Venture megadeals keep a slower pace this year

Megadeals in the United States continue at a slower pace this year, according to a recent study of venture investment activity.

This may sound odd in a year when Uber Technologies raised $3.5 billion and Snapchat added $1.27 billion to its bank account in spring transactions.

But only 10 megadeals of $100 million or more took place during the third quarter, down by more than half from 27 in Q3 2015, according to the MoneyTree Report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Thomson Reuters. In the second quarter, just 12 megadeals were done, despite the Uber and Snapchat fundings, the study found.

The retreat comes as venture investing overall has pulled back from 2015’s torrid pace. The MoneyTree Report found that $10.6 billion went to U.S. startups in the third quarter, down 37 percent from a year earlier. The deal total through the nine months maintained a bit more than 80 percent of what it was in the year-earlier period.

The reversal probably is no surprise to software investors, who saw just one megadeal during the third quarter. Biotechnology investors saw three.

Among the top deals of the three-month period were Airbnb’s raise of $555.5 million, Solar Mosaic’s round of $222 million and FreshDirect’s funding of $189 million, the report shows.

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