As of mid-November, 539 mega-rounds ($100M+) have raised nearly $142B so far in 2020. That figure represents 55% of overall venture dollars invested so far this year. 

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• The capital volume from mega-rounds in 2020 is between 2019’s $140B and 2018’s $180B.
• The new deluge of capital for such massive rounds is due to two factors: VC investors bumping up round size, and investors who had previously focused on public markets and M&A getting involved in private funding rounds.
• 2020 is the second year in the last decade wherein mega-rounds provided the majority of VC capital flows. Their percentage has fluctuated between 48% and 55% in that time period.
• Significantly, the concentration of mega-rounds has changed geographies: previously they were most often found in North America, but that has now shifted (see graph below).
  

Russian e-commerce company Ozon raised $990M in its Nasdaq IPO. The company priced 333 million American depositary shares at $30, which was above its estimated range of $22.50 to $27.50. 

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• The IPO, which saw Ozon’s stock popping 33.9% and closing well at $40.18, valued the company at $6.2B. The company had raised $687.1M over nine rounds prior to its public offerings.
• Ozon is the country’s second-largest e-commerce outfit and the first Russian company to debut on a U.S. stock market since 2019. The company was founded in 1998 as an Amazon knock-off selling books and DVDs.
• Jacob Grapengiesser, a partner at East Capital, called it Russia’s most exciting IPO by investor enthusiasm ever.
• Ozon reported revenue of $876.5M in the first nine months of 2020, up 70% YoY. However, its losses also grew to $169.1M in the same period from $171M the year before.
• In other IPO news: Pay-per-mile auto insurer Metromile will merge with a SPAC to raise $294M, $160M in PIPE, for a $1.3B valuation.

Today's VC Industry Trends looks into funding for Silicon Valley-based startups focusing on mobile.

All figures are based on Crunchbase data and all graphs are my own.

This week's feature can be seen as a follow-up to an edition I did several weeks ago, which detailed the rise and fall of funding for companies focusing on web development. The basic idea is that both mobile and web apps are the backbone of almost all startups. As such, I decided to look further back and exclusively at the birthplace of the startup-world: Silicon Valley.

As the graph immediately below shows, the peak number of funding rounds per quarter came very early at the end of 2014 at almost 120 (most other sectors see this metric hit its apex somewhere in 2017). The decline was steep and steady, though it appears to have stabilized somewhat at around 30 rounds per quarter. The average round, which remained fairly low until late-2017, has quadrupled on average when taking the spikes and valleys into account.

VC funding in this sector was highly concentrated in early to mid-stage funding rounds until about...

Today's Funding 💸

Agtech

• Satelligence (Utrecht, Netherlands), satellite-powered geodata analytics for crop production: $2.3M Seed from 4impact, European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program.

Biotech/Health

• Well Health (Santa Barbara, Calif.), medical records management platform: $45M C led by Lead Edge Capital, participation from Martin Ventures, et al.

Consumer

• Dija (U.K.), stealth delivery startup: $20M led by Blossom Capital.
• Quiqup (UAE), same-day delivery platform:...

QUICK HITS: 

• An algorithm that analyzes Twitter comments and invests in crypto is beating the S&P. *
• Stripe is in talks to raise fresh funding at a reported valuation between $70B and $100B.
• Contour Ventures closed Fund IV, seed-stage: $82M. The firm also closed its Opportunity Fund.
• Canadian telecom company Telus launched a new impact fund, The Pollinator Fund for Good, with $100M. The fund will focus on healthcare, social and economic inclusion, sustainable food production, and environmental footprint reduction.
• Gaming communications service Discord is reportedly raising a new funding round that would value it at $7B. The company raised $100M at a $3.5B valuation just a few months ago.
• Online learning platform Kahoot will acquire picture-based language learning app Drops for $50M. The deal will initially pay out $31M in cash, with another $19M in cash and stock, based on performance at a later point.

*This is a sponsored post.