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Useful Stats: Venture Monitor reports record-breaking year for VC deals

January 20, 2022
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By: Ashwin Shenoy

The Pitchbook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q4 2021 reports unprecedented growth in venture capital activity through 2021. Although total deal count had decreased by almost 2.5 percent from 2019 to 2020, deal activity in 2021 surpassed that of both 2020 and 2019 – showing that 2021 saw substantial growth from pre-pandemic levels.

There were 12,473 reported deals across the 50 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands in 2019, which fell to 12,165 reported in 2020. However, in 2021, there were 15,449 reported deals – an increase of 27 percent from 2020 and 24 percent from 2019. The total dollars invested in 2021 more than doubled that of 2020, which had already seen an increase from 2019. This growth outpaced the growth in deal count – indicating that deal sizes continued to increase in 2021.

Of the top states for venture capital activity, California experienced an increase of 23 percent in total deals between 2019 and 2021 (from 4,250 to 5,211), New York 33 percent (from 1,572 to 2,091 deals), Massachusetts 30 percent (from 825 to 1075 deals), Washington 22 percent (from 450 to 549 deals), and Texas 14 percent (from 679 to 777 deals).. These states had the most venture capital activity by dollars invested in 2021.

Other states also saw large growth in total deal counts between 2019 and 2021, with Delaware experiencing  an increase of 97 percent (from 131 deals to 258 deals), Wyoming155 percent (from 11 to 28 deals), and West Virginia 400 percent (from 2 to 10 deals).

It is important to note that PitchBook actively identifies additional deals and updates their metrics accordingly. For example, the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q4 2020 reported 11,009 deals in 2020, while the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q4 2021 adjusted that number to 12,165 deals in 2020. New information has typically been biased towards smaller deals. Therefore, it is likely that the deal size for 2020 is roughly similar to that of 2019. The total number of deals in 2021 was already much higher than previous years, and it is likely to be even higher than currently reported once additional deals are identified.

More information on the Pitchbook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q4 2021 report can be found here.

venture capital