15 Biggest VC Companies in the World
In this article, we are going to list the 15 biggest VC companies in the world. You can skip our detailed discussion about the changing trends in the venture capital world and go directly to 5 Biggest VC Companies in the World.
Venture capitalists invest in promising startups that have a potential to grow and expand. The VC-backed companies get money from investors and funnel them into their products. Did you know that most of the innovative companies of today are funded by these VC firms? Facebook, Google, PayPal, eBay, Airbnb — all received money from VCs and returned exponential returns in a few years.
The VC industry has changed dramatically over the last few years. In the early '80s, most VC companies heavily invested in the energy industry. In recent years, technologies such as IoT, blockchain, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) have seen significant growth in popularity and innovation. As a result venture capitalists are pouring money into futuristic technologies like AI and IoT. Data shows that AI startups collected a whopping $9.3 billion from VCs in 2018 alone.
According to Tech Crunch, the global venture capital investment market size is currently valued at more than $300 billion. Surprisingly, 2020 has been a great year for startups and small companies despite the emergence of COVID-19. The growth of certain industries such as healthcare, business, finance, education, entertainment, and retail has been directly impacted but the pandemic also transformed these sectors. Online shopping and work-from-home trends created a boom for the tech industry, e-commerce, infrastructure, and could services companies.
According to a Pitchbook report, VC dealmaking was upbeat in 2020 with companies raising around $148 billion as of Dec. 14, 2020. Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB) and DoorDash (NYSE:DASH) were the two most valuable and important venture-backed companies that came to the public markets via IPOs in 2020. Airbnb went public at a valuation of $47 billion and as of today, it is trading at close to over $100 billion. DoorDash has gone public at $39 billion and is now more than 50% higher.
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To give you the most accurate ranking of the biggest VC companies in the world, we measured the Investment to Exit Ratio of each company. The higher the ratio, the better a VC firm is. An Investment to Exit Ratio of is 1 is bad as it shows a “no growth” scenario, meaning the VC is making one investment for every exit. When the ratio is above 1, the VC is a net acquirer of portfolio companies. We included the updated number of investments and the total number of all investments and exits of each company, sourced from CrunchBase. We have ranked the VC companies mainly on the basis of the Investment to Exit Ratio.
Let's start our list of 15 biggest VC companies in the world.
15. Global Founders Capital
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 90
Total Number of Investments: 448
Total Exits: 41
Investment to Exit Ratio: 9.15%
Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
Based in Berlin, Global Founders Capital was founded in 2013. It has been a global player in the VC industry, investing in companies operating in retail, fintech, internet, information technology, and communication sectors.
GFC's portfolio includes a total fund amounting to $34.2 billion with a total of 8 IPOs with a valuation of $137.9 billion.
Image by aymane jdidi from Pixabay
14. Sequoia Capital (China)
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 76
Total Number of Investments: 632
Total Exits: 77
Investment to Exit Ratio: 12.18%
Headquarters: Beijing, China
One of the most active of 15 biggest VC companies in the world is China's is Sequoia Capital. The company primarily focuses on seed, mid, late-stage, and growth investments in the financial technology sector. The Chinese VC firm seeks to invest in agricultural production, distribution, B2B, education, retail, energy, healthcare, and technology sectors.
Klook, a global travel services booking platform, is one of the notable companies funded by Sequoia Capital China. The company also back-funded the on-demand delivery service, Lalamove, and TikTok-owner ByteDance. The firm's portfolio includes total funding amounting to $124.6 billion with 60 IPOs with a total valuation of $171.8 billion.
13. Khosla Ventures
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 71
Total Number of Investments: 853
Total Exits: 116
Investment to Exit Ratio: 13.60%
Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that concentrates on environmentally-friendly technology, the internet, computing, mobile, and silicon technology. Khosla Ventures aims to invest in financial services, health, big data, agriculture and food, sustainable energy and robotics, and cleantech industries.
Khosla Ventures is one of the VC companies that raised funds for Square (NYSE:SQ). Among popular exits of Khosla Ventures are Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) and Big Switch Network.
Adam Gregor/Shutterstock.com
12. Greycroft
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 79
Total Number of Investments: 606
Total Exits: 89
Investment to Exit Ratio: 14.69%
Headquarters: New York, NY
One of the 15 biggest VC companies in the world is the New York-based Greycroft. The VC firm that was founded in 2006 and invests in companies operating in AI, data, fintech, healthcare, enterprise software, gaming, and publishing sectors. Greycroft favors technology start-ups and investments in the Internet and mobile markets. Among the brands in its portfolio are the freight forwarding business RealReal Inc (NASDAQ:REAL) and the Bumble dating site, which is reportedly geared towards an IPO value of between $6 billion and $8 billion.
Greycroft's portfolio includes a $15.9 billion total funding amount with 2 IPOs with a total value of $1.7 billion.
Pixabay/Public Domain
11. Tiger Global Management
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 76
Total Number of Investments: 489
Total Exits: 74
Investment to Exit Ratio: 15.13%
Headquarters: New York, NY
Tiger Global is an investment firm focusing on public and private companies in the global Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries. The VC giant backed Airbnb Inc's (NASDAQ:ABNB). Among its exits were Sumo Logic's (NASDAQ:SUMO) IPO and Postmates' merger.
Chase Coleman of Tiger Global
10. GGV Capital
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 66
Total Number of Investments: 664
Total Exits: 104
Investment to Exit Ratio: 15.66%
Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
GGV Capital is one of the world's biggest VC companies in the world that invests in mobile, cloud, e-commerce, and media sectors. Among its successful exits through IPOs of e-commerce platforms such as Poshmark (NASDAQ:POSH) and ContextLogic Inc (NASDAQ:WISH) and the fintech company, Affirm Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:AFRM) with a total valuation of $26.6 billion.
9. Andreessen Horowitz
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 91
Total Number of Investments: 879
Total Exits: 145
Investment to Exit Ratio: 16.50%
Headquarters: Menlo Par, CA
Andreessen Horowitz was launched by famous entrepreneurs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in 2009 with $300 million. The VC now has $2.7 billion under management. The company is investing from seed to growth in the consumer, business, biotechnology, healthcare, cryptocurrency, fintech, and technology sectors.
One of its recent exits is Asana Inc (NYSE:ASAN), a web and mobile team-based work management company valued at $3.99 billion at its IPO in 2020.
8. General Catalyst
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 83
Total Number of Investments: 777
Total Exits: 135
Investment to Exit Ratio: 17.37%
Headquarters: Cambridge, MA
General Catalyst ranks 6th on our list of 15 biggest VC companies in the world. It is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage and growth-stage operating in sectors of technology, software, big data, and transportation. The prominent VC firm's most notable exits are Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) with a valuation of $3.4 billion and HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS).
7. Lightspeed Venture Partners
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 89
Total Number of Investments: 889
Total Exits: 173
Investment to Exit Ratio: 19.46%
Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
Ranking 7th on our list of 15 biggest VC companies in the world is Lightspeed Venture Partners, which was founded in 2000 and is actively investing in consumer, business, technology, and clean technology markets.
Among its recent acquisitions are the data solutions company, Gainsight Inc, EverString and software company Qubole.
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6. Accel
Number of Portfolio Investments in 2020: 114
Total Number of Investments: 1514
Total Exits: 306
Investment to Exit Ratio: 20.21%
Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA
Founded in 1983, Accel is headquartered in California and has established operations in London, China, and India. Accel was the most active VC company in 2020 with 114 investments. The VC company invests primarily in consumer software, mobile technology, enterprise software, and the internet.
Among its most successful investments are Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Animoca Brands, and cybersecurity tech firm, Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD).
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Disclosure: No position. 15 biggest VC companies in the world is originally published at Insider Monkey.
