A brief synopsis of venture capital events during the second quarter of 2024.
This period saw a rather significant shift in stability in certain sectors across all global regions along with a seemingly cautious optimism amongst those involved in pertinent activities.
Total investment rose slightly during this period compared to the previous quarter in 2023. This number was still significantly below that generated in 2021 and the early part of 2022. The trend seen was certainly one characterized by an air of caution and influenced by fewer exits along with increasing interest rates.
Investors have seemingly chosen to focus more on fundamentals as 2023 comes to a close. A rather significant decline was seen as compared to previous quarters, and the shift appears to be rather uniform across most of the sectors that we are involved with.
The global numbers are in and the total amount raised by companies amounted to a bit over $73 billion. This is down from the $85 billion that organizations put together during Q3 of the previous year, but the amount is up a bit from quarter two of 2023. Although the slight uptick may be welcome by many, it’s still important to note that the trend remains level if not still on a slight decline given the cash outlays viewed during the past year and a half.
The tallied marks for the second quarter of 2023 are in and, as expected, the amount of cash acquired by companies seeking assistance continues to follow the downward path. Approximately $65 billion was deposited in the coffers of about 6000 startups during this period which represents a considerable departure from Q2 of 2022 where 9500 organizations collected a total of $125 billion.
Seven years after beginning the process of manufacturing the Starliner at KSC and almost fifteen laps around the center orb since its announcement, Boeing has dropped yet one more shard in the socket of the commercial crew program. It turns out that some of the parachute chord they tossed in the machine has weaknesses that could be catastrophic. There’s also a small matter regarding protective tape that covers wiring harnesses.
Numbers have arrived for the most recent quarter and, to little surprise, overall Q1 2023 venture funding results have continued to follow a downward trend that started during the first quarter of 2022. Although two large exchanges occurred in the forms of OpenAi and Stripe, these were certainly the exception as drops were seen across the board including in the early-stage realm which has been somewhat resistant to general course inclinations.
Given the recent news about a number of large companies taking the culling machine to sizeable numbers of their employees it seemed like a good time to revisit one of the most important lessons many have learned during this type of market movement. Namely, this can be one of the best times to bring on additional headcount due to a number of factors.
The numbers are in for 2022 venture funding activities and, to little surprise, there was a bit of a drop-off from the record amounts distributed in the previous year. Approximately $450 billion were taken in by various entities across the globe in 2022 while the overall figure garnered in 2021 tallied about $680 billion. This is certainly a rather precipitous drop by any scale.
OpenAI recently garnered an additional long-term financial commitment from Redmond and, at the same time, made it very clear that MS views their particular offerings and partnership possibilities as superb if not near transformative given the vibes trickling out of the corridors east of Lake Washington.
The beginning of 2023 saw Washington and California enact legislation that requires companies to outline salary ranges on job postings. New York, Rhode Island, and Colorado have also passed similar laws that address this issue.
General guidelines for each state have yet to be fully burnished, but there are base standards that we may examine:
A number of companies have recently emerged that are tackling the problem of maximizing precipitation levels in areas that produce insufficient amounts for the local populace. Rainwater Tech is led by a former HP President and is employing a solution that claims strong augmentation results can be achieved via ground-based ionization of moisture laden particles that are already present in the air.