The number of Chinese early-stage venture deals fell by 45% in 2020 to 3,313. The pandemic-induced collapse continued a five-year-long decline in the number of rounds, though the number amount of total financing grew 12% YoY to $126B.

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• Zhao Chen, the managing partner at start-up accelerator Plug and Play China, claims that potential founders are increasingly sticking at secure jobs. He attests that, while the venture opportunities have become more scarce, their quality has gone up.
• Large tech companies have added pressure to VC firms by beginning their own investment drives. Tencent, for example, did 113 deals in 2020.
• One of the few bright spots is in semiconductors, a sector that has been supported by the government’s “Great Semiconductor Leap Forward” plan. 13,000 companies entered the space, and funding grew by 500% last year (see graph).
  
  

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• The official press release noted the support for Trump’s decision from known tech operatives including Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, and others. 
• Levandowski, who was one of the founders of Google’s self-driving car project, fell into bankruptcy after he was required to pay $179M to Google and ejected from his post at Uber.
• Waymo, which is part of the Alphabet family, claimed that Levandowski stole trade secrets from them and used them at his subsequent startup, Otto, which was quickly acquired by Uber.

Analyses Made Easy

Crunchbase’s Global VC Report 2020*

*All figures and graphs are taken directly from the report itself.

Global startup funding in 2020 grew 4% YoY to just over $300B, according to Crunchbase’s data (see graph above). Late-stage venture capital, which includes Series C and later rounds, grew 8% YoY, while private equity investment into VC-backed companies surged 73%. Q4’20 was not as strong as the bombastic Q3, but still managed to bring in around $75B. Still, driven by falling seed-round numbers, which only totaled 2,558 rounds (more are guaranteed to be reported in coming weeks), the total round count for the year fell compared with 2019 (see graph below). 

The earliest stage of venture funding drove about...

Today's Funding 💸

AI/ML

• AlphaC (Milpitas, Calif.), artificial intelligence processors for edge computing: $8M from Emerald Technology Ventures, Endiya Partners.

Biotech/Health

• Neurent Medical (Galway, Ireland), treatments for chronic inflammatory sino-nasal diseases: $25M B led by LSP HEF-2, Atlantic Bridge.
• Apricus (Scottsdale, Ariz.), remote monitoring devices for chronic patients:...

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*This is a sponsored post.