Dashboard: M&A, IPOs soar in March, thanks to unicorn exits

All the indices were up in March, with venture-backed M&A and IPOs soaring the most. Acquisitions were led by Cisco‘s purchase of the unicorn Appdynamics, the sale of which was announced in January and closed in March.

On the IPO front, Snap‘s debut accounted for about 92 percent of the month’s value with its early March public offering raising $3.4 billion.

Fundraising (value up 50%)

Fundraising for U.S.-based venture firms rose in March, totaling $2.11 billion compared with February’s $1.4 billion. Spark Capital was raised the most, collecting $586 million for its second growth fund. Lux Capital came in second, pooling $400 million for its fifth venture fund.

Deals (value up 186%)

Deal value nearly tripled from February to March, jumping to $6 billion from just over $2.1 billion. The deal count also surged, up to 349 in March, compared with 209 the month before. The top U.S.-based venture deal of the month was for early cancer screening startup Grail, which raised $900 million from ARCH Venture Partners and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp.

M&A (value up 254%)

Venture-backed M&A more than tripled from February to March, rising to $3.96 billion from $1.12 billion. A total of 24 companies backed by U.S. venture firms were acquired, with six disclosing their financials. The top deal was Appdynamics’s sale to Cisco Systems for $3.7 billion.

IPO (value up n/a)

There were three venture-backed IPOs in March, for total proceeds of more than $3.7 billion, compared with no IPOs and zero proceeds in February. Snap, the owner of the Snapchat app, led the way in March, raising $3.4 billion in its debut.

Based on data from Thomson Reuters

Photo of a businesswoman drawing a growth chart courtesy of Manuel-F-O/iStock/Getty Images

Green arrows design by Janet Yuen for VCJ