Total Venture Capital Dollars Invested in 2017 On Track to Reach Decade High

Investment into venture-backed companies in 2017 is on track to match or exceed dollars deployed in 2016, and if this pace holds, full-year 2017 venture capital (VC) dollars invested could be the highest in the past decade. The data which was extrapolated from Pitchbook shows venture investors deployed $21.5 billion to more than 1,699 venture-backed companies during the third quarter, bringing 2017’s total investment to $61.4 billion deployed across 5,948 deals to date.

Large deals completed in the Q3, like WeWork’s $3 billion infusion of VC, helped inflate deal value and have become the new normal in VC where investors pump larger amounts of capital into fewer companies, especially in the later stages. In fact, deals that carried a valuation of $1 billion or more represented less than 1 percent of 2017 deal count, but nearly 22 percent of the aggregate deal value. Meanwhile, private equity firms are increasingly providing an alternative liquidity option for a tepid exit market, which is pacing for the lowest number of exits since 2010.

With venture-backed companies pushing out their exit timelines, partly due to a larger pool of private funding available, the total number and value of exits has fallen significantly. So far in 2017, there were 530 venture-backed exits, on track for 707 exits for full-year 2017, compared to 839 total exits in all of 2016.