Venture capital totals hit a national quarterly record in the first quarter of 2021, with growing companies raising more nine-digit fundings rounds than ever, according to the latest PwC/CB Insights MoneyTree report.
VC investments in Q1 surged to a new quarterly record of over $62 billion, raised through 1,735 deals nationwide, the MoneyTree report shows. The funding total is up 117% year-over-year, and the deal total is up 14%. After the first quarter of 2021, U.S. venture-backed companies have raised nearly half of the about $130 billion in total funding seen throughout all of 2020, which was the largest funding year on record to date.
Unlike in previous quarters, the MoneyTree report did not offer VC funding data for any particular region, state or locality. Representatives with CB Insights explained this is because the partners are "sunsetting" the current version of the report and plan to introduce a new model next quarter. So it is unclear exactly how much venture funding growing companies in Maryland raked in for Q1, but according to the Business Journal's reporting on publicly disclosed rounds, in-state companies collectively raised well above $625 million in the quarter. For reference, last year's Q1 total was nearly $230 million.
Nationally, deal activity across nearly all levels of funding was up in Q1. The number of "mega-rounds," or funding rounds that exceeded $100 million, hit an all-time high at 184 rounds. Nearly $40 billion, or about two-thirds, of the total capital raised in the quarter was delivered through mega-rounds, which is also a record, the MoneyTree report notes.
These Q1 trends were reflected in Maryland as well, where a handful of growing companies raked in remarkably large sums of capital. The most notable of which was an eye-popping $180 million raised by Columbia email delivery company SparkPost. That round was among the largest single-round fundraises ever seen in Greater Baltimore and brought SparkPost's total backing to $245 million.
Maryland logged three other mega-rounds during the quarter:
- $103 million Series C round raised by Baltimore cancer diagnostics firm Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx)
- $100 million Series A round for another Baltimore cancer diagnostics firm Delfi Diagnostics
- $100 million Series D round for Bethesda health tech startup Aledade
And plenty of other funding deals made Business Journal headlines over the past three months. Here are some of the largest reported:
- $34 million raised by Bethesda-based human resources software firm Employee Navigator
- $20 million raised by Baltimore biotechnology firm Vita Therapeutics
- $16 million raised by Rockville-based vaccine maker Immunomic Therapeutics
- $16 million raised by Gaithersburg biotech VLP Therapeutics
- $15.5 million raised by Baltimore e-commerce startup Tradeswell
