Research: more VC deals were struck around the world in 2019 than in any other year, though the total dollar volume of deals dropped slightly from 2018
Jason D. Rowley / Crunchbase News : Thanks: @bayareawriter
Context & Ripple Effects
2018 set a daunting bar: global VC investment topped $300B, up 55% YoY across more than 34,000 deals. Through 2019 the quarterly reports kept signaling a split — Q3 deal volume hit an all-time high on seed-stage growth while dollar volume plateaued, and the Q2 report flagged that 2019 was unlikely to exceed 2018's dollar highs.
The full-year data confirms the split: a record deal count worldwide, but total dollars slightly below 2018 — driven largely by a pullback in giant rounds, which the companion research shows fell from 467 rounds worth ~$148B in 2018 to 455 worth ~$108B in 2019.
First-order effects
- Seed-stage activity carried the record: more deals were struck worldwide in 2019 than ever, but the marginal deal was smaller, leaving total dollar volume a notch below 2018's peak.
- Late-stage players felt the squeeze most — the $100M+ round count and dollar total both contracted, cutting the mega-round share of capital from over 56% of 2018's volume toward 47%.
Second-order effects
- With mega-rounds cooling, capital dispersed toward earlier stages and smaller checks, pressuring funds that built 2018-sized deployment plans around $100M+ rounds to compete for a thinner late-stage pool.
- The divergence set up the next data point: US deal counts fell for a second straight year in 2020 even as funding hit a record $130B, showing dollars and deal counts moving in opposite directions across the cycle.
Third-order effects
- The 2019 pattern — breadth without depth — proved to be the trough before a violent snapback: global funding roughly doubled to $643B in 2021 with late-stage capturing the bulk, confirming that dollar volume, not deal count, is the volatile variable.
- Structurally, the market oscillates between a barbell of many small deals and a concentration of capital in fewer giant rounds; 2019's record count on flat dollars marks the breadth phase of that cycle.
The trend: Global venture capital is cycling between breadth years of record deal counts and concentration years dominated by $100M+ mega-rounds, with dollar volume swinging far harder than activity.