20 Most Active Late Funding Rounds Investors (Digital Media Industry)

Intro

In 2020, 87% of companies expected that “digital transformation will disrupt their industries” (Anyforsoft article). As time goes on, such expectations are proving to be real; moreover, the impact of digitalization on media is sometimes even underestimated. Different sectors of the Digital Media industry experience growth at different paces: for instance, video streaming rocketed up by 99% throughout 2019-2020, while music streaming gained more than 100 million users worldwide over the same time. Along with the mentioned sectors, professionals in the industry also deal with blogging platforms, podcasts, and online news portals, all of which help in delivering the digitized content to consumers through the Internet and various electronic devices.

When it comes to the startups in the Digital Media industry, it appears that they account for a significant share of the fundings across the globe. Of all Late funding rounds over the last 5 years, 366 rounds (2.3%) were performed in this industry. Out of this number, 86 were held by 20 most active VCs and corporate investors, all of them featured below:

20 Most Active Late Funding Rounds Investors (Digital Media Industry)
data provided by Unicorn Nest

Key takeaways

• Funds Geography – 14 most active Digital Media investors are located in the United States, particularly in New York, which hosts 6 funds. The rest of the listed VCs come from Eastern Asia, Western Europe, and North Africa and the Middle East, with the majority based in China, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Apart from New York, the funds’ popular cities of origin are Menlo Park, Shanghai, and Tel Aviv. Most frequently, the companies from the sample put money into the same country they were established in, so the leaders by sums of investments are the United States, with China and the UK following.
• Industry Focus – While focused on the Finance field, funds from the list contribute to projects in Entertainment, such as US-based Patreon, and Business Development. Lastly, some of them also commit to Telecommunications startups.
• Important Years – Goldman Sachs, the oldest corporate investor from the sample, was established in 1869. Another important year is 2012 since it is the foundation year of Qumra Capital, the newest company among the top 20. Three companies were formed in 2009. From 2000 to 2020, funds from the list had the greatest number of deals, with 2019 being especially fruitful for several of them. Successful exits mostly happened over the 2006-2021 period; some firms experienced the peak of exits in 2014.
• Investments – With equal frequency, funds participate either in 2 or in 24 rounds per year. Having participated in 951 rounds, Andreessen Horowitz is the company with the maximum funding rounds in their profile, while the minimum number is 19. On average, every fund invested 291.5 times. For lead investments, the highest number is 276, the lowest – 5, and the average value is almost three times lower than that for non-leading ones, only 85.2. Medians for the two mentioned types of investments are 145.5 for the former and 49.5 for the latter. Most commonly, the sampled firms acted as lead investors 27 times. The difference between lead investments and the average falls between -33.75 and 12.87 percentage points. Both its average value (-7.31) and the median (-7.71) are negative, which indicates that some funds choose to lead the rounds less often than the others from the chart.
• Typical Rounds – For the described investors, rounds usually have 4-5 partakers and an average size of 10-50 million US dollars. Less often, the funds choose to participate with 3 or 4 investors and issue volumes of up to $100M. Most commonly, the multiplicator for portfolio companies measured in the last known valuation equals zero, but its average value is 114385000.49. At maximum, this indicator reaches 1186000000.0 and has a median of 0.5.

Overall, the most active late funding rounds investors are located in several regions globally, with the majority coming from the United States, less commonly – from China, the UK, and Israel. The amount of money per round can reach up to $100M, and up to 5 investors can be participating. The investments usually occur 2 or 24 times yearly and are mainly aimed at the Finance field, after which go Entertainment, Business Development, and Telecommunications spheres.