Startup funding and exiting activity have been slow over the past few months in the U.S. Fewer companies closed rounds, IPO volumes were light, and not a lot of big M&A deals got done. But is fundraising and exiting seasonal?
Fundraising
In the chart below, Crunchbase shows the total number of seed and venture funding announcements for North American startups each month over the past five years.
Data suggest that funding activity tends to progress at average levels during the summer months, according to Crunchbase. Meanwhile, December and November tend to have slower-than-average funding activity, while September and January are busier.
Moreover, we can see that 2017 has been slower than the 4 previous years.
M&A
Looking at M&A volumes over the past five years, Crunchbase did not see a notable trend of either seasonal slowing or acceleration.However, there weren’t a lot of big-ticket deals in the mix.
Overall, 2017 has been slow for M&A. So far this year, we’ve seen just one big unicorn M&A deal: Cisco’s $3.7 billion purchase of AppDynamics in January. Two other one-time unicorns were acquired this year: data management technology provider Simplivity and Middle Eastern online retailer Souq.com. Both sold for well below their peak private valuations.
IPOs
The number of tech IPOs in 2017 so far is only about a dozen offerings from venture-backed companies.
Meal kit company Blue Apron and storage technology provider Tintri both debuted in late June, and both posted disappointing performance. The only VC-backed online brokerage Redfin has performed well.
Related Links
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