Startup funding is a fickle thing -- at least when you look at quarter-to-quarter comparisons.
Case in point: On Tuesday, the National Venture Capital Association shared a Q4 breakdown of Austin startup funding. It showed $237 million raised by Austin metro area startups. That's 17 percent increase from the same period last year, the ABJ reported. But, it's also less than the single, $250 million round of private equity funding WP Engine announced last week.
Those big time deals can really sway the figures (and feed the local startup ecosystem). So, we can look to year-to-year data. In 2017, $1.2 billion was invested into 207 companies in 2017. That's up from $942 million on 211 deals in 2016, the ABJ wrote.
Here's a metro-to-metro ranking for the year:
San Francisco - $25.2B New York - $12.3B Boston - $8.7B San Jose - $8.3B Los Angeles - $6.5B Chicago - $1.8B Seattle - $1.7B Washington D.C. - $1.6B Austin - $1.2B Atlanta - $1.2B Miami - $1B Philadelphia - $879M Denver - $822M
Austin's top Q4 deals, as recorded by PitchBook, were Ambiq Micro ($33.6M), Tiff's Treats ($25M) and Tethr ($18.2M).
The PitchBook/NVCA data also highlights exits. In Austin, they logged 18 exits in 2017 -- down a couple points from the past three years. It put the average funding to exit timeframe at 6.5 years -- 30 percent longer than in 2007.
All said, 2017 was a pretty strong year. And, as new funds from Silverton Partners, Next Coast Ventures, Elsewhere Partners, LiveOak Venture Partners and others are deployed, 2018 is shaping up to be even better for startups -- even if you designate WP Engine's big funding from Silver Lake as an outlier in the private equity category.
Meanwhile, 2017 saw the most venture capital funding ($84 billion) since the Dot Com era. That's in part driven by more companies staying private longer and taking bigger equity rounds.
Unicorns, for example, account for $19.2 billion of the total.
You can read more about national VC funding trends here.
