Pitchbook: US VC firms are at record levels of late-stage funding with 102 startups receiving at least $50M in Q1 2018, totaling $16B
Eliot Brown / Wall Street Journal :
Context & Ripple Effects
Pitchbook's Q1 2018 count of 102 US startups raising at least $50M each — $16B in total — is an early marker of the mega-round cycle the firm itself would go on to track. The prior arc matters: non-tech corporates had already doubled their spending on VC-backed acquisitions to roughly $10B in 2016, giving big private companies a liquid exit alternative to IPOs and making ever-larger private checks rational.
What looked like a peak in 2018 turned out to be a floor. Pitchbook later recorded Q1 2021's $69B quarter surpassing the previous record set in Q4 2018, and by Q4 2024 investors were putting $74.6B into US startups with $32B concentrated in just five deals — the same late-stage-heavy pattern this Q1 2018 report first flagged.
First-order effects
- Late-stage founders gain leverage: with 102 companies clearing $50M in a single quarter, capital is abundant enough that top startups can raise at scale without going public, extending private stay times.
Second-order effects
- Non-tech acquirers, already spending ~$10B a year on VC-backed targets per Pitchbook's 2016 tally, face pricier buyouts as late-stage valuations inflate — pushing some to acquire earlier or compete via corporate venture arms.
Third-order effects
- If mega-rounds keep concentrating, fundraising consolidates around the largest funds — a dynamic Pitchbook later confirmed when it reported VCs raised $151B across just three quarters of 2022, concentrated among large funds like Sequoia and Lightspeed — leaving smaller firms squeezed out of late-stage deals.
The trend: US venture funding is cycling through progressively larger late-stage concentrations, with each record quarter resetting the baseline for how much capital pools into a handful of big checks.