Startup Talk: 2015 Venture Capital Market Up 11% Through 3Q Compared To 2014
by October 22, 2015 5:28 am 165 views
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2015 VENTURE CAPITAL MARKET UP 11% THROUGH 3Q COMPARED TO 2014: Market concerns about China, interest rates, and a tech bubble did nothing to abate the pace of investment into venture capital (VC)-backed companies in Q3 2015, according to Venture Pulse, the quarterly global report on VC trends published jointly by KPMG International and CB Insights. The latest quarter saw $37.6 billion invested across 1,799 deals marking another multi-year high for quarterly funding.
According to the Q3 2015 report, the first nine months of 2015 saw $98.4 billion invested into VC-backed companies, an 11% jump compared to all of 2014, which was a record year for VC-backed investment. The nine-month period also saw a 100% jump compared to all of 2013, which accounted for $49.3 billion invested. To view highlights of the report, click here.
VERIZON, ATT ANNOUNCE 3Q RESULTS THIS WEEK, PLOT OUT VIDEO STRATEGY: Investors will get fresh insight into old telecom’s new media strategies when Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. report quarterly results this week. The two companies have long resembled each other — having common heritage in Alexander Graham Bell and the old Ma Bell monopoly — but they are on different paths to find growth in the video business, according to a weekend article by the Wall Street Journal.
AT&T made a bet on television with its $49 billion purchase of DirecTV in July that vaulted it to become the largest pay-TV company in the U.S. Verizon is building out a mobile video service, costing at least a few hundred million dollars, called go90 to target millennials.
ECOMMERCE PAYMENT FIRM FIRST DATA IPO RAISES $2.8 BILLION, SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS: Payment technology firm First Data Corp. kicked off the largest initial public offering in 2015 last week, raising $2.8 billion in gross proceeds after the newly public company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Oct. 15 under the ticker symbol “FDC.
At the close of business Friday, First Data’s stock was trading at $16 per share, well below the $19 a share the New York-based tech firm’s evaluation showed in its Securities and Exchange Commission filing. First Data was spun off from American Express in 1992, and Wall Street investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts took the company private five years later.
MAINSTREAM TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES NEW HIRE FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT UNIT: Little Rock-based Mainstream Technologies has announced the hiring of Clay Null to its software development unit. His responsibilities will involve translating client concepts into code. Null joins Mainstream Technologies from Dillard’s where he spent more than 17 years as a software developer in the department store chain’s Store Systems Group. A Little Rock native, Null has a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems from Mississippi State University.