Dashboard: VC-backed M&A heats up in December; IPOs remain cold

Fundraising (value down 48%)

U.S.-based venture firms raised $1.873 billion in December, which includes the $950 million raised by OrbiMed Advisors for its sixth fund, according to a VCJ analysis of the fundraising data from Thomson Reuters. However, that total value was off nearly 48 percent from the $3.38 billion raised in November, which includes the $2.5 billion in commitments raised by Tiger Global Management for its 10th fund. In addition to OrbiMed, U.S. Venture Partners raised $300 million for its 11th flagship fund in December.

Deals (value up 1.4%)

Venture deals stayed mostly static in the final month of the year, seeing its overall combined value increase by 1.4 percent from November to December.  This aggregate value went from $3.59 billion to $3.64 billion, with the deal count going from 253 to 307. The top deal of the month was Palantir Technologies Inc, a software and services company, which closed on nearly $430 million in equity.  Following that was the transportation networking business, Lyft, with almost $248 million in financing.

M&A (value up 119%)

Mergers and acquisitions went out with a bang. There were a total of 35 venture-backed, U.S.-based companies that were acquired in December. Of those, nine disclosed values that combined for a total of more than $3.05 billion, up from the nearly $1.4 billion in November. The top deal with a disclosed value from December was Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc, which Bristol-Myers Squibb bought for about $2.1 billion. It was also the largest VC-backed deal of the year. The second largest acquisition was Lancope Inc selling to Cisco Systems for $452.5 million, followed by Misfit Inc, which sold to Fossil Group Inc for $236 million.

IPO (proceeds down 9.4%)

For a second consecutive month, VC-backed IPOs took a step back, going from about $510 million in November to $462 million in November. The total count of U.S.-based, VC-backed companies that went public on the NYSE and Nasdaq also dropped from five to one. The lone VC-backed offering of the month was Atlassian, the Australian-based enterprise software company that was backed by T. Rowe Price and Accel Partners.

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