August Monthly Recap: Finally A Summer Slowdown, After A Blockbuster Couple Of Months

After a couple of blockbuster months, funding in August 2021 has slowed with a total of $49 billion invested on a global basis. Year-over-year funding is up over 100 percent with this past month tracking at the fifth-highest funding month recorded in the past two years.

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We count 75 companies that raised funding with a disclosed valuation at $1 billion or more in the past month, compared to 22 companies in August 2020.

Of these companies, 42 are new to the unicorn board.

Databricks and Chime, both San Francisco-based, and Istanbul-headquartered Trendyol raised the largest amounts at the highest valuations this past month. Reddit and Talkdesk, also San Francisco-headquartered, each raised funding at a $10 billion valuation.

Currently 47 companies on the Crunchbase Unicorn Board are valued at or above $10 billion, with many eyeing the public markets over the next 12 to 24 months.

Liquidity

IPO market debuts also slowed down in August. The most highly valued debuts were for London-based car marketplace Cazoo, valued at $8 billion on the NYSE via a SPAC merger, and Indonesia-based e-commerce shopping platform Bukalapak valued at $6 billion on the IDX exchange.

Mergers and acquisitions continued at a strong pace in August 2021, however, with Mumbai-based digital payments provider Billdesk purchased by PayU. Headspace and Ginger merged to become a global online mental health service valued at $3 billion. And virtual reality company Pico Interactive was acquired by TikTok owner ByteDance for $775 million.

Looking forward

Renaissance Capital expects a busy IPO season post the August lull in the U.S., given the number of companies that have filed. But not as busy as the pace earlier this summer.

We anticipate an active mergers and acquisitions environment through the end of the year by public companies, but also by highly valued private companies. Private companies are well capitalized to join the fray, with $31.8 billion invested in mega-funding rounds of $100 million or more, representing 65 percent of the capital invested this past month.

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Funding & Exits

Unicorn queries

Methodology

Funding rounds included in this report are seed, angel, venture, corporate-venture and private-equity rounds in venture-backed companies. This reflects data in Crunchbase as of Sept. 7, 2021.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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