Austin startups raised more than $500 million in funding across 27 deals in the first quarter of 2018.
It was only the third time since at least 2000 that local companies attracted more than half a billion in a single quarter, according to a new MoneyTree Report created by PricewaterhouseCoopers and CB Insights.
Nearly half of the $510 million raised by local startups came from a single deal: The $250 million California-based Silver Lake Partners committed to WP Engine, a hosting platform for websites and apps using WordPress on the backend.
But, even without that historically large investment, Austin had a strong quarter that included five other $20 million-plus funding rounds. Total venture funding for local companies in Q1 increased 310 percent year-over-year. Even subtracting WP Engine's outsized deal, Austin showed a strong increase from the first quarter of last year when the MoneyTree report pegged local funding at $124 million.
The top five deals in the report were:
- WP Engine: $250 million
- Mythic: $40 million
- Outdoor Voices: $34 million
- HNI Healthcare: $32.6 million
- TurnKey Vacation Rentals: $31 million
The figures in Austin somewhat reflect a national trend of startups raising larger funding rounds across a smaller number of deals. Investments in VC-backed companies increased 4 percent in Q1, nationally. Meanwhile, the number of fundings decreased by 2 percent.
Locally, investments were made at all stages of the startup lifecycle. Austin startups had five deals each for seed- and early-stage companies. There were seven expansion stage rounds, four later stage rounds and six deals categorized as "other."
The new report comes just a day after PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association released its report, which calculates funding in a different way and did not include WP Engine's $250 million investment.
