Let’s face it, if you’re an investor, you were probably priced out of these insanely large rounds. If you’re a founder, you’re swooning at the mere prospect of making such a statement. But no matter who you are, a lot can be gleaned from analyzing investment trends.
Looking at B rounds provides a nice balance between the somewhat predictable success stories of late-stage unicorns and the volatility of companies that just raised early-stage capital.
It’s hard to say what predictive power the Series B round has in determining a company’s ultimate value. Airbnb, for example, raised a massive $112 million Series B in 2011. Snapchat’s 2013 Series B was also notable, coming in at $80 million. But Palantir’s $10.52 million round in 2006 and even Uber’s $38 million round in 2011 would have failed to make our list. In 2011, Snapdeal, Flipboard and Dropbox all raised larger rounds. And, of course, things like this happen all the time.
This year’s fundraising skewed heavily toward companies in the biotech space, as could be expected. Other standouts like NextVR and Quanergy Systems are providing solutions that are critical to the growth of new product ecosystems — virtual reality and autonomous vehicles.
With that in mind, enjoy our countdown of 2016’s twelve largest Series B rounds, put together with the help of CrunchBase.
