Class of 2019 startups - how far have they gotten in ~5 years?
I took a look at the progress 4,379 startups incorporated in 2019 have made in their fundraising and growth journeys. Couple data caveats upfront:
All startups in the analysis use (or used) Carta as their cap table provider
The "closed" category for pre-priced round startups includes companies that have yet to raise any funding on SAFEs or Convertible Notes.
𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀
Just over 40% of startups incorporated in 2019 have shut down
About 4% have exited (mostly through M&A)
7 IPOs (but if you remove biotech/pharma as an industry...no IPOs)
54% are still kickin!
𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀
𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 (𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵) 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘐'𝘥 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴.
Closures in the pre-priced round stage make up a huge portion of total closures and total companies. This is to be expected (as there are many more pre-seed startups and most don't make it to their first funding).
16% of the original 4,379 are currently Series A startups. 8.8% are Series B or later (which is basically speed running funding progress).
Obviously this class of startups caught both the boom time of pandemic-era fundraising and the steep decline of venture capital in recent years. Given that, I think 58% or so still alive or exited is a pretty great figure.
Lack of IPOs beyond biotech is not surprising given this is a fairly short timeframe. Median time to IPO across the last 5 years or so is about 11 years.
Given SAFEs have taken share from priced rounds at the seed stage, the figures for the earlier rounds may be a bit off (eg more startups are actually in seed now than in pre-seed).
Respect as always to the founders charging through the venture journey - it's a gauntlet!
#startups #founders #venturecapital #fundraising
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