Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 was a record year for local venture funding. And a quarter of the way through 2021, Illinois startups have continued to raise massive amounts of funding.
Just in the first quarter of 2021, venture funding raised by local companies topped $2 billion, according to PitchBook and National Venture Capital Association data released Wednesday.
To compare, Illinois companies raised just $471 million in the first quarter of 2020, and $508 million in 2019. Over the entirety of 2020, local companies raised $2.8 billion. Q1's VC funding nearly eclipsed 2019's entire yearly funding of $2.2 billion.
Illinois financing in Q1 of 2021 was raised over 86 deals, the data shows, with Village MD’s $1 billion investment deal with Walgreens and Cameo’s $100 million deal leading the way.
Other big rounds in Q1 included FourKites’ $100 million round, Copado’s $96 million round and M1 Finance’s $75 million round, according to PitchBook and NVCA’s data.
Additional local companies that raised large rounds not listed in the data include Chicago software consultancy ThoughtWorks, which raised $720 million from corporate and private equity investors, as well as Enfusion, an investment management software company that raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation.
Nationally, U.S. startup raised nearly $70 billion in Q1 of 2021, a 93% increase compared to the first quarter of 2020. Most of the money was raised in late-stage deals, with 167 rounds over $100 million accounting for $41.7 billion of Q1’s total deals.
The larger deals signal a wave of startups preparing to go public, PitchBook says. So far in 2021, 50 venture-backed companies have listed publicly on the stock market, according to the data.
