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Corporate VCs set 16-year investing record this year

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Corporate buildings are seen in the financial district in Toronto, January 28, 2013. Moody's Investors Service has cut the ratings of six Canadian financial institutions, including the previously "Aaa" rated Toronto-Dominion Bank, due to concerns about rising consumer debt and high housing prices. TD, the only publicly traded bank that still carried Moody's top rating, was downgraded, along with Bank of Nova Scotia , Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bank of Montreal, National Bank of Canada and Caisse Central Desjardins, Canada's largest association of credit unions, Moody's said on Monday. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

Corporate venture capitalists have remained surprisingly active in 2016 with their share of dollars going into U.S. startups hitting a 16-year record.

However, overall investing is down from a free-spending 2015. Through the first three-quarters of 2016, corporate investors put $5.2 billion to work with U.S. companies, a 20 percent drop from the first nine months of 2015, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

That parallels an overall 19 percent drop in venture dollars targeting U.S.-based startups from all sources.

But corporate investors accounted for 13.5 percent of venture dollars invested this year through September, topping last year’s 13 percent, according to the Thomson Reuters data. In 2000, the all-time annual record, 14.6 percent of venture dollars came from corporate investors.

Through the third quarter of 2016, 657 deals were funded by CVCs with an average deal size of $7.8 million. Both figures are down from 2015.

Top deals with corporate participation this year include Lyft’s $1 billion round, Magic Leap’s $793.5 million round, Oscar Health Insurance’s $400 million raise, Human Longevity’s $220 million round and Slack Technologies’ $200 million investment.

Downloadable Data in Excel: all-deals-with-corporate-participation-2016

Downloadable Data in Excel: corporate-venture-investing-by-year

Photo of corporate buildings courtesy of Reuters/Mark BlinchÂ