Maybe you thought the kind of VC willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars at a $1 billion valuation was a rare breed?
Well, in that case, you’d be wrong. Not only are there more privately held tech companies worth a jaw-dropping $1 billion than ever before, but there’s also hundreds of VCs willing to back them.
That was the conclusion of a report published today by Pitchbook, a Seattle-based startup that collects data on venture capital and private equity financings. It found that over the past two years, 224 VCs have participated in 118 rounds of funding that exceeded $100 million or more.
In fact, 82 of these investors have participated in at least two or more financings, with some of the most active investors participating in more than a dozen since the beginning of 2014.
The data suggests that despite the risk of pouring thousands of dollars into one deal, VCs are still comfortable with it based on the potential windfall they might receive from a positive exit. In many cases, it is these rounds, that lead to some very huge valuations.
Below is a list of the top 15 most active U.S.-based investors — and their deal counts — when it comes to investing in a financing exceeding $100 million:
- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (13)
- Andreessen Horowitz (12)
- Tiger Global Management (12)
- Sequoia Capital (11)
- Accel Partners (9)
- Google Ventures (9)
- Institutional Venture Partners (8)
- Khosla Ventures (8)
- Salesforce Ventures (8)
- Insight Venture Partners (7)
- Lightspeed Venture Partners (7)
- Comcast Ventures (6)
- Founders Fund (6)
- Greylock Partners (6)
- Meritech Capital Partners (6)
It is wrth noting is that three of the VCs on the list include the investing arm of a major corporation, including Google, Saleforce and Comcast. Meanwhile, it’s surprising that other funds that you would assume would be ideally suited for participating in larger rounds, are farther down the list, such a Morgan Stanley, which ranks 21th, and Bain Capital Partners, which ranks 47th.
When looking at the top 50 VCs, only one investor makes the list from Washington, which is not all that shocking since no unicorns are yet to call Seattle home. In 50th place is Bezos Expeditions, which manages the personal investments of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Over the past two years, Bezos has invested in three rounds exceeding $100 million, according to Pitchbook. Twice he has invested in Juno Therapeutics, which is developing cancer treatments and raised $176 million early last year before going public. He has also invested in Lookout, a San Francisco-based mobile security company that raised $150 million in a sixth round of funding a year ago.
