2023 In Review | What happened in Series B this year?
Seed and Series A were no walk in the park in 2023, clearly, but raising a primary Series B was even harder.
The number of primary Series Bs in the US on Carta: 1,141 in 2021 --> 777 in 2022 --> 397 in 2023
The number of primary Series B rounds in the US that raised $50M or more: 149 last year --> 52 this year.
Remember, that's just primary rounds. No bridges, no extensions, no convertibles.
𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗕 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹
$11 billion raised in primary Bs, down from $28B last year.
Median cash for a B this year was $18M, which is $2M below what the median company raised in 2020.
Median pre-money valuation was $83M, which is just about $2M higher than in 2020.
All data from US companies on Carta. We only charted industries with at least 10 primary rounds, so if you don't see your sector that's a likely reason. Last bubble chart in this series 🙏 .
All 2023 figures will end up rising a little due to data lag. But damn, that was no fun.
𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗙𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀
AI - Again, not a real industry we track but if you aggregated all AI companies across industries they would have raised at the highest median valuation.
Renewable Energy again did well - First in cash raised and 3rd in median valuation.
Biotech - Well above median for cash, 4th for valuation.
Hardware
Cybersecurity
𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀
Medical Devices bringing up the rear again - someone can probably educate me on the key differences in why investors seem so down here.
Food startups inched along towards the bottom of both cash and valuation.
Fintech making a bit of a surprise appearance low in the rankings.
Not the merriest of Christmas messages but hey, 2024 can't be worse right?
Considering making a free, un-gated, 50-slide deck recapping everything about this year—comment below if you'd use that in any of your own presentations.
Signing up for our Carta Data Minute newsletter at the link in graphic is the best way to show love for this data analysis.
Hug a Series B founder this holiday season if you know one!
#cartadata #SeriesB #startups #founders #fundraising
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