Dry powder up for VC, down for PE

Also: Public PE firms remain optimistic; Foodtech funding falls as VC's appetite for dealmaking diminishes; More charts and data on US VC valuations..
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The Research Pitch
August 20, 2022
More data! Our new US VC Valuations Report features 47 charts covering the key trends in venture deal terms. But did you know you also have access to the underlying data? Our XLS data file contains 160+ charts plus more historical data than you see in the report—and it's available for free!

Sneak peek: Our Q2 Emerging Tech Indicator will be widely released Monday, but you can get a look now at where top-performing VC investors are placing their early-stage bets. Hint: Web3 & DeFi are still popular. Get it here.

New rankings: Who was most active in Q2 across the private markets? Our new Global League Tables break down the top investors by region, industry, deal type and more, along with rankings for advisers, acquirers and law firms. Check them out.
 
What dry powder levels mean for investors in a changing market
This quarter, we changed the name of the Private Fund Strategies Report to the Global Private Market Fundraising Report—or the Fundraising report for short—because that is the primary data provided.

It's the complement to our Global Fund Performance Report, which is, as you might imagine, about the performance of funds.

In this iteration of the report, we included a spotlight on dry powder.

The markets may be under stress, but if there's a lot of committed-but-uncalled capital seeking investable opportunities, that can provide significant support to asset prices—especially if GPs facing increasing interest rates (i.e., more expensive leverage) and an uncertain economy crowd into what are perceived as higher quality firms where bidding wars may occur in the interest of accepting moderate returns to avoid big losses.
 
$3.2T in dry powder is down from $3.7T in 2020.

Dry powder is actually down across private capital funds as a whole, though VC bucked the trend, inching up to $562.4 billion.

While PE has $1.2 trillion, that is off the 2020 high of $1.5 trillion.

Given the inflation figures that began to alarm in the back half of 2021, we expected that real estate, real assets, and private debt would be seeing more LP commitments on the margin.

While this did hold true for infrastructure funds within real assets—on pace for a record-setting year in the wake of the late 2021 US infrastructure law—real estate and private debt are not seeing a significant uptick in flows thus far in 2022.

The occurrence of rapidly increasing interest rates may have spooked investors in those areas, despite the potential inflation protection that comes from those strategies.

As always, we caveat that our data collection efforts do tend to identify large funds more quickly in a quarter, so the commitments and fund numbers we show for a particular quarter will continue to increase over time, especially for small and emerging fund managers.

It may appear that average fund sizes are suddenly exploding, but this is a conclusion that should only be accepted as true after several more quarters have passed.

For more data and analysis, download our latest Global Private Market Fundraising Report.
 
Best,

Hilary Wiek, CFA, CAIA
Lead Analyst, Fund Strategies & Sustainable Investing
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Thematic Research  

Q2 Key Takeaways and Benchmarking for Blackstone and US Public PE Firms

Publicly traded PE firms remained optimistic in their Q2 earnings calls, with a majority emphasizing fundraising and capital deployment efforts.

As inflation rises and firms grapple with economic headwinds, demand has increased considerably for inflation-protecting strategies including floating-rate corporate credit, real estate and infrastructure.

Key takeaways from our new research:
  • Public PE firms are likely to see more chances to make domestic and international platform acquisitions, given the strong US dollar and slowing economy.

  • Q2 reinforced that deal activity and portfolio realizations are likely to be modestly lower, fundraising from LPs may be somewhat slower, and buyout-fund competition should remain elevated.

  • These firms continue to add asset product lines—PE, real estate, credit, infrastructure, insurance and retail—to diversify and grow revenue.
read the free research
 
 
Emerging Tech Research  
 
Foodtech funding has fallen as VC's appetite for dealmaking diminishes.

Global startups within the vertical raised $5.6 billion across 275 deals in Q2—representing quarter-over-quarter drops of 21.5% and 32.8%, respectively.

There was, however, a rise in exits—particularly acquisitions—as the market volatility that impacted fundraising efforts has also boosted buying opportunities for strategic acquirers.

Our Q2 Foodtech Report provides a detailed look at the landscape, updating our core datasets and exploring industry opportunities like ghost kitchens and molecular ingredients:
read a free preview
 
 
Market Updates  
 
Despite falling public tech stocks and a bleak market outlook, European VC valuations still paced above last year's figures through the first half of the year.

Our Q2 European VC Valuations Report explores how deal terms fared across stages, sectors and geographies, and what current market conditions may mean for the future. Key takeaways include:
  • Early-stage European valuations remained relatively insulated from public market volatility, currently pacing 34.1% higher than in 2021.

  • The number of down rounds ticked upward slightly to stand at 15.4% of deals closed in H1.

  • The total worth of European unicorns grew 35%, mostly due to strong dealmaking in Q1.

  • A significantly quieter IPO market has seen public listing exit valuations drop by 57% from 2021's total.
get the free report
 
 
Webinars & Events  
How is US venture activity pacing so far this year?

What does an enormous amount of capital supply, but also a closed window for public listings, mean for the rest of 2022?

Our always-popular quarterly Venture Monitor webinar featured discussions on many key trends within the VC industry, with insights from our analysts and professionals from Insperity and J.P. Morgan: watch the free replay
  • Aug. 24: Want actionable guidance on how to navigate ESG efforts? Hosted by Venture Forward, NVCA, PitchBook, and the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, this educational workshop in San Francisco focuses on practical strategies to help investors. More details here.
 
In the News  

Our insights and data featured in the press:
  • "The market downturn has coincided with AI platform companies, including some of the largest ones, missing their revenue expectations, and demonstrating that AI across enterprise isn't producing high growth yet. That's forcing a reevaluation of some of those business models." [Emerging Tech Brew]

  • The venture slowdown finally hit early-stage valuations. [TechCrunch+]

  • US investment in neurotech bottomed out at $1.3 million in 2014. In 2017 it spiked to $171 million, and last year it hit $378 million. [Business Insider]

  • European VC valuations have defied the downturn. For now. [Private Equity News]

  • Foodtech funding dropped 21.5% in Q2, but the alt-protein subsector has proven resilient. [The Spoon]
If you're a journalist interested in interviewing our analysts or requesting data, contact our PR team.
 
ICYMI  
Highlights from our other recent research:

Market updates
Thematic research
Emerging Technology Research
Coming next week (subject to change)
  • Emerging Tech Indicator (sneak peek!)
  • Quantitative Perspectives: Venture Capital
  • Vertical Snapshot: Metaverse (client-only)
 

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