Investscape Q3’17: Slack & Reddit Lead in Over $2 Bn Worth of Investments
Oct 23 2017 | 08:38 PM | 5 Mins Read | Level - Intermediate | Read Mode
Khushbu Verma Former Manager, Research Services, MarTech Advisor
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Khushbu Verma is the Senior Manager for Research Services at MarTech Advisor, where she creates user-focused reports that help buyers navigate crowded markets. Khushbu Verma is the research contributor and administrator of the 2016-17 MTA Buyer’s Guides on major marketing technology categories, which you can download here. Over the period of 8 years of her professional experience, she has invariably acquired and implemented the Primary and Secondary Research & Analysis skills. Her proficiencies also cover Account Profiling, Market Insights, Vertical Specific Reports, Business Scope Analysis and Competitor Analysis. Prior to joining MarTech Advisor, Khushbu Verma worked on promotional marketing, CATI & CAWI surveys, training, customer retention and support. She has done her Masters in International Marketing and Research from The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (Pune).
Slack and Reddit are the most funded companies for the quarter, but increasingly diverse categories and countries being funded indicates martech is spreading its wings outside the USA
With over 100 martech companies getting funded in Q3 (July, August, September) 2017, and funding close to $2.5 billion dollars being disbursed, it’s been a busy quarter for martech around the world. However, overall, martech funding in Q3-2017 saw a dip of 13% compared to Q3 2016 .
For the second time this year, funding for companies outside the US crossed a quarter of the total companies funded (In Q1, the total share in funding was 27% whereas, in Q3 it is 26%.) Canada and the United Kingdom took second place and Finland was the third most funded country (where investee companies originated from). Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Pakistan (new entrant) each got an investment from the Asian region, and companies originating from all 3 of the Scandinavian countries got funded.
Thanks to Slack add Reddit’s haul of $250Mn & $200Mn respectively, Asset & Resource Management; and Communities & Reviews were the top funded categories this quarter. All the remaining funding initiatives were under $100Mn this quarter. That said, DataRobot is the only company which has got funded twice this year, in Q1 & Q3 with $54Mn & $67.18Mn respectively.
Identity, Communities & Reviews and Interactive content are also new entrants to the top 10 funded categories this year . BI, CI & Data Science retained their position in the top 10 funded categories (the category has received funds every quarter this year); and Web & Mobile Analytics, Ecommerce and Sales Enablement retained their place for the second quarter running.
Major investors in terms of frequency of funding in Q3 2017 were New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, GV and Salesforce Ventures. They are also the most recurrent investors of all the 3 quarters of 2017. Other recurrent investors this year include Greycroft Partners, Insight Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, Sequoia Capital, NVP and Y Combinator.
It was a diverse spread of funded categories this quarter, which means more categories are seeing interest from investors, even though big funds are still concentrated in a few pockets. 104 companies across 37 martech categories got funded this quarter , compared to 100 companies across 31 martech categories funded in the last quarter, i.e. AMJ 2017. The category with the most funded companies was ecommerce and sales enablement, with over 10 different companies getting funds. Interactive content and Web & Mobile Analytics with 7 companies each were the second most funded categories this quarter. About 16 companies got over $50 million in funding.
