Georgia startups raised $922 million across 80 deals in the first quarter of 2022, a slight decrease from the $1.1 billion raised in the last three months of 2021, according to the Q1 2022 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.
The numbers reflect strong venture capital deal activity across the U.S. after a record-breaking 2021. Deal activity in the U.S. reached $70.7 billion across 3,723 deals in the first quarter. It's a slight slowdown from the four consecutive quarterly records set in 2021.
In 2021, Georgia startups raised over $4 billion, doubling the amount raised in 2020. It was the second consecutive year Georgia startups doubled their venture capital raises.
That's a hard record to beat, said Sean O’Brien, managing partner at early-stage investment firm Overline.
“Financings are getting smaller, valuations are coming down, deals take longer to get done," O'Brien said. "With such a blowout year last year, it’ll be harder to hit those kinds of numbers.”
Georgia’s largest deals this year include crime surveillance startup Flock Safety raising $150 million in February, real estate company Groundfloor raising $118 million the same month, and aircraft startup Hermues raising $100 million in March.
Despite the recent pressure and incremental decline, O'Brien remains bullish on Atlanta for 2022.
“We’re seeing founders move here and start businesses here everyday, our pipeline has never been fuller and last year was a record,” said O’Brien. “Even if it slides this year, it'll still represent dramatic growth from what we've seen in years prior and represents strong growth for years ahead.”
Georgia is No. 11 across the nation for venture capital raised in the first quarter. It lands just behind Pennsylvania, which raised $1.025 billion, and Colorado, which raised $1.046 billion.
Georgia and Florida were the leading states in the southeast for venture capital. Florida raised $1.5 billion across 139 deals. Notable deals include High Band Holdings which raised $309 million and Healthcare.com which raised $212 million.
The leading states in the U.S. were no surprise: California at $35.3 billion and New York at $10.3 billion.
No Georgia companies were bought or went public in the first quarter, according to the report. That reflects a nationwide trend.
"The public markets have been very volatile over the past quarter, making it a less than ideal time for companies to go public.” said Kyle Stanford, PitchBook senior VC analyst. “Revenue multiples have expanded greatly over the past several years, leaving many companies with high valuations and revenues that public investors aren’t willing to pay a high price for."
