has pulled in some pretty paltry numbers for female founders, even when we exclude Q2’s enormous funding raise. In a market that is awash with money, it’s hard to believe more of it couldn’t of found its way to startups with at least one female founder.

That said, a light note of progression has been on seed dollars front. And although the increase wasn’t enough to move total dollar volume, seed-stage investments are a pipeline for early- and late-stage investments, thus serving as a positive signal of sorts for years down the road.

For women looking to fund in an environment that’s not often conducive to their success, Ho told Crunchbase her advice is to “never take” a no personally.

“Fundraising is about building long-term relationships,” she went on to say. “Over the years, the dynamics of the relationship can and will change—you never want to close the window in getting someone to believe in your idea, your company.”

But just how many years do female founders have to wait to get an equal share of funding? Based on our current understanding VC funding patterns between male and female-founded startups, the answer is likely disappointing: not soon enough.

Methodology

Our analysis includes 10,751 venture and corporate deals and 8,652 seed fundings for companies with founders associated over the last five quarters. Startups without founders associated in Crunchbase are excluded from this analysis.

A large percent of seed deals and dollar volume are added after the end of a quarter. We fully expect these absolute numbers to go up even if the percent between female and male founders stay the same.

, Crunchbase’s data lead, provided the charts and metrics and most of the words for this post; the News team helped add additional context.

According to Crunchbase projections Crunchbase News reported on in Q3 2018, worldwide VC deal and dollar volume each set new all-time records. In the U.S. and Canada, deal volume declined slightly from Q2 highs but growing deal sizes pushed total dollar volume to new heights.

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Much of this global growth comes from markets outside the U.S. and Canada. A between Startup Revolution and the Center For American Entrepreneurship indicates that Beijing, China was the city that contributed most to global growth in venture capital investment growth.

Here’s the geographic breakdown of projected deal volume over time. Note a somewhat choppy growth pattern in U.S. and Canadian deal volume, and compare that to a more consistent growth pattern in international deal volume. (For more about how and why Crunchbase makes these projections, check out the Methodology section at the end of the global report.)

In rapidly-growing startup markets like China, venture deal volume is also at all-time highs, though venture dollar volume is down slightly.1 For the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, venture deal volume is up roughly 85 percent from the same time last year. Reported deal volume in China is up more than fourfold during the same period of time.

The rise of China’s venture market may be best seen from a city-level perspective. Below is a chart displaying the ten most active startup cities in Q3, ranked by count of venture deals for each city as reported at the end of Q3. (The Methodology section of the global report also explains what “reported” data is and how it’s used.)

Of the top ten cities displayed above, only three countries are represented. If it weren’t for the rest of Silicon Valley bolstering the Bay Area’s numbers, Beijing would beat out San Francisco in raw deal counts. (But, then again, Beijing is home to three times as many people as the entire Bay Area.)

Using deal and dollar volume as rough metrics for vivacity (if not necessarily health), this spread in VC activity could be seen as a good thing for the market as a whole. A rising tide of global VC activity lifts all startup markets, worldwide. However, much of that growth is still concentrated in just a few big markets.

The worldwide expansion and local reinterpretation of the Silicon Valley venture capital investment model is a phenomenon market participants (founders and funders alike) must reckon with. Founders are responding by raising lots of money in ever-larger rounds, hoping that big investor checks are enough to buy large chunks of growing markets. Investors, in turn, are raising ever-larger funds to satiate these companies’ seemingly bottomless appetites for capital.

As in most mega-trends, participants who fail to adapt to changing market conditions will end up on the losing end of the market cycle.

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Venture investments in Asia have baffled the tech world over the past year. Investors and corporations have funneled seemingly limitless amounts of capital into quickly growing private companies.

Mainland China once again dominated the investment landscape in the Asia-Pacific region in Q3 2018. In addition to accounting for almost 71 percent of the entire known venture dollar volume of the region, deals toward startups based in Mainland China accounted for more than 66 percent of the known regional total. 1

There is no big secret as to why China dominates in venture funding. It’s an attractive market for companies and investors alike. China’s massive population leaves ample room for market growth and government-supported tech ambitions help bolster experimentation. But how has China’s investment climate fared the past few months as Trump’s trade war, geopolitics, and cybersecurity issues loom over U.S.-China relations?

Venture Investment In China

At first glance, this chart can be a little bit misleading. China did experience a 26 percent decrease in total venture capital dollar volume from Q2 to Q3 2018. However, that decrease requires a bit of a more nuanced explanation—a few anti-China Trump tweets didn’t cause a dip that big.

In Q2, if you recall, , the fintech affiliate of e-commerce giant , was the recipient of a monstrous . If we take a closer look, the 26 percent decrease in dollar volume from Q2 to Q3 can be attributed to that one huge round. Without that Ant Financial round, dollar volume would have grown by 19 percent from Q2 to Q3 2018.

Deal volume also rose during the Q2 to Q3 period, coinciding with growth in venture dollars invested, discounting the anomalous Ant Financial round.

Deal volume, or the number of individual deals for seed, early, and late-stage companies grew by about 27 percent from Q2 to Q3. Even if we factor out the Ant Financial round, the growth in dollar volume was much slower than deal volume growth as a whole. Therefore, even without the huge drop, it’s clear that the number of seed and early-stage deals increased. That is confirmed by the data, which indicates a nearly 53 and 18 percent growth in seed and early-stage deal volume, respectively.

So venture investment in China continues to push its own limits. Those overall investment numbers translated into massive rounds for Chinese companies.

Huge Rounds Reign Supreme

China was once again the recipient of huge rounds. July was a record month for the global number of capital infusions of $100 million or more (what we call supergiant rounds). Six out of ten of the largest global rounds that month were for Chinese companies, according to Crunchbase News reporting.

In Q3 2018, China made off with 54 supergiant rounds. Half of those rounds were for more than $200 million and five totaled more than $1 billion. It’s an impressive cadence of large investments, but it’s actually a touch lower than the 57 supergiant rounds recorded in Q2 2018. Still, China-based supergiant rounds were much less common in Q1, with only 36 rounds bringing in more than $100 million.

The prevalence of these huge global rounds over the past year is beginning to change how we define each stage of funding. In China, even Seed investments have reached extraordinary heights as heavy-handed investors make massive bets on young startups.

Seed-Stage Investments

Seed-stage dollar volume rose by 204 percent from Q2 to Q3 2018. That growth was bolstered by a couple of large deals, including one “Pre-Series A” supergiant round.

The largest “Seed” round in China was a in electric vehicle maker . China’s electric vehicle space has experienced a surge of new startups and funding in recent years. Investment in China’s electric vehicle market was bolstered by the national push for new energy vehicles in the country, which began as . That push was supported by both government subsidies and tax exemptions, which the country is now beginning to . According to a , some investors expect just 1 percent of the hundreds of electric vehicle companies in China to survive.

Notably, , considered to be China’s answer to Tesla, went public in Q3, raising $1 billion in its debut. However, the company reported just $7 million in sales with losses totaling more than $500 million in the first half of 2018. It had delivered just 481 cars by the time it filed, albeit with thousands of preorders.

Early-Stage Investments

That same interest in electric vehicles is also prevalent in leading early-stage investments for companies in China. , founded in 2014, has raised a known total of from investors including Alibaba, , , , and others.

Beyond electric vehicles, was the recipient of the largest early-stage round in Q3. The company announced that it was raising nearly at a roughly $20 billion post-money valuation .

The company is another example of a spinoff of a public Chinese company that has managed to attract significant investment. Alibaba’s fintech affiliate Ant Financial and the (now public) Tencent spinoff have both benefited from that affiliation. Its former parent companies’ extensive market reaches are likely drivers of investor confidence in spun-off platforms. 

China’s Late-Stage Investments

China’s largest late-stage deals were driven by corporate partnerships and investments by China’s incumbent heavyweights.

The largest investment was directed toward , an online food delivery service. previously owned a 43 percent stake in the company and purchased the remaining shares from Baidu for in February 2018. The sourced from and Alibaba, brought the food delivery company’s total raised to $6.3 billion and boosted Alibaba’s foothold in the food delivery market up against Tencent-backed Meituan Dianping.

Likewise, , an outdoor digital marketing company, received a from Alibaba. Another Alibaba-backed company, online used car marketplace , also scored a supergiant round. Meanwhile, Alibaba-competitor scored a corporate investment from .

Deep-pocketed corporations and investors have clearly displayed their willingness to bet on growing Chinese companies, and they’re likely betting that momentum will carry them into Q4.

What’s Next?

Though the China-U.S. relationship is on the rocks, the investment climate in China has remained relatively strong. Confidence on the part of investors raising large funds, like and , indicates that investment in the region will likely not slow down in the near future. And with more early and seed-stage companies joining the mix, that may pave the way for larger, more competitive investments as the market matures.

Editorial Update: A previous version of this article stated that Q3 reported 54 supergiant rounds, with half totaling more than $100 million. It has been updated to reflect that half totaled more than $200 million, as supergiant rounds are those of $100 million or more. 

For the fourth quarter in a row, the sum of venture capital poured into U.S. and Canadian companies rose sequentially and year-over-year. Altogether, investors are projected to put a whopping $35.3 billion to work. That money is dispersed across seed-stage through technology-growth stage deals in the third quarter of 2018, the highest projected total since Crunchbase began tracking this data.

A lot of really big, late-stage deals pushed the totals to new highs. Rounds of $100 million or more—once a rarity in startup-land—were a near-daily occurrence. Investments of a few hundred million popped up frequently as well for companies in transportation, real estate, and even e-cigarettes.

Early-stage dealmaking also held up at robust levels, though with a tinge less frenzied exuberance. Exits were pretty good, too, bolstered by several prominent tech unicorns launching well-received IPOs. Acquisition activity was more muted, but a few big deals still unfolded during the quarter.

Below, we break down the numbers in greater detail, focusing on Q3 investment totals and round counts, stage-by-stage performance, largest rounds, and biggest exits.

Investment Totals

These are extravagant times in the venture capital world. Total investment rose nearly 13 percent quarter-over-quarter across all stages in Q3, according to Crunchbase projections. That’s a big jump and pretty astounding considering that Q2 was itself an extraordinarily spendy quarter for all things startup-related.

Year-over-year, the gains are even greater. The $35.3 billion invested in Q3 of 2018 represents a rise of nearly 19 percent from the same quarter last year. In the chart below, we look at how the investment totals break down over the past five quarters:

Round Counts

While venture deals are getting bigger, they’re not getting more numerous. The number of projected seed, venture and tech growth rounds in Q3 of 2018 is up year-over-year, but is actually down a bit from Q2 levels.

Crunchbase projects a total of 3,825 rounds across all stages for Q3 of 2018. That’s up 16 percent from year-ago levels, but down about 7 percent from the prior quarter. In the chart below, we look at how round counts break down over the past five quarters:

The lead investors in these rounds are par for the course, with the being a notable addition.

Angel And Seed Stage

Seed-stage funding also held up at historically high levels, though it appears to have slowed a bit from the prior quarter.

Crunchbase projects that nearly 2,200 U.S. and Canadian companies secured angel or seed rounds in Q3 of 2018. That’s down a couple percent from the prior quarter and up about 15 percent from year-ago levels.

Total investment in seed-stage companies, meanwhile, is projected at around $1.4 billion, also down a bit from the prior quarter and up from year-ago levels.

was the most active seed-stage investor with 53 investments. , the runner-up, came in with a comparatively modest 25 investments.

Early Stage

Early-stage (Series A and B) investment remained at historically high levels in the just-ended quarter. However, there wasn’t a sharp spike in funding.

Overall, investors put $12.3 billion to work in early stage rounds in Q3 of 2018. That’s roughly flat with the prior quarter and up about 25 percent from year-ago levels.

A handful of extra-large deals lifted the totals. While supergiant rounds are normally relegated to late stage, we saw a number at Series A and B as well, primarily for companies in biotech, but also enterprise software and autonomous driving.

Early stage rounds usually go to young companies, but that isn’t always the case. Several of the biggest Q3 Series A and B fundings were actually for fairly mature companies that waited to dip into the venture pool, including , founded in 2008, and , founded back in 2003.

Below, we look at some of the biggest early stage funding recipients:

Y Combinator once again tops the list of early stage investors, but with only a slim margin over .

Late Stage And Growth Stage

Over the past few quarters, the most dramatic trend in startup funding has to be the rise of  supergiant rounds.

Until recently, these monolithic fundings of $100 million or more were a rarity in venture circles. Now, they’re commonplace. For Q3 of 2018, for instance, at least 47 U.S. and Canadian companies raised supergiant rounds, including at least ten valued at $300 million or more.

These giant financings contributed to pushing late stage funding totals to what appear to be record levels. For Q3 of 2018, investors put just over $20 billion into late stage deals (Series C and later). That’s up a staggering 61 percent from year-ago levels, and up 36 percent from the prior quarter.

Established unicorns drank up much of the funding. The list includes enterprise messaging platform , stationary bike and spin class purveyor , and secondhand shopping app .

Real estate startups also saw a big jump, thanks to SoftBank. In the final week of the quarter, the firm’s backed $400 million rounds for two U.S.-based unicorns, , a tech-enabled real estate brokerage, and , a company that offers fast home sales.

Below we look at 10 of the largest late-stage funding recipients:

was the most willing to make late-stage deals in Q3, with the Softbank Vision fund notably falling to the bottom of the list.

Exits

So it’s clear from the numbers that investors put a lot of money into the startup ecosystem last quarter. But how did they do in terms of getting money back?

Overall, it looks like a very solid run for IPOs in Q3, while returns from M&A were a bit more lackluster. We’ll look at returns for both exit types below.

First, IPOs. The window for tech and life science offerings was wide open this past quarter, and quite a few venture-backed companies capitalized on the opportunity to go public. Standouts on the tech front included and , two long standing unicorns that launched well-received IPOs. This biggest monster hit, however, was Canadian cannabis company , recently valued around $13 billion (and no, it’s not profitable).

Public market investors have been extra willing lately to overlook unprofitability for companies with growing revenues, and that’s contributing to the current venture-backed IPO boomlet. Over the first three quarters of this year, 83 percent of U.S.-listed IPOs lost money in the 12 months leading up to their debuts, and Q3 in no way deviated from  trend.

Below, we look at some of the largest North American venture-backed companies that IPO’d this past quarter:

Now let’s look at M&A. For Q3, the biggest deal was Cisco’s purchase of cybersecurity unicorn for $2.35 billion. There were a number of other sizeable deals announced during the quarter as well, several of which we highlight below:

There’s no surprise in seeing M&A levels underwhelm compared to the prior quarter. It was always going to be tough for Q3 of this year to measure up to Q2, which included Microsoft’s GitHub acquisition, the largest purchase of a venture-backed tech company in years. That said, Q3 still turned out to be a reasonably strong quarter for acquisitions; it just wasn’t spectacular.

Looking Ahead

As we’ve noted previously, current investment conditions do show many characteristics of a market peak: a large pool of available venture and growth capital, a wide-open IPO market, unusually big funding rounds, and little pressure for profitability.

However, our datasets aren’t engineered to predict how long the current bullishness will last. All we know is that, eventually, market cycles do turn.

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Crunchbase News reports that, in the third quarter, worldwide deal and dollar volume totals have each (barely) surpassed Q2 levels. This would make Q3 2018 the most active quarter for worldwide startup investment on record. Moreover, we know that 2018 has already passed 2017’s global VC dollar volume record, and that is with a whole other quarter to go.

This report from Crunchbase News goes deep into the weeds of last quarter’s venture market. Using data and projections from Crunchbase, we’ll tell the story of both sides of the cap table: the Money In and Money Out.

In the Money In section, we will unpack the numbers behind startup investments in Q3 2018. We’ll do so for the worldwide market as a whole and for each stage of the funding cycle.

In the Money Out section, we’ll review acquisition statistics and highlight other notable liquidity events.

To help you digest this report, each section will contain a bullish and bearish key finding. Without further ado, let’s dive in.

Money In

• Bullish Key Finding. Sure, record deal and dollar volume is nice and all, but the jump in seed and early-stage venture is particularly promising.
• Bearish Key Finding. The market is in the middle of reorienting itself to a new center of gravity that may exist outside the quiet offices on Sand Hill Road.

An Overview of The Venture Capital Landscape

Disruption in VC looks like Q3 2018. This isn’t a classical Clayton Christensen “” case of disruption. It’s a more of a flipping the table during a particularly feisty Monopoly match and scattering the banker’s cash in the process.

Over the past quarter, we documented a growing trend in the world of venture: companies raising $100 million or more in what we’ve been calling “supergiant” VC rounds. Not long ago, a nine or ten-figure venture funding round would be in the tech press for days. Now so many of these deals close that it’s almost impossible to cover them all individually.

Here’s a chart showing the monthly count of $100M+ venture rounds since January 2017.

Like supergiant stars, these huge VC rounds shine brightest in the headlines. But also like supergiant stars, these big VC deals exert a kind of gravity over the whole market.

It’s arguable that the pressure on some startups to raise huge sums of money has led venture investors (particularly entrenched incumbents) to raise bigger funds over time.

What’s behind the push? A lot of market analysis, including some of Crunchbase News’s own reporting, points to the , a massive $100 billion pool of capital backed by sovereign wealth funds and deep corporate coffers. Bloomberg the Vision Fund as a “$100 billion blitz on Sand Hill Road.” It’s a road in Menlo Park, CA with unassuming office buildings housing some of the best-capitalized investors in the VC game. That is until the Vision Fund arrived.

SoftBank has been one of the most prolific startup investors of all time. (CEO and the company were very active venture investors throughout the 1990s and early 2000s as well.) The Vision Fund is just its latest, gutsiest gambit.

The effect is a major shift in which investors get a seat at the table. If the Vision Fund shows any kind of success, which in the form of boosting SoftBank’s earnings, expect to see more giant funds like it to spring up. And like the Vision Fund, these new investors may not operate or invest like traditional VCs. In the coming quarters, we’ll be keeping an eye on sovereign wealth funds, large investment banks, and on Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son himself.

Global Funding Activity: A View From Cruising Altitude

Here we take a high-level look at venture market conditions in Q3. We’ll start by examining, in turn, the total number of venture deals and how much was invested. Following this 30,000 foot perspective, we’ll break these statistics down by stage

Pace of Dealmaking

The number of deals struck in a given quarter acts as a kind of speedometer for the venture market. Following a significant acceleration between Q1 and Q2, venture deal volume has leveled off somewhat. However, Crunchbase projections indicate that global deal volume has once again set a quarterly high. Worldwide, Q3 2018 was the most active quarter for venture investors, worldwide, ever.

As for Q3 deal volume’s margin of victory over Q2, it was a real squeaker. Up just under 2 percent from the prior quarter, venture deal volume nonetheless held on to the significant gains made between Q1 and Q2.

As you might already be able to tell from looking at the chart, deal volume growth stemmed mostly from seed and early-stage deals, We’ll explain why in a later section.

Projected VC Dollar Volume

Global venture dollar volume, once again, also set a new all-time quarterly record.

As of the end of Q3, 2018’s venture funding totals have already surpassed 2017’s by a decent margin. Of course, we still have a full quarter left to go, and there are no signs that the market is slowing down.

But the margin is narrow here, too. With just under 2 percent growth from the prior quarter, more venture dollars were put to work on startups’ capitalization tables than any time in history—but not by much.

Most Active Lead Investors

In a startup funding round, the “lead” investor is typically the firm—usually represented by one partner—which originates, orchestrates, or commits the most capital to the deal. Let’s take a look at the investors who got out in front of the most deals last quarter.

We derived this list by analyzing Crunchbase data covering Q3’s reported venture capital rounds. For most of the deals, there is at least one investor listed; in many cases, the data designates which investor led the round versus which investors merely participated or followed on to maintain pro rata rights. From the set of rounds we analyzed, we identified 2,339 unique individual and institutional investors which led at least one round last quarter.

Here are the investors which led the most rounds. Keep in mind that this, and other investor ranks in this report, are subject to change as prior deals are added to Crunchbase over time.

has seriously accelerated its investing over the past couple quarters. In Q3, it led supergiant venture deals with Chinese companies like used car marketplace Tuhu, direct-to-consumer eyewear company , and travel booking site , among many .

With this overview complete, let’s go deeper into the data.

Stage-By-Stage Analysis of Q3 2018 VC Funding Trends

In this section, we look at what’s going on under the hood of each stage in the venture investment cycle. Like usual, we’ll start “close to the metal” by looking at angel and seed-stage funding before moving up the stack.

Angel And Seed-Stage Deals

Very young startups aren’t flush with investor cash. The deal a founder seals with individual angels, accelerator programs, or professional seed funds is often the smallest funding round their company will raise. Simultaneously, this is among the most challenging stages of investment to source and close on decent terms.

Angel and seed-stage deals accounted for 60 percent of deal volume, but just four percent of total dollar volume. This is in line with prior quarters.

The chart below plots Crunchbase’s projections for seed-stage deal and dollar volume, worldwide. Remember, this and other deal and dollar volume data cited in this report is adjusted upward to compensate for reporting delays. We cover this and other methodological matters in a section at the end.

Angel and seed-stage investment is on the upswing worldwide, with both deal and dollar volume growing appreciably from the prior quarter. Crunchbase projects that dollar volume is up over 70 percent since the same time last year.

Here’s how the size of these rounds changed over the recent past. Note that this is based off of reported data from Crunchbase, not projections like before. These numbers are subject to change over time as previously undisclosed deals get added to Crunchbase. The Methodology section at the end discusses the difference between reported and projected data in greater depth.

Some of the first investor checks founders cash are getting bigger. Q3 brought one of the largest sequential jumps in average seed-stage deal size in recent memory, and median round size is up as well. This growing median value suggests a broader population-scale shift toward bigger rounds at this stage, rather than a few big outlier rounds pushing averages higher.

Which investors made the most deals last year? In the funding data, we identified 2,015 unique investors who made one or more seed investments in Q3. Here are the most active among them:

And if you’d like to review some of these deals for yourself, here’s .

This could be a promising sign for the global venture market. An abundance of seed-stage deals today could bring a bumper crop of late-stage deals several years down the road.

Early-Stage Deals

Early-stage startups tend to raise more money in their rounds. Early-stage venture accounted for 33 percent of deal volume (right in the middle of a historic range) and 36 percent of dollar volume, which is slightly but noticeably higher than past quarters.

Here is Crunchbase’s projections for worldwide early-stage venture deal-making in Q3 2018.

Shifts in investment activity (or lack thereof) at this stage can move the whole market. It appears that happened here. A 19 percent bump in early-stage dollar volume appears to have offset declines in late-stage dollar volume. The end result? Modest gains in aggregate dollar volume, but gains nonetheless.

Here is Crunchbase’s reported data for early-stage rounds.

Early-stage deals haven’t gotten dramatically bigger over the past year. They’ve still grown, but the relatively small change in median deal size suggests that Series A and Series B deals, as a whole, have remained roughly the same size. The bump in the average values likely comes from a handful of very large outlier rounds. Compared to the ballooning size of seed and late-stage rounds though, the relative round size stasis at this segment of the funding pipeline is notable.

Out of the 3,023 unique investors we identified in Q3’s funding data, here are the busiest among them.

And here’s the set of .

Late-Stage Deals

In Q2, late-stage venture reigned. What about the impact of late-stage activity in 2018’s third quarter? It all depends on how you look at it.

Late-stage venture deal volume accounted for just 7 percent of total deal volume, but represented 55 percent of all venture dollar volume, globally. That’s less than Q2, when late-stage rounds accounted for about 63 percent of worldwide venture dollar volume.

Deal volume, however, continued its general up-and-to-the-right trajectory while dollar volume retraced a bit. In part, Q3’s dollar volume totals didn’t benefit from the round closed back in Q2. That deal remains the largest venture capital funding round ever.

Q3 had quite the run of late-stage rounds, which, for the most part, have grown larger over time.

With only two billion-dollar late-stage deals (SenseTime and ) in the third quarter, huge outlier rounds didn’t exert as much upward pressure on average round size. Although the average declined on a quarterly basis, the mean late-stage deal closed in Q3 2018 is still 40 percent larger than the same time one year ago.

Let’s see which of the 1,115 unique investors made the biggest splash in the later-stage end of the capital pool.

Late-stage venture in Q3 2018 was a pretty big deal. Here’s for you to explore.

Technology Growth Deals

“Technology growth” is what Crunchbase now refers to as private equity rounds raised by companies which raised a venture capital round in the past. Followers of these reports will recall that we’ve wrestled with the “technology growth” stage in prior quarters.

This PE round was typically the terminal private funding event for a company before raising from public markets. By the end of our Q3 2017 report, it became clear that the basically broke the late-stage funding market and the most entrenched VCs were raising their own growth funds to keep up.

This being said, plenty of previously venture-backed companies went on to raise PE rounds in Q3. Here’s the projected data from Crunchbase.

Given how these deals are classified, the count of PE deals raised by venture-backed companies should track pretty closely with late-stage venture deal volume. And it does. After all, especially for Series E deals or later, the profile of companies raising a late-stage venture round is basically the same as those angling for PE funding.

The next chart points to the ascendency of VC over PE in recent quarters. Here’s the reported mean and median size of PE rounds raised by previously venture-backed companies.

With bigger funds under their belts, late-stage venture investors are able to continue funding companies long past the point they had to either go public or turn to deep-pocketed PE investors. In other words, most of the round size upside has shifted in VC’s favor.

And with that, we’ve come to the end of our journey looking at startup fundraising around the world. Let’s see how the money shakes out of these companies.

Money Out

• Bullish Key Finding. Even companies with very short operating track records and messy balance sheets are managing to go public. The IPO window is very much open.
• Bearish Key Finding. The M&A market continues to be wishy-washy, worldwide, which weighs on bloated portfolios in need of exits.

Venture-Backed Acquisitions

When it comes to investing in private companies, putting money into a venture is often the easy part. It’s getting the money out—and hopefully more than at the start—that is the stickiest wicket in the whole process.

An “exit” by way of merger or acquisition is among the most common ways startup investors are able to liquidate their long-held stock positions.

Here’s a chart plotting Crunchbase data for venture-backed acquisitions.

For the past several quarters, Crunchbase News has documented a fairly consistent decline in M&A exits for venture-backed companies since the beginning of the year. This quarter is no different.

But this isn’t to say there weren’t any notable M&A deals this quarter. A selection of those can be found in the table below.

Let’s see what’s happening over at the public end of the capital pool.

Initial Public Offerings

Initial public offerings (IPOs) are the second primary way investors, founders, and employees get to liquidate their positions.

2018 has been a fairly active year for IPOs so far, worldwide, and its third quarter was no exception. One of the curious features of the Q3 IPO market is the international diversity. As Crunchbase News pointed out in a review of the quarter’s public debuts, many of the most memorable IPOs on U.S. markets have been for companies based in China (�ʾ��Ի�ܴǻ�ܴ�’s IPO and NIO’s listing come to mind), the United Kingdom (Farfetch and Endava), and Norway (Opera).

Though many of the companies going public have long grown out of the startup phase, many can still torch huge piles of cash in the name of growth. A separate survey of all 2018 IPOs found that over 80 percent of companies that went public (on U.S. markets) in 2018 are unprofitable.

On the one hand, this is something that both Wall Street financiers and Main Street retail investors should remember. Don’t pin hopes of future riches on a financial dumpster fire.

On the other hand, this should be reassuring to fence-sitting founders and their boards. NIO proved that a track record isn’t necessary if the market opportunity is large and investors are enthusiastic. The IPO window is wide open, but it seems like we’re still going to have to wait until 2019 for shares in the biggest of the world’s unicorns— and among them—to officially hit public markets.

Conclusion

Beyond the surge in supergiant rounds, there’s an even clearer manifestation of a market in transition. Two major venture funds will no longer exist as we knew them.

Q3 brought the , a relatively new firm managed by former Facebook exec , with . Also during this time, —a 45+ year old VC firm which for a time had the most assets under management in the business— into an early-stage fund, and whatever late-stage vehicle now-departed partner spins .

As venture increasingly skewing toward supergiant rounds and mega-funds, don’t be surprised to see more firm denouements in the coming quarters.

As for the fourth quarter itself, there’s one thing to remember: in some ways, it doesn’t really matter for 2018. It’s bonus time on the clock. We’re already in uncharted waters this year, and they’re bound to get choppier as huge new funds splash down.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase in two varieties: projected data and reported data.

Crunchbase uses projections for global and U.S. trend analysis. Projections are based on historical patterns in late reporting, which are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity. Using projected data helps prevent undercounting or reporting skewed trends that only correct over time. All projected values are noted accordingly.

Certain metrics, like mean and median reported round sizes, were generated using only reported data. Unlike with projected data, Crunchbase calculates these kinds of metrics based only on the data it currently has. Just like with projected data, reported data will be properly indicated.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to US dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs, and other financial events as 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.

Glossary of Funding Terms

• Seed/Angel include financings that are classified as a seed or angel, including accelerator fundings and equity crowdfunding below $5 million.
• Early stage venture include financings that are classified as a Series A or B, venture rounds without a designated series that are below $15M, and equity crowdfunding above $5 million.
• Late stage venture include financings that are classified as a Series C+ and venture rounds greater than $15M.
• Technology Growth include private equity investments with participation from venture investors.

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