 According to PitchBook, 2021 saw a number of mega-deals ($1B+) with 107 completed. The annual deal value grew by 90.7% from 2020 to reach $335.1B from $175.8B. Mega-deals accounted for 32% of all U.S. PE deal activity. More: - The most noteworthy source of mega-deals were PE exits, which drove 64.6% of all U.S. PE exit value.
- These mega-exits came from 162 companies that generated an aggregate enterprise value of $479B.
- Of those, 75 debuted on public markets with a total of $255.4B in enterprise value. That figure is more than twice as high as during 2020.
- The top IPO came from KKR-backed AppLovin, which went public at a $26.8B valuation, the biggest software IPO in history.
- Mega-sales to corporations totaled 52 and represented $135.9B in enterprise value.
- IT brought in 18 such deals for a total of $56.2B, or 41.4% of all corporate mega-exit value.
- Of 2021’s SPAC exits, 11 were considered mega-exits and comprised $36B in enterprise value.
- While SPACs have started to fall out of favor for some companies and investors, SPAC IPOs raised over $200B on U.S. exchanges since 2020, with almost 600 SPACs currently seeking acquisitions.
- Another major driver was companies being taken private. 44 such deals took place during 2021, of which 25 were mega-deals. About half of those were for IT companies.
- The take-private deals amassed $116.3B of aggregate deal value.
- Club deals, which see PE firms combining forces to take on bigger targets, produced 33 mega-deals worth $142.3B in North America, largely driven by three healthcare deals.
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Indian debt marketplace CredAvenue raised $137M at a $1.3B valuation led by Insight Partners, B Capital Group, and Dragoneer. The company’s last funding round in September pegged its valuation at $410M, making the new figure a 200% increase. More: - Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed Venture Partners, TVS Capital, Lightrock, Vivriti Capital, and Indian fintech CRED have previously backed CredAvenue.
- The company has raised over $227M to date.
- The platform provides businesses with a way to secure and manage loan agreements throughout the entire credit lifecycle.
- CredAvenue has facilitated loans of over $10.5B to date, founder Gaurav Kumar said.
- Kumar also co-founded fintech Vivriti Capital.
- It claims to have over 2,300 corporates, 450 enterprises, and 750 lenders active on the platform.
- Companies need an ARR of at least $1.3B to access the platform.
The wider lens: - Kabir Narang, founding GP at B Capital Group, notes that the Indian debt market is still underserved at a total value of $1.9T.
- Debt is still under-penetrated in the country as a % of GDP at around 60%.
- In 2021, over $600M was raised by debt-focused companies, per market estimates.
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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: Explore our new website
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Best of Last Week M&A - Vendor-flexible data management platform Snowflake has acquired open-source data app dev platform Streamlit for $800M.
- Netflix is poised to scoop up Finnish mobile game developer Next Games for $72M (€65M).
- AppLovin, the mobile marketing platform provider, acquired ad-supported TV streaming service Wurl for $430M in a 55%-45% cash-stock split deal.
- Zip, Australia’s largest BNPL operator, acquired U.S.-based competitor Sezzle for $355M (A$491M).
- LinkedIn bought Oribi, an Israel-based marketing attribution tech provider, for a reported $80M-$90M.
- Rakuten Symphony, the telco-focused arm of Japan’s Rakuten Group, acquired Robin.io, provider of a Kubernetes platform optimized for storage solutions, for an undisclosed sum.
- Tier Mobility, the Berlin-based micro-mobility startup, will enter North America by acquiring competitor Spin from automaker Ford for an undisclosed sum.
- Epic Games has acquired Bandcamp for an undisclosed sum.
- Tel Aviv-based AI-powered transcription and captioning service Verbit has acquired Take Note, a U.K.-based transcription and note-taking service for the market research sector, for an undisclosed sum.
- Verisk will expand its presence in Canada with the acquisition of Opta, a property intelligence platform.
IPO/SPAC New Funds - Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund has secured over $5B in fresh capital commitments for two new funds. Divided between $1.9B for early-stage and $3.4B for growth-stage investments, the funding brought the firm’s total AUM to about $11B.
- Spark Capital raised a new $2.1B fund targeting both early- and growth-stage startups.
- Morgan Stanley announced the close of a $2B investment for its North Haven Capital Partners VII fund.
- Accel-KKR raised its Growth Capital Partners Fund IV with $1.35B.
- FTX, known for its crypto exchange and investment strategy, launched a $1B philanthropic fund.
- Electric Capital closed a $1B fund to invest in blockchain startups, crypto networks, and web3 companies.
- San Francisco-based Forerunner Ventures closed its Fund VI at $1B. With the latest fund, the firm will continue its strategy of investing in early-stage startups.
- Accel India raised $650M for its seventh fund to invest in Indian and Southeast Asian startups.
- M13 closed its third consumer tech-focused fund at $400M.
- Hiro Capital, which focuses on European early-stage gaming/metaverse startups, launched its second fund in three years with $340M (€300M).
- SV Angel has raised its first growth fund at $269M after making a name for itself through early bets on companies like Airbnb and Slack.
- Hack VC launched a $200M fund for seed-stage DeFi, web3 infrastructure, DAOs and their tooling, and NFT infrastructure.
- Fintop Capital received a $200M commitment toward its third VC fund round.
- Foresite Capital raised a $173M fund to invest in healthcare companies under its incubator program.
- SureValley Ventures announced a $130M (£95M) VC fund to drive investments into AI, metaverse, and cybersecurity startups.
- Serena Williams raised $111M for her early-stage venture capital firm Serena Ventures.
- Liquid 2 Ventures, known for its seed-stage investment strategy, closed its third flagship fund with $80M to deploy.
- New Zealand’s first operator-run fund, NZVC, has raised $10M of a $15M fund for a seed-to-Series A fund. It has already deployed $4M into 25 companies.
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TikTok stars and digital creators Charli and Dixie D’Amelio have formally launched a VC firm, 444 Capital, with $25M for its first fund. The sisters partnered with Doug Renert of Tandem Capital and producer Jeff Beacher of Beacher Media Group on the fund, which will focus on Series A+ startups with strong consumer brands. More: - Parents Marc and Heidi will also be involved in the fund, which will place special emphasis on backing startups with minority and woman founders.
- Jeff Beacher made contact with the D’Amelio family after working on several influencer campaigns featuring Charli and Dixie.
- Renert notes that Tandem’s plan to not raise a second fund removes any conflicts of interest he might have had.
- Several Tandem LPs have signed on to back 444’s first fund.
- Renert and Beacher will source deals using their networks and plan on using 444’s capital to co-invest in rounds led by other VCs.
- The firm plans to invest around $1M in 20 deals throughout the course of the year.
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 A message from SEEDINVEST Equity crowdfunding 101: A crash course for founders Maybe you’ve heard the term before, but what is equity crowdfunding and how do you know if it’s right for your company? A way to raise a round online, equity crowdfunding allows early and growth-stage companies to raise large sums of capital in small increments spread across many individual investors. How large a sum of capital are we talking about here? In 2020, the average community raise on SeedInvest was $3.3 million, and so far we’ve helped more than 250 companies launch successful raises spanning everything from six-figure seed rounds and top-ups to eight-figure Series B rounds. Who is this community I keep hearing so much about? The SeedInvest community is made up of more than 600,000 investors ready to throw their support behind the next game-changing innovation that ignites their curiosity. If you’d like to get the complete picture, check out our comprehensive guide to equity crowdfunding for founders. Get the Guide
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 Today's Funding 💸 Agtech - Captain Fresh (India), B2B marketplace for seafood: $50M C led by Prosus Ventures, Tiger Global.
Biotech/Health - Modulus Discovery (Japan/Boston), computation-driven drug discovery: $20M from Green Coinvest, et al.
- CancerIQ (Chicago, Ill.), cancer detection and prevention company: $14M B from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Amgen Ventures, participation from McKesson Ventures, OSF Ventures, HealthX Ventures.
Blockchain - SocialGood (Tokyo, Japan), app giving users cryptocurrency rewards for shopping: $14.2M A from Miyako Capital.
- Haruko (London, U.K.), platform to connect capital to the blockchains: $10M Seed led by Portage Ventures, White Star Capital.
Edtech - Discos (Toronto, Canada), platform for knowledge creators and organizations to build their live learning business: $15M A led by GSV Ventures.
- Legends of Learning (Washington, D.C.), educational game platform for K-12 students: $5M Seed led by Konvoy Ventures, participation from James Park, Holly Liu, Jeremy Liew, Kun Gao.
Enterprise - Sourcepass (New York, N.Y.), IT solutions for SMBs: $70M from Metropolitan Partners Group, Wedge Venture Partners.
- AssemblyAI (San Francisco, Calif.), audio intelligence API platform for content moderation: $28M led by Accel, participation from Y Combinator, John and Patrick Collison, et al.
- Level AI (Mountain View, Calif.), AI-driven customer service and experience technology platform: $20M A led by Battery Ventures, participation from ENIAC, Village Global.
- Legal.io (San Francisco, Calif.), enterprise marketplace for legal talent and technology: $11.6M A led by Tiger Global.
Fintech - Tabby (Dubai), BNPL platform: $54M B led by Sequoia Capital India, STV.
- Sweater (Boulder, Colo.), fully-managed venture capital fund that is open to everyday investors: $12M Seed led by Motivate VC, Akuna Capital, participation from Jeffrey Cruttenden, et al.
- SteadyPay (London, U.K.), personal finance platform for gig workers: $5M from Digital Horizon.
Proptech - Piñata (Newark, N.J.), rewards and credit building membership program for renters: $13M A led by Wilshire Lane Capital, participation from Ron Moelis, et al.
Did you enjoy reading 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 - More than half of U.S. organizations said they currently spend $1M to $50M on AI initiatives every year, while another 15% are spending $51M or more, according to LXT’s new executive report.*
- Swiss investment management firm Partners Group has acquired ERP software provider for SMEs Forterro from Battery Ventures at a value of $1.1B (€1B).
- E2open, a provider of an end-to-end supply chain management platform, acquired Logistyx Technologies, a global parcel and e-commerce shipping and fulfillment tech provider, for $185M.
- Los Angeles-based System1, an omnichannel customer acquisition platform, acquired NextGen Shopping’s CouponFollow, an NYC-based large coupon platform for online shoppers, for $115M.
- Microsoft completed its acquisition of conversational AI platform Nuance Communications for an undisclosed sum.
- Not getting what you need from your payments processing company? Maybe it’s time for a new one.*
*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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