Series A Is the Sweet Spot for Startup Acquisitions

The sweet spot for startup acquisitions? Series A.

Analyzing acquired companies across 9 verticals since 2022, the Series A plurality was present in 7 of 9 (meaning it was the largest segment of acquisitions when looked at on a fundraising round basis).

Some other interesting points:

• Most verticals had a large majority of acquisitions take place before Series B. Which makes some sense, given the sheer number of smaller companies vs late-stage ones.

• Hardware and Biotech were the most late-stage heavy. Biotech was the only industry where the median acquisition happened in Series B.

• 3 verticals had pre-seed companies as the most common acquisition target (Consumer, Hardware, and Energy). Not sure what the commonality is there!

• Interesting that Hardware was more of a barbell effect, where acquired companies were either very early or reasonably late.

Across most of these verticals, the trend over the prior 12 months was towards slightly earlier acquisitions.

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