The Top 10 Largest Venture Capital Rounds of 2011
January 10, 2012 - PrivCo, the private company financial data authority, has researched and ranked the Top 10 largest V.C. Funding Rounds of 2011 by size of the round:
PrivCo's key findings on the past year's PrivCo Top 10 VC Rounds:
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- Social media was in full force as Zynga, Twitter, and LivingSocial claimed the top 3 spots, raking in nearly $1.6 billion in VC funding
- Reata Pharmaceuticals snuck in at 4th with a single unspecified individual or firm investing $300 million upfront with contingency payments that may make the deal worth over $800 million
- Internet connectivity made a splash as wireless broadband provider LightSquared and Trans-Atlantic submarine cable operator Hibernia Atlantic raise a total $515 million
- Plastic Logic rounded out the top 10 by raising $200 million in equity financing from RUSNANO and Oak Investment Partners (plus debt and contingency payments that could bring the total funding deal to a whopping $700 million)
- 6 of the top 10 (or 9 of the top 13) companies were headquartered in California
- There was a 5-way tie for 9th place, with each company raising $200 million rounds
Overall, Internet related companies, notably in social Internet (Zynga and Twitter) and e-commerce sites (LivingSocial and TrueCar), took the lion's share of the PrivCo Top 10 Largest V.C. Rounds in 2011. Given the poor reception of Internet IPOs in late-2011 (both Groupon and Zynga are trading below their offering prices), it remains to be seen whether 2012's largest venture funding rounds will be in entirely new sectors as compared to those on 2011's leaderboard.
Methodology: In determining the Top 10 V.C. Rounds of the past year, PrivCo used only the total amount that was raised as working capital for the company and did not include debt financing nor funding rounds used primarily as a secondary sale for existing shareholders to cash out their shares. For example, in January 2011, Groupon raised $946 million in a Series G. Of the total amount raised, only $136.2 million was used as working capital for the company, whereas the remaining $809.6 million was used to cash out existing shareholders. Facebook had a similar primarily shareholder cash-out round in January 2011 via Goldman's Special Purpose Vehicle that was not included in our rankings. In the case of a tie, funding rounds are listed chronologically by round close date.
