The third quarter of 2021 is ending in some way. Instead of being a time for family, friends, and fun, the COVID era dragged on in many areas of the world, leaving us mostly working from home and making more phone calls than spontaneous brunches. Alas. COVID and its effects, on the other hand, have shown to be appealing times for both startup financing and growth in the previous several quarters. For example, significant quantities of private cash dispersed throughout the world in the second quarter, partly because of underlying startup performance and partly because of low-cost financing augmenting venture coffers.
With the third quarter ending, The Exchange is getting ready to take a deep dive into global venture capital results. To begin, we are going to ask a series of questions: We want to know how good Europe’s third quarter was and if it can repeat its previous — outstanding — fundraising performance. In the aftermath of a slew of legislative reforms, we are curious about what is going on in China’s venture capital sector.
We also want to know if the United States maintaining its position as the world’s leading venture capital market, and where capital is moving most freely in the country. In addition, we would like to know where in Latin America we are seeing the most fundraising acceleration, as well as how significant mega-rounds are in recent worldwide totals; are huge deals still setting the tone for global venture totals? Today, we will take a quick look at each question ahead of what we expect to be a lengthy, multipart analysis of the data after Q3 concludes later this week.
Our first question for Europe is whether it was able to repeat its outstanding Q2 performance. There is evidence that it may have, as France recently celebrated the “one billion euros raised in one day,” a seemingly random but no less important milestone. We believe these acquisitions disclosed so close together because none of the firms involved wanted to miss the limelight after raising record amounts – $555 million for marketplace platform Mirakl, $680 million for fantasy sports startup Sorare, and $209 million for Vestiaire Collective.
We will probably check at if this has anything to do with Brexit as a follow-up: Is capital just rerouting away from the United Kingdom? We have a feeling it is not, since we are still hearing about a lot of activity in London and elsewhere. However, cash that may have continued to flow in that direction may now be diverted to other parts of Europe, so we will look at how widely it spread, as well as what is going on with Euronext in terms of tech IPOs.
China’s technological environment has been reshaped recent regulatory changes. Tech behemoths have brought to heel, and regulation changes in edtech, social media, gaming, and other fields have shook both the tech industry and the rest of the country. Despite this, it is not difficult to locate the material that discusses the new set of laws’ potential positive influence on China’s economy.
