First-time VC funds rebounded in 2021 after a major dip in 2020. PitchBook reports that inaugural funds in North America raised a total of $14.5B last year over 207 vehicles, while 56 European funds pulled together a total of $5.776B for their maiden vehicles. The average North America-based maiden fund had $85.76M in capital commitments, while the average European fund collected $112.92M. More: - The median and average North American first-time VC fund sizes were 40.7% and 61.7% higher in 2021 than they were in 2020, respectively, in line with recent pre-pandemic years.
- The same figures in Europe reached record highs in 2021 after a sharp decline in 2020, growing by 115% and 90% YoY, respectively.
- 2021's haul set a record for North American first-fund, while it was only the third-highest amount for European funds since 2012.
- Interestingly, while the total dollars grew from 2020 to 2021, the number of greenhorn vehicles actually declined from 233 in the U.S. and 98 in Europe in 2020.
- The total funding volume was, respectively, $8.9B and $3.7B in 2020.
- San Francisco's Paradigm One Fund was the largest North American VC fund to close, with $2.5B. Paris-based Jeito I was the largest European VC fund, raising $630M.
- While the decline in first-time funds was fairly marked in VC, fresh PE vehicles held steady as a proportion of total PE fundraising.
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Orlando-based fintech startup Stax announced a $245M Series D investment from Blue Star, Harbourvest, and Greater Sum Ventures at a unicorn valuation. CEO and co-founder Sal Rehmetullah noted that the startup is now technically the first unicorn to hail from Orlando. More: - Rehmetullah also reported that the company tripled its valuation since its last round, a $10.5M Series C led by Fulcrum Equity Partners.
- Ultimately, Stax’s goal is to take on Stripe in the business payments market. It also has aspirations to make it to public markets.
- Stax offers a flat-fee subscription-based platform for processing business payments, which sets it apart from traditional enterprise payment systems that tend to take a percentage of each transaction.
- It claims to have already processed $23B in transactions and is partnered with 22,000 businesses.
- The 2014-founded company already has three acquisitions, including automated surcharging platform CardX, which it absorbed last November.
The wider lens: - Beyond hailing from central Florida, Stax is notable for being one of the 12% of unicorns that were female-founded or -co-founded.
- According to a report published by consultancy Bain & Co., it will take 30 years to reach gender equality at the senior management level of finance.
- Women held 32% of these roles in 2020, up just 1% over two years.
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 A message from STRV Creating your own digital product is exhilarating, terrifying, and a million other things. But whatever you'll experience — we've been there. We can help. We are STRV, a design and engineering team that's partnered with Barry’s, ClassDojo, Microsoft, Autodesk and hundreds of others. Since 2004, we’re proud to have earned the reputation of a global leader in the world of mobile apps, software products and data science solutions. You’ll find a more elegant (and fun) intro to us in our 2022 showreel and on our new web. The reason we bring up our 18-year history is to highlight not just who we are, but how we got here. That crazy founder journey? We've been through it, and we respect the hell out of it. As far as we're concerned, helping others with their own new beginnings is the most meaningful way to do our experience and craft justice. A bit about STRV: See what we can do
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New data puts paid to the narrative of tech workers abandoning coastal hubs, showing instead a slightly accelerated expansion to nine "rising star" cities. These municipalities, including Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Orlando, San Diego, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City, had already seen their share of tech jobs grow on average 3% annually from 2015 to 2019. Their attractiveness stemmed from proximity to large universities and an abundance of highly educated technical workers. More: - The tech sector grew by 47% in the 2010s. The last five years of that decade saw almost half of the tech job creation occur in eight "superstar" metros: San Jose, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, and Austin.
- By the end of the decade, those eight cities comprised 38.2% of tech jobs.
- In 2020, the pandemic's first year, both superstars and rising stars added tech jobs and slightly increased their overall share.
- The rate of growth did, however, slow from about 5% pre-pandemic to 2.9% in 2020.
- Instead, 36 other cities have notched stronger tech job growth than before the pandemic.
- They included northern business centers like Philadelphia and Minneapolis, large southern cities like Charlotte, big university cities like Chapel Hill, N.C., and vacation centers like Virginia Beach.
- Santa Barbara, Calif., and Barnstable, Mass., saw job growth surge by more than 6%, while college towns such as Boulder, Colo., and Lincoln, Neb., grew by more than 3%.
- Recent data showed that the average U.S. tech worker currently works 2.7 days a week from home, suggesting that hybrid models are predominating. How this will affect locational preferences is less intuitive than once thought.
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Edly, a private student loan platform offering income-based repayment (IBR), raised $175M in future flow financing commitments. The capital comes from fund managers Medalist Partners and Windmuehle Funds. The New York-based company had raised a mere $3M in several seed rounds before today’s financing. More: - The funds are both intended to be distributed as loans to students and as a direct investment into Edly itself. The exact ratio was not made public.
- Edly, which claims to be the only private lender operating in the student IBR sector, has funded more than 4,000 students since its launch in 2019.
- It is available to students at more than 1,800 U.S. colleges and universities.
- Its IBR loans are unsecured personal student loans originated by FinWise Bank, a Utah-chartered commercial bank that was founded in 2000.
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 Today's Funding 💸 Adtech/Martech - Gumball (New York, N.Y.), provider of advanced advertising technology solutions: $10M A led by Union Square Ventures, Good Friends, participation from Craft Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners, Animal Capital, Calm Ventures, et al.
Biotech/Health - Vivante Health (Houston, Texas), all-in-one gut health program: $16M A led by 7wireVentures, participation from Human Capital, Intermountain Ventures, SemperVirens, Elements Health Ventures, et al.
Blockchain - Upstream (Miami, Fla.), no-code platform where anyone can start and run their own DAO: ...
Want to read about all of today’s funding in one place? The funding roundup is only available to free users on Mondays and Fridays. Upgrade to Inside VC Premium for either $10/month, or $100 billed annually, to receive the full list in every issue! For a limited time, we are offering a 14-day free trial. Click here to sign up! | | | |
Quick Hits - The Path to AI Maturity provides insights from the C-suite on current levels of AI investment, priorities by stage of AI maturity, and more.*
- Contrary Capital raised $75M for its oversubscribed third fund. The firm has a global approach to investing.
- Games Global, founded just last year to supply the online gaming industry, will merge with SPAC Tailwind International Acquisition Corp. at a $3B valuation. The deal will provide Games with at least $345M in fresh capital, not including potential PIPE.
- Public, an investment app with a crypto facet, has acquired Otis, a platform to buy and trade fractional shares in individual alternative assets, for an undisclosed sum.
- Blockdaemon, a Blockchain infrastructure platform that raised $207M Series C earlier this year, will snap up crypto on-ramp company Gem for an undisclosed sum.
- Are you leaving revenue from payments processing on the table? Find out in our guide to payments for software companies.*
*This is a sponsored post.
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 |  | Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise spends his time trying his hand at recipes from India and Southeast Asia, escaping it all at the kickboxing gym, and offending aural sensibilities with his band. |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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