When Cava raised a gargantuan $190 million in April, Greater Washington had just come off of a financial quarter in which it had crushed venture capital funding records.
The D.C. fast-casual restaurant chain quickly helped the region repeat that trend in this second quarter.
For the period from April through June, the region counted $1.27 billion in total venture funding across 72 deals, up from $807.76 million across 60 deals in the second quarter of 2020. Along with Cava, Gaithersburg biopharma Arcellx also surpassed $100 million with a raise in April, while a handful of other local companies cracked the $60 million mark with rounds of their own.
That’s per the most recent PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor report, which comes out each quarter with support from Silicon Valley Bank and Secfi.
It's a continuation of a local funding flood that topped $1 billion during the first quarter — at the time, the highest in at least a decade, according to the last Venture Monitor report. In that quarter, some of the largest rounds were D.C.’s Pie Insurance with $118 million, Reston’s ScienceLogic with $105 million, McLean’s ID.me with $100 million and Bethesda’s Aledade with $100 million.
The region's unusually high volume, and massive size, of deals is also playing out on the national stage. The Venture Monitor report counted 198 venture capital deals of at least $100 million that closed in the second quarter across the U.S., totaling 385 deals and $85.5 billion for the year. That “easily set a new annual record on both a count and value basis,” the report read.
More companies also reached an exit in that time, locally and nationally. In the second quarter alone, the country saw 334 exits by venture-backed companies; in the D.C. region, Vigene Biosciences’s $292.5 million sale to Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE: CRL) and Xometry’s $300 million-plus initial public offering contributed to that count. That's likely to result in even more investor dollars reinvested into the local ecosystem.
The pandemic's easing is causing more free flow of funding, causing more local venture capital firms to raise new funds and rippling to the ventures themselves in larger-than-usual rounds. “Great companies are raising bigger and bigger rounds of financing more quickly, because investors are really chasing that handful of ‘great’ companies,” John Backus, co-founder and managing partner of Proof.VC, told us earlier this month.
All of this follows a 2020 that actually saw more venture action locally than in past years, suggesting the Covid-19 crisis didn’t dramatically hinder investments. Last year, Greater Washington startups brought in a record $2.1 billion, topping the previous record of $1.9 billion set in 2019.
Here were the top venture deals in Greater Washington in the second quarter of 2021, per the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor report released Wednesday:
- $190 million: Cava, a D.C. fast-casual restaurant chain
- $115 million: Arcellx, a Gaithersburg biopharmaceutical company developing cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases
- $79 million: ValenzaBio, a Bethesda biopharma developing therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases
- $68 million: Forever Oceans, a Gainesville sustainable seafood startup with a process to monitor and cultivate fish in a healthier way
- $60 million: Somatus, a McLean health care startup building and expanding a comprehensive care model for patients with chronic kidney disease
- $60 million: Notal Vision, a Manassas medical device startup focused on age-related macular degeneration
- $60 million: Morning Consult, a D.C. tech firm that offers polling and research platforms for clients
- $55 million: HawkEye 360, a Herndon satellite technology company that provides radio frequency data to commercial customers
- $50 million: Percipient.ai, a Reston analytics firm with a Silicon Valley footprint that uses artificial intelligence for intelligence and national security missions
- $45 million: Truebill, a Silver Spring personal finance startup working to help users improve their financial health
It’s worth noting that during the second quarter in May, Arlington auto refinancing startup MotoRefi also raised $45 million and that D.C. cannabis company Holistic Industries raised $55 million.
And despite not making the top 10, the region saw several other impressive raises from Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, FiscalNote, Prefect Technologies and, just this week, MPower Financing.
