Brent: If Austin’s equity funding has felt a little dry so far this year, here’s why: The amount of money invested in Austin area startups dropped nearly 25% year-over-year in Q1 this year, a new MoneyTree report by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association shows. That’s a drop from $251M in Q1 2016 to $188.9M this year, the ABJ reported. Meanwhile, the number of deals were essentially flat year-over-year.
So, time to run from the hills to the valley? Probably not. Funding has slowed nationwide following an all-out frenzy of activity in 2015 and 2016. As the economists say, we’re entering a period of normalization where investors are exercising a bit more caution. And Austin has a few promising new funds coming online. The trick is, there’s a helluva a lot of strong startups vying for a piece of the local cash.
It’s also worth noting that startup investment data is all over the place. Some reports, like this one, count money startups have received. Others count how much as been committed, even if it hasn’t flowed to the company yet. And not all investments are visible to the public. The MoneyTree report, for example, doesn’t include money committed through accelerator programs (unless it’s follow-on investment). |
