Series B rounds are getting bigger, on average, and a couple of Bay Area startups are among the top 10 largest of such raises nationally, according to a Crunchbase report.
San Francisco-based Forte raised $725 million in a Series B announced in November, second only to Cambridge-based Commonwealth Fusion which raised $1.8 billion for its fusion energy technology.
Forte is building a blockchain platform for gaming and says it intends "transition to a fully decentralized platform that’s owned, controlled, and nurtured by the gaming community at large," according to its website. Its Series B was led by The Sea Capital and Kora, and also included Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global Management, among other investors.
Eikon Therapeutics came in third place with a $518 million Series B that was announced in January. The Hayward startup is focused on drug discovery and development, but the round was eye-popping even within the biotech world and the company is only three years old.
Portola Valley-based ClickHouse is only about six months old but raised a $250 million Series B in October for its database management platform.
Two Southern California startups also made the top 10: Culver City-based Skims, Kim Kardashian's shapewear line, raised $240 million, and Los Angeles-based Acelyrin raised $250 million.
Startups in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York rounded out the top 10.
That geographic diversity represents another trend highlighted by Crunchbase's report. The Bay Area still dominates when it comes to fundraising but the largest Series B rounds in 2022 so far have also included New York, Boston, Reno, Salt Lake City, Austin, Boulder and Los Angeles.
And Series B round keeping getting larger — $45 million on average in 2021, nearly 50% bigger over 2020's numbers, across more than 1,200 rounds.
At least seven Bay Area startups have raised Series B rounds of $100 million or more, according to the Business Times' research. In addition to Eikon Therapeutics, the startups include:
- Aleo Systems (San Francisco): $200 million.
- Alumis (San Francisco): $200 million
- Kobold (Berkeley): $192.5 million
- Metagenomi (Emeryville): $175 million
- Phantom Technologies (San Francisco): $109 million
- MinIO (Palo Alto): $103 million
- Wildtype (San Francisco): $100 million
Here is the full list of the top 10 Series B rounds nationally over the past six months, according to Crunchbase:
- Commonwealth Fusion (Cambridge): $1.8 billion
- Forte (San Francisco): $725 million
- Eikon Therapeutics (Hayward): $518 million
- Generate Biomedicines (Lansdowne, PA): $370 million
- Cardurion Pharmaceuticals (Boston): $300 million
- JOKR (New York): $260 million
- ACELYRIN (Los Angeles): $250 million
- ClickHouse (Portola Valley): $250 million
- SmartLabs (Boston): $250 million
- Skims (Culver City): $240 million
